FORT VALLEY, Ga. — Fort Valley has a two-man mayor's race in this year's election.
Jeffery Lundy is a pastor at Love and Kindness Ministry, and worked in law enforcement as a uniform patrol division at Fort Valley for more than 30 years.
LeMario Brown has been a City Council at Large member for six years now, and served as mayor pro tem for two years.
The two mayoral candidates in Fort Valley say the issues with crime and youth are interconnected.
Lundy says public health and safety will be paramount for him as mayor.
"Statistics show that we have one of the highest crime rates for a city this size, so rather than taking that as a negative, we are going to take it as ways to improve the service, our relationship in the community -- not only that, but those who are committing these crimes know that, to the full extent to the law, they will be prosecuted," said Lundy.
Brown says with the last weekend's shooting in Fort Valley, "We've noticed that lighting may be an issue. We are going to look at putting more lighting over there. We want to make sure we have more patrol there, but again, we want to patrol from within the community, so we are going to be looking at key leaders in that community that can help us patrol those communities all over the city of Fort Valley because crime can happen anywhere," said Brown.
Lundy says he wants to teach the youth on how to avoid trouble by creating a place for them to go.
"Where the youth can come together and we can offer these life skills, offer things to do. Studies showing a young person that's idle, don't have anything to do, they're more prone to get into mishaps and mischief and things of that nature," said Lundy.
Brown says he wants to see the youth become productive citizens.
"We want them to have the right resources. We don't want them to go out and get involved in gangs or illegal activity to get money to provide for their family. We want them to have the opportunity here in Fort Valley, where they grow up at, where they go to school at, where they are going to start their family at," said Brown.
Early voting in the mayor's race, and other city races across Central Georgia ends on Friday October 29th and Election Day is Tuesday, November 2nd.