There’s no question that the November 3 General Election will have an enormous impact on our nation. The City of Demorest Special Election, which will be held that same day, also has the potential to have enormous consequences on that city’s population. Mired for months in politicial controversy and faced with more legal threats, it’s a challenging time for this small Northeast Georgia town. The two people elected in November will help determine the city’s path for years to come.

Seven people are running for, what will ultimately be, two open council seats. One of the seats was vacated by newly-elected Habersham County Commissioner Bruce Harkness back in March. The other will be vacated prior to the election by current councilman Sean Moore who is moving.

The Demorest election is run like a jungle primary where candidates of all parties run on the same ballot and the top vote-getters win. November’s special election winners will make up half of the council and two-fifths of the duly elected officials in the town. The candidates are now campaigning against the backdrop of a looming recall election aimed at current sitting councilmen John Hendrix and Nathan Davis. If that recall election happens, voters will return to the polls next spring to elect the other half of their city council.

The deadline to register to vote on November 3 is October 5.

To help familiarize Demorest voters with who’s running for office, Now Habersham gave each candidate an opportunity to submit information about themselves and their campaigns. The information published below is what they shared.

Shawn Allen

Demorest resident: Born and raised, lifelong resident
Occupation/Employer: Human Resources, Northeast Georgia Health System
Political experience: First run for public office

“I am a third-generation Demorest resident. My grandfather, Paul Allen, bought the house I currently reside in after WWII and brought our family to the city from rural Batesville.

My education began at Demorest Elementary School and I finished my education in the city with a Master’s Degree from Piedmont College.  In between, I received an Associate’s Degree from Truett McConnell College – where I was the Student Government president – and a Bachelor’s Degree in Financial Management from the University of Georgia.

I have worked in Human Resources for various companies for most of my adult life. I have been employed at Northeast Georgia Health System for the past eight years.

I was born in Demorest and my family’s ties to the city go back over 70 years. I love the uniqueness and differences that our city has over neighboring municipalities. We are tiny yet we have a hospital, college, elementary school, middle school, and some of the most outstanding businesses in the area.

From the time I was a child, our residents have always had a reputation of being friendly.   Yet, our reputation has been stained recently with disaccord, distrust, and lack of transparency. We also have been captive by a clash of egos from within.

We are tiny, so, we cannot afford to be wasteful with the taxes or any revenue that is collected. It is also important to continue to have a strong public safety presence and to support our outstanding employees that we have.  We are not a city with a lot of laws or ordinances. Our freedoms are a strength.

I have a vested interest in this city.  I am a homeowner and I am not going anywhere else. I have family and close friends that have resided here for a long time. For most of my life, I have been unassuming, but it has gotten burdensome for myself and many others not take a stand against the antagonism in our otherwise idyllic little town.”

Keith Andrews

Demorest resident: Two years
Occupation/Employer: Building supply industry
Political experience: First run for public office

My wife and I have been residents of the City since July of 2018. We have three children and five grandchildren. Faith and Family are the two most important aspects of my life and I try to improve myself in both of these areas daily.

I graduated from Banks County High School in 1988 and in 2002 I completed the Leadership Development program at North Georgia Tech. I have had the privilege of serving the Northeast Georgia area in the building supply industry over the last 28 years. I have never held a public office, but over the last 10-15 years, I have served on multiple non-profit boards. While this is very different than a City Council position, it has given me a great deal of experience in dealing with people who have multiple views and opinions on issues and policies that require a united resolution. I believe this experience has prepared me to be effective as a City Council Member.

I want to be completely honest and transparent, so before I ask for your support, your trust, and your vote, I want to openly share with you that my wife is employed by the City of Demorest. Rhonda has served the residents here for 13 years, resulting in our lives and hearts being intertwined with you, our neighbors. I understand, given the current political climate in Demorest, that this fact may be a concern for some of you. That is why I am pledging to you that I will never act as the council member over the department in which she works, and will recuse myself from any vote that directly affects her employment.

