Catherine Smith-McKnight is not the first female to sit on the Augusta Commission, nor is she the first to follow in the footsteps of a family member and run for a commission seat. However, she can claim both of those distinctions.
Since consolidation, the Augusta Commission has largely been a boys’ club. Betty Beard became the first female elected to the body. Beard ran for her late husband Lee Beard’s seat and won.
While Beard may have been the trailblazer, more women are getting involved in local politics. Two of the currently sitting commissioners are female, McKnight in District 3 and Francine Scott in District 9.
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McKnight, 49, said that she decided to get into politics after watching her father, the late District 10 Commissioner Grady Smith, but she waited until the time was right before running for office.
“I saw from Dad that while a job on the commission is technically a part-time position, you can’t be effective if you don’t treat it as a full-time job. Dad put his company on the back burner to do his job as a commissioner,” McKnight said.
A mother of three, she said she waited until her children were mostly grown before taking the path that would eventually land her a seat on the commission.
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Waiting to run was a wise move because she is now in a position to put all of her effort into the job, like her father did before her. McKnight gets calls and emails from constituents on every issue imaginable, from sewage and drainage issues to slow garbage service and faulty timing on traffic lights.
“I return every phone call and answer every email. Usually, the calls are about issues most people would consider small, but they are not small issues to the person experiencing them,” McKnight said.
She said that helping people get their problems solved is why she wanted the job. She remembered the time a man called her about a dead tree the city was dragging its feet on removing. McKnight was able to push the process along so that the man did not have to wait months, fearing that the tree would fall on his property and cause damage or injury.
“Some people would think, ‘Well, it’s just a tree,’ but I made it my mission to get that tree removed,” she said.
McKnight said that her father warned her that politics are rough and tumble, and if she got in, she would have to develop thick skin.
“Most people have thick skin when they are young and mellow with age, but I went in the opposite direction,” McKnight said.
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Being a female in a male-dominated arena doesn’t bother McKnight in the slightest, she said.
“We (women) have to be vocal, but it’s getting better,” McKnight said. “My male counterparts have to do the same thing. They have to hold their ground and at the same time try to build a consensus.”
However, there have been times in her now eight-month tenure that McKnight has had to act as a maverick and go against the majority of the commission, even if it angers her colleagues.
“At the end of the day, the citizens will hold you accountable if you just play nice to get along and end up voting for something that is not in their best interest,” McKnight said.
According to McKnight, the most important issues she believes facing Augusta right now are rising homelessness and maintenance of crumbling infrastructure.
“Drainage is a major issue all across the county, and not just in my district. The fact that the city can’t seem to cut its own grass, that is a real problem. I feel we need consistency in our approach to all of those issues,” McKnight said.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com.
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