Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for January 13, 2023

On January 14, 1639, representatives of three cities in Connecticut adopted the “Fundamental Orders,” the first written Constitution in an American colony and one of the first founding document to cite the authority of “the free consent of the people.”

On January 13, 1733, the ship Ann (sometimes spelled “Anne”) sailed into Charles Town harbor and was met by South Carolina Governor Robert Johnson and the Speaker of the Commons House of Assembly. Aboard the ship were James Oglethorpe and the first 114 colonists of what would become Georgia. Later that year they would land at a high bluff on the Savannah River and found the city of Savannah.

On January 14, 1733, James Oglethorpe and the rest of the first colonists departed Charles Town harbor for what would become Savannah, and the State of Georgia.

An elected Provincial Assembly first convened in Georgia on January 15, 1751. The Assembly did not have the power to tax or spend money, but was to advise the Trustees.

On January 12, 1775, St. Andrews Parish on the Georgia coast passed a series of resolutions that included approving the actions of patriots in Massachusetts, three resolutions critical of British government actions, and a renunciation of slavery. The resolutions also appointed delegates to a provincial legislature at Savannah and urging that Georgia send two delegates to the Continental Congress to be held in Philadelphia the next year.

The state of New Connecticut declared its independence of both Britain and New York on January 15, 1777. In June of that year they would decide on the name Vermont. Vermont would be considered part of New York for a number of years, finally being admitted as the 14th state in 1791.

The Continental Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris to end the Revolutionary War on January 14, 1784. The Treaty was negotiated by John Adams, who would later serve as President, and the delegates voting to ratify it included future Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe.

On January 14, 1835, James M. Wayne took the oath of office as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. A Savannah native, Wayne had previously served in the Georgia House of Represestatives, as Mayor of Savannah, on the Supreme Court of Georgia, and in Congress. His sister was the great-grandmother of Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts, and his home is now known as the Juliette Gordon Low house. When Georgia seceded from the Union, Wayne remained on the Supreme Court.

On January 14, 1860, the Committee of Thirty-Three introduced a proposed Constitutional Amendment to allow slavery in the areas it then existed.

The donkey was first used as a symbol for the Democratic Party on January 15, 1870 by cartoonist Thomas Nash.

On January 12, 1872, Benjamin Conley stepped down as Governor of Georgia, the first Republican to hold the office and the last until January 13, 2003, when Sonny Perdue was sworn in.

He joined the Republican Party and became president of the state Senate after the Civil War. That was the office he held in October 1871 when Gov. Rufus Bullock, also an Augusta Republican, left the state under pressure from state Democrats. According to the Georgia Constitution, Conley became governor, holding the job until a replacement could be elected and take office two months later.

On January 12, 1906, the American Intercollegiate Football Rules Committee legalized the forward pass. Some credit Georgia Tech coach John Heisman as having popularized the idea of making the forward pass legal after seeing it in a game between Georgia and North Carolina.

Kenesaw Mountain Landis was elected the first Commissioner of Baseball on January 12, 1921. Judge Landis was named after the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, where his father was wounded fighting for the Union.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Julian Bond was born on January 14, 1940 in Nashville, Tennessee, and was one of eleven African-American Georgians elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1965. After his election, on January 10, 1966, the State House voted 184-12 not to seat him because of his publicly-stated opposition to the Vietnam War. After his federal lawsuit was rejected by a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, the United States Supreme Court ordered Bond seated.

True story: Julian Bond was the first Georgia State Senator I ever met, when I was in ninth grade and visited the state Capitol as part of a school assignment.

On January 14, 1942, Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Presidential Proclamation No. 2537, requiring Japanese-Americans, including American-born citizens of Japanese ancestry, as well as Italians and Germans to register with the federal Department of Justice. The next month, Roosevelt would have Japanese-Americans interned in concentration camps in the western United States.

On January 13, 1959, Ernest Vandiver was inaugurated as Governor of Georgia.

On January 13, 1966, President Lyndon Baines Johnson appointed Robert C. Weaver head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), making Weaver the first African-American cabinet secretary in U.S. History.

Jimmy Carter was inaugurated as Governor of Georgia on January 12, 1971.

On January 13, 1982, Hank Aaron was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

January 13, 1987 saw the inauguration of Governor Joe Frank Harris to his second term in office.

