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Athens Mayor Kelly Girtz Seeking Second Term

Photo:accgov.com

Athens-Clarke Mayor Kelly Girtz says he will be seeking a second term. Girtz made the announcement Thursday.

“I’m really excited to announce I am putting my hat in the ring for another four more years of opportunity to partner with the great people of Athens, as your Mayor.”

While the Mayor led the city during unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and he says there were accomplishments and the city government was able to address many of those unexpected issues.

“We kept Athens safer than other metro center in the state, we have the lowest COVID mortality rate up to this point” according to Girtz. “If you compare us to Savannah, Atlanta, any of our neighbors, Columbus and so forth; people are staying alive here.”

And he says there was progress in other areas.

“We also making great strides around youth development support, and around housing, and about openness to the entire community in ways that this local government has never done.”

Girtz would like to continue build on those efforts during his second term, if reelected. He cited areas where he would like to see improvement and growth, in spite of the ongoing pandemic.

“Health and safety needs are paramount, to make sure that we are offering programs to young people to keep them in positive prosocial activity, obviously to get everybody who is not vaccinated or boosted yet into that category. And there are so many more things…we need to make sure that people are in higher wage employment and high quality housing.”

Girtz was elected to his first term as Mayor in 2018 and had served as a county commissioner for more than 10 years before that.