With voters in Athens-Clarke and Oconee counties heading back to the polls twice in the next months, we spoke with the candidates in the running to become the next District Attorney of the Western Judicial Circuit.
Here’s Deputy Chief Assistant DA James Chafin.
“Well, I think we just never quit running, so we are going to keep moving forward to make sure that we get our message out to all of our community, Clarke and Oconee County, that we have a runoff on December 1 for District Attorney."
Chafin says there are changes he would like to make.
“Well, I think what I wanna do is look at how we can change some of the things that we do. I think there are things that we do well, I think there are things that we need to look at improving and make sure that we are maximizing the work that we do. One of the things that I want to make sure we’re doing is that we are using our Pretrial Diversion Program well, we also want to make sure that we are working with our accountability courts. We also want to make sure that we are working with our local schools and our parents on behalf of our children.”
He also expressed gratitude to his supporters.
“Thank you for all of the support and encouragement. We live in a wonderful community and people have been so positive and so energetic about this, so we’re just thrilled, so we’re gonna keep working hard.”
Chafin faces attorney Deborah Gonzalez in that runoff, who took 48% of the vote on November 3rd, compared to Chafin’s 34% and interim DA Brian Patterson’s 16%.
That runoff is still scheduled for December 1st.