On January 13, 1998, Governor Zell Miller presented his $12.5 billion FY1999 budget to the Georgia General Assembly, including $105,000 to provide CDs of classical music for every baby born in the state. According to the New York Times,

“No one questions that listening to music at a very early age affects the spatial, temporal reasoning that underlies math and engineering and even chess,” the Governor said[]. “Having that infant listen to soothing music helps those trillions of brain connections to develop.”

Mr. Miller said he became intrigued by the connection between music and child development at a series of recent seminars sponsored by the Education Commission of the States. As a great-grandfather and the author of “They Hear Georgia Singing” (Mercer University Press, 1983), an encyclopedia of the state’s musical history, Mr. Miller said his fascination came naturally.

He said that he had a stack of research on the subject, but also that his experiences growing up in the mountains of north Georgia had proved convincing.

“Musicians were folks that not only could play a fiddle but they also were good mechanics,” he said. “They could fix your car.”

Legislators, as is their wont, have ideas of their own.

“I asked about the possibility of some Charlie Daniels or something like that,” said Representative Homer M. (Buddy) DeLoach, a Republican from Hinesville, “but they said they thought the classical music has a greater positive impact.”

“Having never studied those impacts too much,” Mr. DeLoach added, “I guess I’ll just have to take their word for that at the moment.”

In 2003, on January 13 at the Georgia Dome, Sonny Perdue took the oath of office as Georgia’s second Republican Governor, the first since Reconstruction.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

Governor Brian Kemp was sworn in yesterday at the Georgia State University Convocation Center, to serve his second term as 83d Governor of Georgia. From the Valdosta Daily Times:

The inauguration ceremony also saw constitutional officers take their oaths of office before a crowd inside the Georgia State University Convocation Center in Downtown Atlanta.

“Over the next four years, we’re going to be focused on growing Georgia, not growing government. That’s why we will invest state dollars by putting them back in your pockets, not building new state bureaucracies.”

Kemp said his office plans to release budget recommendations for Fiscal Year 2023-24 Friday, Jan. 13.

He said it entails a $2,000 pay raise for all state employees, including all pre-K teachers and all K-12 school personnel and public safety.

He said he wants Georgia to become the electric mobility capital of America.

Newly elected Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who will now preside over the state Senate, was also sworn in to office Thursday.

The former state senator touted investments in teacher pay, a $6 billion surplus and Georgia’s ranking as a top state to do business for nine consecutive years, as well as mental health reform.

“We want to continue to invest in our health care system including mental health services to create a safer, healthier, stronger Georgia,” Jones said.

From the Associated Press via the Valdosta Daily Times:

Georgia Gov Brian Kemp pledged a low-drama conservative agenda after being sworn in Thursday for a second term, calling for $2,000 pay raises for all state and university employees and public school teachers and more job growth focused on manufacturing electric vehicles.

It’s a vision copied from the 59-year-old Republican’s first term, steadily Republican, but not pushing the ideological frontier. Kemp said he will lead in the same fashion during his second four years after taking his oath of office at Georgia State University’s convocation center in Atlanta.

“We stayed focused on what mattered to real people, real families and real communities across our state,” Kemp said. “The deal we offered voters was that your state government should care a lot more about safe streets, good schools and good paying jobs than what the pundits are saying on the cable news.”

Taking office Thursday were Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, Attorney General Chris Carr, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper, Labor Commissioner Bruce Thompson, Insurance Commissioner John King and schools Superintendent Richard Woods.

“From the classroom to the state patrol, if you want to keep good people in jobs critical to the safety and well-being of our children, our communities and the state as a whole, we must be willing to be competitive with state salaries,” Kemp said.

“I believe our success over the next five, 10, 15 years will be thanks to the resolve, the character, the ingenuity of our people, our families, our communities, our businesses, not solely the actions of government,” Kemp said.

From the Augusta Chronicle via the Savannah Morning News:

Kemp also previewed his budget proposal, which will be released on Friday.

“The budget my office will release tomorrow will make historic investments in our schools, our safety, our citizens and our future,” he told the crowd.

Kemp also proposed one time tax breaks to help counter inflationary prices.

