Mara Zuniga recently announced her campaign to become the next mayor of Athens-Clarke County. She previously pursued the office in 2022, losing to incumbent Kelly Girtz. Shortly after announcing her candidacy, she participated in a public debate hosted by Athchat’s Drew Abney and Russell Edwards.
Alongside candidates LaKeisha Gantt and Tim Denson, Zuniga presented her stances on housing affordability, population density, and government spending.
During her introduction at the debate, Zuniga chose to present herself in both English and Spanish. She told WUGA she wanted to reflect her own identity and speak to those of multicultural heritage in Athens.
“I just wanted to let Athens know hey, I know that I’m an American, but I also have this heritage and I want to speak to the people that speak Spanish and are bilingual as well, to know that they can identify with me,” she says.
One of Zuniga’s key stances is increasing housing affordability by changing zoning code and constructing infill housing options where infrastructure already exists.
She says that this strategy would prevent gentrification, in which longtime residents are priced out of neighborhoods.
“If we start off with those things and not worry about those neighborhoods that have those histories that they want to keep their neighborhoods intact, let’s just keep them intact for now,” she says. “Let’s go the other areas where we can build these different types of housing and we can start there.”
