Cornelia’s Ward 1 Commissioner has been chosen by the voters, and Navy Veteran and Cornelia Native Mark Reed will take up the position for Ward 1 on the City of Cornelia Commission.
Reed came out on top at the polls, defeating Jeff Wilson, who was appointed to the council following the death of Ward 1 Commissioner Wesley Dodd, with 60 percent of the vote.
Wilson says he’s disappointed he lost, but he wishes Reed and the commission the best. He says he enjoyed his time on the commission and getting to see how government operated, and that he enjoyed seeing how committed he felt the commission was to the citizens.
“I really had a great experience, it was just 6 months, but I don’t have any negative experiences from those 6 months,” Wilson said. “It was a positive experience for me, and hopefully, I was able to do my part to serve the community while I was there.”
RELATED: Reed beats out Wilson in Cornelia Ward 1 election
Reed, who has served on the City of Baldwin’s planning commission, as Baldwin’s Mayor, with the Georgia Municipal Association and the Habersham Relay for Life, among others, says he’s happy to be back in his role as a public servant.
“We all search for balance in our lives,” Reed said. “I feel like for the last few years what’s been missing [in mine] is my … desire for public service.”
He says that being from Cornelia and living in the city today, as well as his friendships in the area, has impacted his calling to serve the city.
“Being from here and … having so many friends in Cornelia, I just felt like [I wanted] to offer myself for service to the city,” Reed said.
Representing Ward 1
This was the second time Reed ran for the Ward 1 council seat, the first time against the late commissioner Wesley Dodd. This election filled the seat on the commission left empty after Dodd lost his battle to cancer in September. Reed says he and Dodd were friends, and that when he ran against him in 2019, it wasn’t because he opposed him. He just wanted to offer himself as a candidate to the city.
“It wasn’t about running against Wes, he was a friend of mine. He was my deacon at church, and he was just an overall great guy,” Reed said. “I was just running to try to do my best for the city and to offer my service.”
Now that he’s moving forward to achieving his goal of finding balance in his life with public service, he says he’s humbled that voters elected him Tuesday.
“It was very rewarding, very humbling to see that I was selected this time,” Reed said. “I’m dedicated to doing the best I can for the city as a whole and for my citizens in Ward 1 in particular.”
Reed says even though he’s grateful for his supporters, he still wants to represent everyone in Ward 1 equally.
“We’re all in this together,” he said. “I’ll represent them just as well, and to the best of my abilities as if they had supported me.”
Much to learn
Reed says even though the campaign trail is over, there’s plenty of work for him to do. While he might not be knocking on doors, he says his next step is to learn everything he can, from getting to know the people who didn’t support him and their needs to learning about city operations.
“I have to reach out to those who didn’t support me,” Reed said. “And to my fellow commissioners to get to know them and find out what’s important to them in their wards so that we can build bridges and work together with a greater understanding of where we stand as commissioners, individually and as a team, collectively for the city.”
He says he doesn’t have an agenda in his new position, and that his goal for the foreseeable future is to learn how to best serve his community.
“I don’t have an agenda, I have a lot to learn about the city and the city’s operations, which I’m very excited to do,” Reed said. “I plan to do more listening than talking, and spend a period of time, like I said, getting to know my fellow commissioners and the mayor, and learning about what our priorities are now and our vision for the future.”