“First we will once again return $1 billion of your income tax in the regards of a refund for our taxpayers this year, and second we will allocate $1.1 billion for a one-time homeowner property tax relief grant,” he said.

“Our job is to make sure our kids get the best education they can, our streets are safe from crime, our citizens have access to good paying jobs in a state that welcomes opportunity and investment,” he said.

Newly sworn in Lt. Governor Burt Jones highlighted small town values in his inaugural address.

“Small town values are ones I believe have the power and potential to benefit our entire state,” he said.

Living in a small town, Jones said, showed him the value of programs such as rural broadband expansion and technical colleges. And he said that the state government had put Georgia in a good position – re-opening the state following COVID, creating a $6 billion surplus, raising teacher pay and investing in mental health.

From the Capitol Beat News Service via the Albany Herald:

Kemp plans to request $150 million for grants that school districts can apply for to address pandemic learning loss and security needs. Some of the funding also will be designated to help current paraprofessionals become certified teachers.

Now that the inauguration formalities are over, elected officials can turn their attention to the state’s budget. Kemp is expected to release further details of his spending recommendations Friday, and the House and Senate Appropriations Committees will begin three days of budget hearings on Jan. 17.

Governor Kemp will travel to Davos, Switzerland to address the World Economic Forum, according to the Capitol Beat News Service via the Albany Herald.

“Gov. Kemp looks forward to traveling to Davos to share with leaders how the state of Georgia’s long record of conservative governance, protecting individual liberty, and championing opportunity can serve as a model for economic success across the country and around the world,” a Kemp spokesperson said.

The World Economic Forum, established in 1971, brings together decision-makers from across the globe to share strategies and inform each other on policy initiatives around the world. The annual event is a Who’s Who of global political and business leaders, economists and other academics.

This year’s list of attendees includes former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry — now the Biden administration’s special envoy for climate — FBI Director Christopher Wray, a sprinkling of corporate CEOs, and several other governors, congressmen and U.S. senators.

Governor Kemp yesterday declared a State of Emergency for storms, according to WRDW in Augusta.

Kemp states in the executive order that the state of emergency will be for Thursday and Friday.

Troup County public schools are closed today due to storm damage and related power outages, according to WTVM.

Yesterday, Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones released the list of Senate Committee Chairs via email.

Lt. Governor Burt Jones and the Senate Committee on Assignments announced new standing committee chairs for the first session of the 157th Georgia General Assembly.

“I want to congratulate the committee chairs and members on their appointments, which were based on their areas of expertise and background in addition to ensuring each committee is adequately prepared to address the needs of Georgians, “said Lt. Governor Jones. “Additionally, I am very proud to announce that Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick (R – Marietta) will serve as chair of the newly formed Senate Committee on Children and Families. This critical committee will be tasked with taking the lead on mental health, child protection, foster care, and adoption initiatives. This committee will give a bigger platform to these critically important issues and develop policies that benefit children and families across our state.”

The following Senators were named to chair standing committees:

Sen. Russ Goodman (R – 8) will serve as chair of the Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Committee.

Sen. Blake Tillery (R – 19) will serve as chair of the Appropriations Committee.

Sen. Carden Summers (R – 13) will serve as chair of the Banking and Financial Institutions Committee.

Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick (R – 32) will serve as chair of the Children and Families Committee.

Sen. Brandon Beach (R – 21) will serve as chair of the Economic Development and Tourism Committee.

Sen. Clint Dixon (R – 45) will serve as chair of the Education and Youth Committee.

Sen. Max Burns (R – 23) will serve as chair of the Ethics Committee.

Sen. Chuck Hufstetler (R – 52) will serve as chair of the Finance Committee.

Sen. Marty Harbin (R – 16) will serve as chair of the Government Oversight Committee.

Sen. Ben Watson (R – 1) will serve as chair of the Health and Human Services Committee.

Sen. Billy Hickman (R – 4) will serve as chair of the Higher Education Committee.

Sen. Larry Walker (R – 20) will serve as chair of the Insurance and Labor Committee.

Sen. Colton Moore (R – 53) will serve as chair of the Interstate Cooperation Committee.

Sen. Brian Strickland (R – 17) will serve as chair of the Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Lee Anderson (R – 31) will serve as chair of the Natural Resources and the Environment Committee.

Sen. John Albers (R – 56) will serve as chair of the Public Safety Committee.

