Maynard wins Winder mayor’s seat; Voters approve changing the county ...

In historic elections Tuesday, Barrow County voters changed the county government to a county manager system and Winder voters sent their incumbent mayor packing.

In Winder, voters elected challenger David Maynard mayor over incumbent Chip Thompson 745-548 (58% - 42%). Maynard beat Thompson in all four city precincts Tuesday as well as in the three weeks of advance and absentee voting.

The vote to restructure the county’s governing authority to a manger form of government was 2,305 (60.04%) to 1,534 (39.96%). The measure passed in all 16 of the county’s precincts.

Turnout for the county’s special election was stronger than expected, with 3,908 votes cast. But that was still just 12 percent of Barrow County’s registered voters.

While Winder’s turnout of 1,299 voters might be a city election record, more residents of unincorporated Barrow County voted in the countywide special election than did all of the municipal voters in Auburn, Bethlehem, Statham and Winder combined.

As one observer stated Tuesday evening, the county’s strong turnout and decisive results show the outcomes were representative of public sentiment.
“It lets us know folks in the county are ready to make a change in the government structure of Barrow County,” said Ray Newman, who served as the volunteer chairman of the Barrow County Charter Review Committee that in June recommended the approved changes.

“I was predicting that if we’d get 10 percent, we would be doing well,” he said, adding that it now is up to the BOC to find someone “with the experience and credentials” to serve as county manager.

The changes do not go into effect until the start of the next BOC chairman’s term in January 2013. BOC Chairman Danny Yearwood, who has openly opposed the measure and walked out of two regular board meetings where the issue was to be discussed, missed Tuesday night’s BOC regular meeting that started as the polls closed. County clerk Michelle Sims said he was at a training conference sponsored by the Georgia Association of Regional Commissions at St. Simon’s Island.

Chairman pro tem Ben Hendrix, who ran Tuesday night’s BOC meeting and was the primary BOC proponent of moving to a county-manager form of government, said Tuesday night that the most important thing about the vote was that “the people had a chance to make the decision.”

For the full story, see the Nov. 9 issue of the Barrow Journal.