District 3 Commissioner Catherine McKnight has become a bit of a political lightning rod in her short tenure in office, and she says she has no plans of slowing down anytime soon.
The daughter of the late Grady Smith, who served as District 10 Commissioner for nearly eight years, McKnight says that her father’s public service did not play much of a role in her foray into politics early on.
“I saw some of his frustration, and he talked about how difficult it was to get things done as just one person with one vote, but my decision to run for office really came later,” McKnight said.
According to McKnight, she obtained a degree in psychology and became a preschool teacher before starting a family, and, as it turned out, both her degree as well as her time in the classroom paid off later in life.
Despite only being in elected office for two years, McKnight has been tapped as the District 7 representative for Georgia Municipal Association’s training board, a statewide appointment.
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McKnight spent most of her adult life being a professional mom and community volunteer, but she doesn’t like to be called a housewife or a homemaker.
“When I had my children, they came first. I was determined to raise respectable adults, so I did much more than cook dinner and make sure the floors were clean,” McKnight said.
It was only after her kids reached maturity that she decided to start the next phase of her life in politics and that phase would get off to a rocky start, but McKinght says she was prepared.
Generally, commissioners are rated by how many initiatives they are able to push through or how adept they are at compromising to reach a consensus. Given that metric, it might be said that McKnight has been ineffective as she is typically on the losing side of commission votes.
However, McKnight says she made it clear to her colleagues on the commission that she was never going to compromise her own conscience as a means to “go along and get along.”
Instead, McKnight has devoted her time and attention to helping taxpayers with problems, especially when they have exhausted the normal avenues of obtaining help from the government.
“The way I look at it is, anyone can sit behind a dais and punch buttons to vote, but that’s not the only reason I’m there. The commission didn’t elect me. The taxpayers of Augusta did, and whether it is a problem tree that needs to be removed or a light replaced, I try to help,” McKnight said.
Local downtown activist Kevin de l’Aigle says that he, out of frustration, called McKnight and “gave her an earful” about the sorry state of the grass maintenance in downtown and at the city owned cemeteries and within days, the grass was cut.
“I’m not even in her district, but all I had to do was call her, and she answered. I admire her ability to be responsive and get things done,” de l’aigle said.
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Tina Slendak, administrator for the Facebook group Augusta Political Watch also gives McKnight high marks for her accessibility.
“She is one of the few you can call and she will try to work things out. I think she has been a good commissioner in terms of being reactive to problems,” Slendak said.
McKnight says she really doesn’t have any higher political aspirations right now and now that her kids are grown, she is more interested in continuing to be a good role model to them like her father was to her.
“I believe the greatest legacy I can leave behind in this world is not the job I held as a commissioner, but my legacy will be the character of the children I leave behind,” McKnight said.
Scott Hudson is the senior reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
