FORSYTH, Ga. — Forsyth Mayor Eric Wilson is running for his third term this fall.
“I just want to continue as mayor because Forsyth's been very good to me and I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to be the mayor. It’s been very humbling," Wilson said.
His opponent is the same from the 2015 election, former Mayor and current councilman John Howard.
“The Howard administration can do this because of what we’ve already done, and what we’ve accomplished thus far just being here the first time so this is, so this isn’t new to us. We’ve done this before," Howard said.
Both administrations believe the city is in a good place, but there could be improvements.
"The sidewalk improvement project and we hired a crew and that’s their job, Wilson explained. "They’re dedicated to working on sidewalks and there are a lot of sidewalks that need repair so we can continue to work on that. Beautification is something we continue to work on. That requires community effort and the government's effort. People policing and not throwing trash out on their own, and then us doing our job as a city picking it up and citing those that do throw it out."
Howard was the city's first African-American mayor elected back in 2011.
"Number one, our park plan. Again Howard administration laid the blueprint for that. That’s documented that was something I worked on. I put together. I’ll say we. We put together a committee and we did the research and we knew what we wanted to do. We wanted a skate park, a splash pad — we’ve got that. We wanted a dog walking park, we wanted an amphitheater," Howard explained.
One topic that’s on both agendas is blight. Wilson said it's become a recent focus.
"We have a lot of areas in the city that really need cleaning up and the citizens have voiced that and I think we need to be more active on that front. We've started doing that in the last eight years and really in the few years," Wilson said.
Howard believes this problem needs to be addressed.
"We have neighborhoods that are filled with blighted properties that need to be taken care of. We would like to see something done that's been a long time coming. You look at Macon. Macon, has — I lost count. I remember when Macon was tearing down house number 200. We haven't torn down one," Howard said.
Wilson describes his administration and time as mayor as inclusive and open-minded to the community.
Howard describes his team and time as mayor as the blueprint for the city’s success, both past and present.