Wayne Guilfoyle, Stacy Pullium and Tony Lewis say they are ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work on the people’s business.
Technically, there are four new faces on the commission as District 4 Commissioner Al Mason was brought out of retirement to replace disgraced former commissioner Sammie Sias after a federal conviction led to his suspension by Governor Brian Kemp.
Mason won the seat outright in May and joined Commissioner-elect Guilfoyle as the two most senior statesmen on the body. Both have served two terms previously.
Mason is on par to surpass former commissioner Marion Williams as the commission’s longest serving member.
Guilfoyle and Lewis agree that a finalized Gold Cross EMS contract will top the agenda in the coming new year. The city has wavered back and forth for over a year without being able to garner the six votes necessary to ink an agreement, but according to Guilfoyle and Lewis, it is long past time to quit haggling and hammer out a contract everyone is happy with.
“That didn’t get resolved last year, and it has kinda fallen in our laps, but we’re going to have to deal with it,” Lewis said.
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According to Guilfoyle, the problems at the Augusta Landfill are also as pressing a matter as the EMS contract. Guilfoyle says that the landfill once generated money and now requires tax-payer funding to operate.
“The only two places that money comes for within our government, out of 32 departments, is utilities and the landfill. If you look back at this year alone, if you look at how many millions of dollars that went into it just to keep it afloat, it didn’t used to be that way. It made money and didn’t cost the taxpayers,” Guilfoyle said.
Meanwhile, infrastructure, public transportation and blight top the list for Pullium who was sworn in as District 2 commissioner on Dec.19.
One of Pulliam’s major campaign issues was to be an advocate for reliable public transport, and she says she plans to introduce initiatives to streamline the current system.
“I have had meetings with Augusta Transit, and they have been so receptive and so awesome. They are like ‘Yes, Stacy, we’re ready. Come in here and let’s talk,’” Pullium said.
All three new commissioners say they want to see the entire body follow Mayor-elect Johnson’s vision of a unified government with the priority of problem solving rather than devolving back into the fractured coalitions of the past.
“I’m excited come January because, with the makeup of this commission, I feel, and I know, that we are going to be pulling some good things together. Together, not individually,” Guilfoyle said.
The full commission will meet for the first time in 2023 on Jan. 3.
Scott Hudson is the senior reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