Sen. Shelly Echols (R – 49) will serve as chair of the Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee.

Sen. Bill Cowsert (R – 46) will serve as chair of the Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee.

Sen. Rick Williams (R – 25) will serve as chair of the Retirement Committee.

Sen. Matt Brass (R – 28) will serve as chair of the Rules Committee.

Sen. Chuck Payne (R – 54) will serve as chair of the Science and Technology Committee.

Sen. Ed Harbison (D – 15) will serve as chair of the State Institutions and Property Committee.

Sen. Frank Ginn (R – 47) will serve as chair of the State and Local Governmental Operations Committee.

Sen. Greg Dolezal (R – 27) will serve as chair of the Transportation Committee.

Sen. Donzella James (D – 35) will serve as chair of the Urban Affairs Committee.

Sen. Mike Dugan (R – 30) will serve as chair of the Veterans, Military, and Homeland Security Committee.

A comprehensive list of committee appointments can be found here: https://www.legis.ga.gov/committees/senate

From the AJC:

Notably, two of Jones’ allies were appointed to key committee chairmanships — state Sen. Matt Brass, R-Newnan, will serve as chair of the powerful Senate Rules Committee and state Sen. Brandon Beach, R-Alpharetta, will be chair of the Senate Economic Development and Tourism Committee. Both committee’s chairs were vacant.

Brass is replacing state Sen. Jeff Mullis as chair of the Rules Committee, which is tasked with determining which pieces of legislation receive a vote on the chamber’s floor. Mullis did not seek reelection. Beach will replace Bruce Thompson, who is the state’s new labor commissioner.

Beach was stripped of his chairmanship of the Transportation Committee by then-Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan in 2021 for being among the state senators who aggressively promoted Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread election fraud in 2020, when the Republican lost the presidential race to Joe Biden, a Democrat. Jones, too, was stripped of his chairmanship of the Insurance and Labor Committee that year for his vocal support of Trump’s claims.

Sixteen of the Senate’s 26 committees will have new leadership this year. Seven of the spots were open due to the chairs either running for higher office or choosing not to run for reelection. Nine committee chairs were switched to lead different panels from last year.

State legislators in both chambers adopted Rules for the session, according to the Capitol Beat News Service via the Albany Herald.

The Georgia House and Senate passed separate resolutions, primarily along party lines, setting rules for the two-year term that began this week.

The resolutions set the procedures — most of them routine — for the operation of the two legislative chambers. But this year, the resolutions included a few notable changes.

Most controversial was the addition of new provisions that exempt communications between lawmakers and non-legislators about legislative business from public disclosure.

State legislators are considering how to dispose of cannabis waste, according to the Center Square via the Gwinnett Daily Post.

Last week, the House Study Committee on Cannabis Waste and Recycling held a two-day hearing to discuss the possibilities, which include composting, additional manufacturing and energy production.

“People have asked me, ‘well, how did this concept come to be?’” state Rep. Mesha Mainor, D-Atlanta, said during the hearing. “And so Georgia is entering into the medical marijuana space. And the question is, all of the products that Georgia will be manufacturing, nothing is going to come out perfectly. And so what do we do with this waste?”

“Cannabis waste includes dirt, water and any unused plant matter like root stalks and stems,” Nick Bowman, a policy analyst for the Council for State Governments, told the committee. “Since cannabis is a Schedule I drug, it can’t be thrown away like other products.”

“Without any federal guidelines, states have had to create their own policies,” Bowman added. Many “state policies are similar to policies for hazardous waste. The overall goal is to prevent cannabis waste from unauthorized access or making its way to the black market.”

Some hippy named “Stony” showed up three hours late in a Grateful Dead shirt to discuss recycling the waste as biomass. “I’ll take it all and make sure it’s burned,” he said before discussing the Dead & Co and Widespread Panic 2023 tours.

Speaking of smoking, State Rep. Michelle Au, MD (D-Gwinnett) will propose raising the tobacco tax, according to The Current.

Last session, she put together a committee to study the costs of smoking. She said she did that so the legislature would have data from its own body to consider.

“I wanted to do the homework to give the legislature an unavoidable way to need to look at this problem, and an unavoidable solution that it needed to examine,” Au said Tuesday.

