Meet Grovetown mayoral candidate Ceretta Smith
GROVETOWN, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - We are in an off-season for elections, but there are still big races happening in our area.
One election is for the mayor of Grovetown.
Incumbent Mayor Gary Jones is running for his third term. His challengers are Deborah Fisher and Ceretta Smith.
We are sitting down with each candidate one-on-one to hear their visions for the city.
“I’m already an engaged council member, so I think it’s not anything new that I will be doing,” said Smith. “It’s just I’ll be wearing the hat of mayor now.”
Meet the other candidates:
Smith says engagement is key.
“We need to get back to having town halls where we invite our community to come out and have these conversations with them,” said Smith. “Then from that, we build on how we’re going to make Grovetown a better place to live, work, and play.”
Her vision includes three key points.
“Taxes, entertainment, safety. Those are the things that really drive a community,” said Smith.
For taxes, she said: “We have not as a city increased the millage rate, but I think we’re at a point where we can roll the millage rate back.”
For entertainment, she said: “We are the fastest growing city in the county, but we don’t have movies, skating, bowling. No type of really nice sit-down restaurant that serves a variety of food.”
For safety, she said: “I want to work on creating some type of incentive program to attract officers to come here to stay for the long haul.”
She also says affordable housing is big for her.
“We can build nice homes. I don’t have a problem with that, but at the end of the day, I don’t want to be a mayor that has a 12.2% poverty rate,” said Smith.
We are talking with all three candidates for mayor between now and Election Day.
Early voting starts on Monday and lasts until November 3. Election Day is November 7.
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