Hayes elected Walthourville mayor

Sarah B. Hayes is the new mayor of Walthourville.

According to unofficial results, Hayes took 213 votes, while Butler got 175 of 388 votes cast. Voter turnout was relatively high for a municipal runoff election at 14.61%, amid residents’ complaints about a proposed city property tax and fire fee to address a more than $500,000 budget deficit and advance vetting of citizens’ questions before City Council meetings.

“We’re gonna do things right,” Hayes told reporters at the Liberty County Courthouse, where the results were posted. “And we’re gonna do things to where we are transparent and have the citizens to know every step of what we’re doing and be involved in it. This is not something for me. I did this strictly for the citizens and for Walthourville to be a better place than it is right now.”

Hayes has the ultimate responsibility for the city’s mounting debt crisis and the unpopular but urgent remedies of a city property tax and a fire fee. She told The Current that voters also had expressed anger at having to send their questions to City Hall a week before meetings for vetting and that regular public comment would be restored to the council meeting agenda.

She said she had spent Monday “from 10 o’clock in the morning to 3:30 in the evening before our meeting at 6 o’clock looking at nothing but the budget. And I also went back through my notes on what the citizens wanted, what they didn’t want, and made sure that everything is available for them to see.”

She added that “citizen input will be put back on [the council agenda] because, as I’ve stated before, if you don’t know what the citizens want and don’t want, you’re working in the dark. And my whole campaign was about citizen involvement and transparency, and honesty. I want to bring back a city of ethics, a city of citizen involvement, and a city of transparency.cIf we are in the hole for money, which we are, citizens need to know that. And they will.”

Hayes said, “It’s not about me, I don’t need a dime from the city. I’m very comfortable. I’m doing this for the love of the city and the citizens. What they stated about the millage rate is ‘How did we get this way? We had a surplus in the beginning.’ Now I went back and I looked at that. We were operating on a surplus. [Former] Mayor [Daisy] Pray, when she left, there was a surplus of money. But, from 2017 from my research, that surplus had dwindled down because, as you know, we don’t have taxes or any additional sources of income. We have our water and our sewer. So when your bills outweigh your resources, you have a problem. And that’s what happened.

“I know we have a long way to go, but together with the citizens and the council that we have, we can do this. We will do this,” Hayes said.

The candidates had camped out near Victory Baptist Church Tuesday, seeking last-minute support. 91 people had cast ballots as of 1:20 p.m. and both candidates said they felt confident about the outcome, expecting more traffic during the final hour before the polls closed.

Baker’s family and backers, including one brother who came in from Dekalb County, leaned on cars and sat on tailgates near the front of the church, shouting at voters to cast their ballots for Baker and waving at passing drivers who honked their horns.

Across Talmadge, at the end of the block, Hayes and her backers sat in folding chairs under a pop-up tent, offering snacks and drinks to anyone who stopped by, waving back at those who waved or honked their horns.

A sign on Baker’s old pickup truck touted accomplishments during his administration, like professionalization of the Walthourville Fire Department.

This small town was settled by people who had been emancipated from slavery. Most residents are related to each other somehow. That, according to Hayes, means relative newcomers (she’s only been here since 1991) face an uphill battle.

Baker, the incumbent, has blood relatives on the city council: his father, James Hendry, and uncle, Charlie Anderson, Jr. None of the three are returning to office in 2024. Since losing the primary, Hendry and Anderson have been skipping meetings.

Hayes told one supporter, Ellen Neal, that she had asked the state whether the mayor-council family ties constituted nepotism, and that the state had told her it didn’t, “because the voters keep electing them!”

After the results were in, Hayes offered Baker an olive branch: “I hope there’s no bad feelings. I don’t have any bad feelings because as I said, we love our city, so we need to be able to work together to make it a better place. So no animosity, I want us to still be able to work together.”

But Baker’s camp, which was gathered outside the Parrot and Frog in downtown Hinesville, was in no mood for reconciliation.

Baker himself said little: “I’m good. I’m good.”

Asked if he had spoken with Hayes, Baker said, “No.”

“And he won’t be talking to her,” his wife, Brenda, added. “No. No. He will not be talking to her. They done did too much damage to him, and he will not be talking to her. From the mouth of his wife.”

“But I’m good, I’m good,” Baker insisted.

At the news that Hayes had said she had no hard feelings, Brenda Baker said, “No. We don’t want to hear none of that, what she’s got to say, because they did so much, they damaged him so much, we don’t wanna hear a damn thing she gotta say.”

The Baker campaign alleges that Hayes moved closer to where their group had been staked out all day and that she had crossed the electioneering line and placed signs along the line.

“And the voter’s registration office took pictures of it but they didn’t do anything,” Larry Baker said. The Current asked whether the campaign had taken photos of the alleged violations and asked for copies of the photos. He said the elections office had them but did not show The Current any photos; we e-mailed Elections Director Ronda Walthour whether the office had received photos of alleged violations and will update with any response. We also have asked Hayes for her response to the Baker camp’s allegations.

Newly-elected Councilman Patrick Underwood, who beat former Mayor Daisy Pray in the primary for the Post 2 seat held by Charlie Anderson, Jr. and who had backed Baker, also alleged that Hayes had backed her car up to the line around 5:30 p.m.

The Current observed a Hayes sign in the ditch amid a row of Baker signs around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. Hayes said she had strategically placed herself at the intersection of Dunleavy and Talmadge because “I don’t like mess,” and that, during the primary, she and Dodds had removed themselves from the rest of the candidates outside the polling place. Hayes alleged some candidates had been blasting music and yelling through a bullhorn: “I heard someone called the police department because they were too close [to the line]. I know Ms. Walthour had to come out two times.”

Incoming Hinesville Mayor Karl Riles congratulated Hayes at the courthouse, then showing up at the Parrot and Frog, a favorite watering hole for local politicians. Also spotted at the Parrot and Frog were Liberty County District 2 Commissioner Justin Frasier and Walthourville Post 1 Councilman Mitchell Boston, who said, “It’s a new day.” Boston unseated Post 1 Councilman James Hendry in the November 7 primary.

Hayes later attributed her win to “going back to the same doors that we knocked on and talking to the people, and reemphasizing why it’s so important that they vote the right person in there who cares about them and taking this city to the heights we know it can go to.”

Type of Story: News

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.