It is the above mentioned political climate that has prompted me to place myself in a position to be scrutinized because I feel that our City, its residents, and employees have endured enough negativity, enough blame game politics, enough finger-pointing, and name-calling. It’s time for your elected officials to be able to sit down at the table, have the hard discussions, and make the hard decisions to help move this City forward. There are good things that can happen if we work together, show respect for one another, and respect the process that is City government leadership. I believe that we can have differing opinions and thoughts and that we can passionately argue those points as needed, but when the dust clears and settles, we can still treat each other with dignity and respect. My hope is that we can find a way to have an effective and productive City government.

These are some of the immediate needs that I would like to address if elected.

• Review the water delivery system for maintenance plans, updates, and future upgrades. Our water system is one of the city’s most valuable assets. As our community continues to grow it is important that we implement and update a long term plan to protect this asset and prepare for future water system needs.     
• Brush pick up, leaf removal and extra trash pick-up requests continue to grow. This is a stress on the city due to a lack of manpower. This not only creates an appearance issue throughout the city but could also present safety issues if left in place for an extended period of time. I would like to work on a plan for a short term solution and then review the long term possibilities that would allow us to better cover these needs for our citizens.          
• Demorest Springs Park (Restoration and Renovation). We are blessed to have this beautiful space in our downtown area. I have reviewed requests and discussions for the repair of the gazebo and bathrooms from a work session that was dated February 2016, we are approaching the 5 yr. mark from that date and the gazebo and bathrooms are still in need of those repairs. Even if all the needed changes can’t be completed at once, this project needs to have a start date and move forward at the soonest available opportunity. This would be a project from which our youngest to our oldest would benefit, and it would show the positive progress that we need for the city. 

I know that if elected, there will be many specific issues to work through, but I believe that these are the kinds of issues in which we can find common ground.  

If leadership accountability, fiscal responsibility, and a pursuit of positive growth with an environment of respect are the characteristics that you would want to use to describe our City government, then I ask that you would consider a vote for Keith Andrews/Demorest City Council on November 3rd, 2020. “Let’s do better”

Matthew Crews

Demorest resident: 15 years
Occupation/Employer: Paramedic and owner of georgiaemsacademy.com
Political experience: First run for public office

After four years in the U.S. Army, I underwent Paramedic training and was employed by various ambulance services, fire departments, hospitals as such until 2016 (Habersham EMS for almost 8 years).

In 2006, I started georgiaemsacademy.com which provides continuing and initial education programs for the Georgia EMS community and continues to this day. I attained a B.A.S. from Clayton College and State University in 2003. This is my first run at a public office despite being a public servant for many years.

Demorest must balance the budget and provide services that are on par with the size of its constituency.

Russell C. Goldsmith

Demorest resident: 12 years
Occupation/Employer: Assembly line lead at IMS Gear
Political experience: First run for public office

I am currently an assembly line lead at IMS Gear. I have many years serving in the roles of lead and managerial positions throughout my career. The experience of setting and achieving daily as well as long term goals and the experience of planning and delegating can be particularly useful in the position of candidacy that I am running for.

I have a degree in Marketing and Business Management for Gwinnett Tech.

I have been living in Demorest for the past 12 years with my wife Sharon and family.
Besides the obvious troubles that have been made officially known about the city and its members, if elected, I would like to bring more attention to the “neighborhood” issues that are being overlooked. Some examples are the hanging limbs and tree branches that are laying on power lines that should have been removed years ago, dead trees that are on or are leering over the roads waiting to fall, working on possibilities to make parts of the roads wider for better parking access on the streets.

The people in our community love where they live and want to be able to enjoy that. A lot of citizens feel that their voices are not being heard and there is an accountability as well as a responsibility of the council and city members to make sure that the citizens and taxpayers’ voices are being heard and that proper action is being taken to keep this city a beautiful, safe and peaceful place to live. Too often the smaller issues get overlooked and nobody wants to deal with them, or they want to put them on the back burner and, over time, they are forgotten about and soon become an even bigger issue. When you take time to take care of the small issues at hand, you will find out in the end that there are fewer bigger problems to deal with.