Not raising the tax on cigarettes amounts to a tax on nonsmokers, she said.

“Taking care of the health care costs of patients who do smoke amounts to something like $900 per household,” Au said. “So, this is money that we are paying because of our high smoking rates, and it basically amounts to a subsidy incentivizing bad health behaviors.”

Au said she had the bill to raise Georgia’s tax on cigarettes from 37 cents to $1.91 a pack ready-to-file in her bag on Tuesday.

Camden County continues to spend money litigating against a referendum that passed purporting to limit the county’s power to continue spending on the proposed Spaceport, according to The Brunswick News.

Newly elected Camden County Commissioner Jim Goodman made a motion during his first meeting earlier this month to stop spending money on legal fees related to a spaceport.

The vote failed, but Goodman said he plans to make the same motion at every meeting until he gets the three votes necessary for the county to stop all spending related to the spaceport, including paying lawyers, and to turn over records requested related to a risk analysis of rocket launches from the site.

Seventy-two percent of Camden County voters approved a referendum last year prohibiting the county commission from spending any more money on the spaceport project. More than $12 million has been spent, so far.

Valdosta State University will receive $750,000 in federal funding to address a shortage of teachers, according to WALB in Albany.

The funds will be used to expand its rural teacher pipeline by providing scholarships and other support to paraprofessionals who wish to earn a Bachelor of Science in Education in Elementary Education through the university’s Online College for Advancement.

Education experts say classrooms are overcrowded and school districts are struggling to recruit certified professionals.

VSU is Georgia’s only public institution of higher education that offers an online Bachelor of Science in Education in Elementary Education, according to university officials. Enrollment in this program has increased nearly 323% from Fall 2021 to Fall 2022.

“Schools and students need quality teachers now more than ever, and this program focusing on helping paraprofessionals — who already have substantial prior experience in classrooms — earn their teaching credentials makes sense,” said Dr. David Slykhuis, dean of the James L. and Dorothy H. Dewar College of Education and Human Services.

Former Augusta Mayor Hardie Davis will not serve as a professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Public Policy after campaign ethics issues were raised, according to WRDW.

Citing ethics concerns and ongoing investigations, Georgia Tech has suspended a professorship for former Augusta Mayor Hardie Davis.

The decision was communicated to Davis in an email from School of Public Policy Chair Cassidy Sugimoto informing Davis of the suspension.

The email states that if he’s cleared of wrongdoing, the suspension may be reconsidered.

United States Congressman Andrew Clyde (R-9) will serve on the House Appropriations Committee, according to AccessWDUN.

Clyde was one of 20 Republicans to hold up Kevin McCarthy’s bid for Speaker of the House last week. Clyde later switched his vote in favor of McCarthy during the 12th vote after he received assurances on several key issues, including built-in measures that will encourage the Speaker to keep his word. Now Clyde has been appointed to serve on the Appropriations Committee as house members enter the 118th Congress.

Clyde acknowledges that government spending is important to him as he hopes to impart a conservative outlook on how funds are allocated. Clyde said in a press release that it is critically important to ensure that taxpayer dollars are used responsibly since the country is under substantial national debt and faces the threat of a looming recession.

“As a new member of the Appropriations Committee, I’m thrilled to join the fight in passing conservative appropriations bills by reducing senseless spending and practicing fiscal restraint,” Clyde said.

“I’m very, very excited about that,” Clyde said. “I worked very hard to get on the Appropriations Committee. And I think I am a fiscal hawk. And I believe that our government should be financially responsible, and part of that is the appropriations that go with it. I believe that instead of having an omnibus, we should have 12 individual appropriations that should be passed out of the Appropriations Committee.”

“I look forward to serving as a voice for the Peach State, working with my colleagues to conduct proper oversight over federal spending, and fighting to restore fiscal sanity here in Washington,” Clyde said in his press release.

Clyde’s appointment to the Appropriations Committee will now go before the Republican Conference to be ratified.

Gwinnett County Transit will change its name to Ride Gwinnett, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post.

“I think this is biggest year for Ride Gwinnett since the creation of the system,” Gwinnett County Transportation Director Lewis Cooksey said. “Currently, we have five commuter routes and seven local, and this (year) will add three new local (routes), giving us 10 local and then also the two microtransit (zones).”

