Blackshear Mayor Keith Brooks was re-elected, Ray Douberly and David Smith won seats on the Patterson City Council and the Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (ESPLOST) was renewed in last Tuesday's general election.
Brooks defeated challengers Gena Harris and Marie S. Rainge outright avoiding a run-off as he took 61.8 percent of the vote.
Brooks received 322 votes with Harris receiving 137 and Rainge getting 62.
Brooks will begin serving a second term in January, along with two new faces on the city council.
Charles Broady Sr. will return to the council in January. He formerly represented district four on the council, before stepping down in 2021 in an unsuccessful run for mayor. Broady will succeed Theodore Mackey, who is stepping down after serving a single term.
The Rev. Mitch Hall will fill the district three council seat. He will succeed current councilman Chuck Ward. Ward announced earlier this year he would not seek re-election after a single term on the council.
Incumbent Dr. Corey Lesseig will return for another term to the council representing the district five seat.
Broady, Hall and Lesseig were unopposed in their races.
Turn out in Blackshear was low as just 530 (or 25.79 percent) of the city's 2,055 registered voters cast ballots in the election.
Patterson's city council will feature a new face in the new term.
Ray Douberly defeated Jim Echols 66-59 to take the post 2 seat on the city council. Echols has served for one term. Douberly will take over in January.
Incumbent David Smith won re-election in a three-way race for the Post 4 seat. Smith received 63 votes to win over David Bowen with 36 and Racquell Scott with 27. Smith was first elected in May 2013 to fill an unexpired council term. He has now been re-elected three times since then.
Mayor Dedi Thomas ran unopposed.
Patterson won the highest turnout title with 26.54 percent as 129 of its 486 registered voters turned out for the election.
The ESPLOST for education renewal passed with 64 percent of the vote with 1,487 voting yes and 836 voting no.
The sales tax will be in effect for five years and will be used to pay the construction bonds for the high school and for capital outlay items.
A statewide race for two public service commission races was also on the ballot.
Locally, Republicans received about 85 percent of the vote for districts one and three on the commission.
Incumbent Republican Tim Echols defeated Democrat Alicia Johnson 1,978 to 325 and Incumbent Republican Fitz Johnson defeated Peter Hubbard 1,954 to 334 in the Pierce County. However, the Democrats Alicia Johnson and Hubbard, both won state-wide with over 62 percent of the vote.
Turnout county-wide was 18.12 as 2,349 of Pierce County's 12,962 voters turned out for the election.