With my experience in delegating, root cause analysis, short term as well as long term planning, these are very helpful traits that can be used to help make good sound decisions as well as helping to prioritize in dealing with issues that have been overlooked or that some people feel are not important. Too many times I have seen it where businesses fail to take care of things up front and then it costs them tremendously on the back end. Preventative maintenance goes a long way to being successful.

Amanda Crump Mason

Demorest resident: 10 years
Occupation/Employer: Homemaker and family caretaker
Political experience: First run for public office

I married Matthew Mason in December of 2009 and moved to Demorest from Toccoa. I was homeschooled from 6th grade through 12th, then attended North Georgia Technical College for a short period but didn’t finish because of a few extenuating circumstances. I have been a stay at home wife for the last 10 years but also spend a lot of my time taking my Mom back and forth to doctor’s appointments as her health is not great.

I decided to run for Demorest City Council after all the mess we’ve witnessed this year. Since I’ve been living in Demorest, we’ve been on the news and in the spotlight more for the bad or unprofessional things going on in our city than the good. I’m grateful for our Mayor trying his best to look out for our city and Councilmen Moore and Harkness for the jobs they’ve done, but these gentlemen can’t do it alone.

I’d love to see Demorest in the spotlight for good, not bad.

Our Fire, Police, and Water Departments are top-notch with wonderful crews and I’d like to see us be able to keep our rank as the safest city in good-standing. One of my main goals is to see that we get our transparency back, we the people, need to have full knowledge of why our city officials are doing what they are and how it will affect us as a city and ultimately a taxpayer.

I’ve been in Demorest for nearly 11 years and I’ve watched a lot of things go unanswered and I’d love to see total transparency. I’ve never run for a political office and to be quite honest, I’ve never wanted to. I just want to see the city I call home cleaned up and be in the spotlight for good.

Jerry R. Mobley

Demorest resident: 8 years
Occupation/Employer: Owner of Mobley Security Solutions
Political experience: Second run for Demorest City Council.

Owner of Mobley Security Solutions; 26 years of law enforcement; three years United States Army 55 Bravo Munitions Specialist stationed at Fort Benning GA.; veteran who served in Somalia; and overseas contracting experience in Kosovo with Dyncorp.

I have been in Public Service for the past 29 years serving my country and the citizens of the agencies that I have worked for. I have lived in Demorest since 2012 and Habersham County since 2003. I started my Law Enforcement career in 1995. I resigned from my K9 position about a month ago at the Stephens County Sheriff’s Office and currently work part-time for Mt. Airy and Tallulah Falls as a police officer. I am currently concentrating on growing my Security Business where I hire off duty Law Enforcement to perform security for my client base.

I want the citizens of Demorest to know that I have looked after communities and our country for the past 29 years. I am pro Public Safety and value your constitutional rights highly.

This year has been a difficult one for our country at an alarming rate with much division and civil unrest. If elected, I will always vote off my beliefs as a follower of Christ, the constitutional rights forwarded by the founders of this great nation, and my consciousness. I can’t say this enough in these times: We are losing way too many rights as citizens. I vow never to let that happen in a community that I oversee or reside in.

Jim Welborn

Editor’s Note: As previously noted, Jim Welborn did not respond to our initial request for information about his campaign. As with all of the other candidates, we reached out to him using the contact information provided by the Habersham County Elections Office. After this story published, Welborn informed us he did not receive our request. Here is the information he has since provided.

Demorest resident: 25 years
Occupation/Employer: Pastor at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church and school bus driver Habersham County Schools
Political experience: Ran unsuccessfully for Demorest mayor in 2017

I am still the Pastor at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church and I drive a school bus for Habersham County School system. I was raised in Cornelia but have lived in Demorest for 25 years.
I would like to help bring a sense of trust back to our wonderful city after these turbulent months that we have been experiencing and represent the citizens of Demorest by being a part of our city government, helping to strengthen and grow our small community
for the future.

I was in construction for 30 years, 20 of those years I was in business for myself, managing the budgeting, spending, gathering and the deciding on of bids for ongoing projects while keeping the on site construction going on a daily basis.

Just like when I ran in the mayoral race in 2017, I am once again asking for our citizens’ vote with the hopes that together we can return our city back to the peaceful, quiet, hometown feel that we have enjoyed through the years.