The rebranding effort is expected to be ongoing throughout 2023. County officials plan to implement the new name and branding over the course of multiple phases.

“I think it was really the right time,” Gwinnett County Commission Chairwoman Nicole Love Hendrickson said of the decision to rebrand the system. “We’re really focused on encouraging ridership and riders of choice and we couldn’t do that with an old brand that people didn’t connect with, and we felt this new brand is something that people can connect with.”

“It builds excitement and encourages people to want to use it because we’re really creating a greater experience around transit, and we want people to make Gwinnett transit — Ride Gwinnett — a preferred mobility option of choice. We feel having a new brand and unveiling new routes in the coming months will do just that.”

Minute Grill in Dublin will be highlighted as “Best in the South” on the SEC network, according to 13WMAZ.

The New York Times placed Macon on its list of “52 Places to Go in 2023” alongside Madrid, Istanbul, and London, according to the Macon Telegraph.

The newspaper cited the Bibb County seat’s 1,100-year-old Indigenous mounds as a must-see point of interest, while also noting the Ocmulgee historical site’s status as a soon-to-be-named national park, the first in Georgia.

“Additionally, the city, whose musical roots run deep — Little Richard, the Allman Brothers and Otis Redding all got their start here — is celebrating its 200th anniversary with a new 10,000-seat amphitheater,” the Times reported. “Visitors can check out the Hotel Forty Five, a boutique hotel that opened downtown last year and that was named both for the angle of the street on which it sits and as a nod to musical history.”

On Thursday, Mayor Lester Miller, referring to the city’s inclusion on the list, told The Telegraph: “We have some amazing groups and people on Team Macon-Bibb making our community what it is and making sure the country’s eyes are on us. And we’re not done yet. … More and more people will come here and enjoy all we have to offer.”

In 2016, Mrs. GaPundit and I toured Georgia’s coast and islands. Maybe this summer will see a tour of Middle Georgia. Where should we go besides Macon and Dublin? Is Friendly Gus the place just off the interstate at the Dublin exit that has great biscuits and fried food in a little counter?

Augusta Commissioners are considering additional powers for the city administrator as part of a hiring search, according to WJBF.

On Monday, a commission committee took up the search recommending reducing the experience needed from three to five years to six months.

“I think you’re going to see a much bigger conversation on that coming up with the full commission,” said Mayor Pro-Tem Brandon Garrett.

A conversation that could take a major twist. Commissioner Sean Frantom proposes taking powers away from the commission, like hiring and firing department heads, and giving them to the city administrator.

“I think right now we need to change the charter; I think we need to look at how we can give more authority to the city administrator, and I think we need to do a workshop on that,” said Commissioner Frantom.

Augusta has been without a permanent administrator for 11 months; it looks like it could take even more time before a decision is made.

The Bulloch County Courthouse clock’s western face has been replaced, according to the Statesboro Herald.

The clock had stood idle, with one of its four cardinal-direction faces missing, for nine months. On April 5, 2022, the same evening that a powerful tornado caused much more severe damage and one death in Pembroke in Bryan County, wind from the wider storm system blew out the previous western dial of the Bulloch County clock.

The Southern Regional Commission will meet on Thursday, January 26, 2023 in Waycross, according to the Valdosta Daily Times.

The Georgia Department of Transportation held a public meeting to discuss rebuilding the Darien bridge, according to WTOC.

Darien City Council member Marcy Goodyear died, apparently of a heart attack, according to The Brunswick News.

She had nearly three years left in the four-year term she won in November 2021.

“She was a wonderful lady. She didn’t meet a stranger,’’ [Mayor Hugh] Hodge said. “She always spoke her mind and voted from her heart.”

Hodge acknowledged that he and Goodyear had been on opposite sides of issues a number of times but said she could disagree without being disagreeable.

Because she had so much time left on her term, the City Council will have to call for a special election to replace her, likely at its meeting Tuesday. With qualifying and other legal requirements, her seat may be empty until summer, Hodge said.

That leaves the city in a lurch because Councilman Morris Butler has been out for nearly a year because of medical issues, Hodge said.

Unless [Mayor Hodge] and councilmen Augusta Skeen and Griffin Lotson all attend meetings, no business can be conducted because the mayor and two council members are required for a quorum.