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Four are currently on the ballot to claim Hogansville’s mayoral seat.

Current Mayor Bill Stankiewicz, who is seeking his third term, is the incumbent for the seat while Hogansville residents Angela Hopson Price, George Kenneth Bailey and Jacob Anthony Ayers are challenging for the position. 

Stankiewicz welcomes the contested race, he said, but notes his political experience as the main contributor when asked why he should be re-elected.

A concern of his lies in having the local government “in the hands of one family,” referring to opponents Angela Price and Jacob Ayers, both of whom have family members currently on the city council.

However, his main goal for reelection is to continue with the various projects he has been a part of in the betterment of Hogansville.

“One of them is the Royal Theater,” he said. “I’ve championed that for six, seven years. I want to be around when that gets finished.”

He added that he wants to monitor Hogansville’s population growth over the next several years and continue with infrastructure and sewer projects to sustain such growth.

Opponent George Bailey has been a resident of the Troup County area since 2008.

Bailey was on the Hogansville City Council for seven years and served as mayor pro-tem in 2017. He has also served on the Rotary Club and as the past board chair of the LaGrange-Troup County Georgia Chamber of Commerce and continues to be active in the organization.

“A lot is going on in Hogansville, and I’ve put my name in to be the next mayor,” he said. “I think I’m the man for the job to take Hogansville to the next level.”

Opponent Angela Price has lived in Hogansville all her life and has seen it through various stages.

She said she’s wanted to pursue the mayoral seat for years. Four years ago, she helped with Stankiewicz’s campaign.

Currently, Price works at Teachable Moments and is a volunteer cheerleader coach.

Her goal going into the race is to encourage and motivate the younger people of the area.

“I want to get the morale back into the community,” Price said. “They don’t feel like we really care about what they care about, that their voice is being heard. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the elites with millions of dollars to their name or if they’re someone with only a few pennies to their name. I want everybody to feel like they are just as important as the next person.”

Price is the wife of Marichal Price, the current Hogansville councilmember of post 2.

Another newcomer to the race is Ayers. He is a real estate agent and has lived in Hogansville for just over five years but says that he’s already seen issues in the community that need to be addressed.

“As I’ve been here as a business owner, and as I raise my family here, there’s a lot of different problems, but…one I want to focus my energy in is [bringing] equality across the board of Hogansville,” he said. “That means, no matter what side of the tracks you grew up on, no matter what your race is or your age, we all ought to have equal opportunities.”

He plans to focus on the town’s ability to receive reliable internet, which affects many of the businesses in downtown Hogansville.

“Right now, the internet on one side of the city and across the street [can’t] receive high-speed fiber internet,” Ayers explained.

“No one can explain that. There’s AT&T, which makes this sort of a monopoly, so I want to bring in more variety and more access.”

Ayers has a desire to continue to add to the infrastructure growth of the town but also keep its historic value intact.

“Hogansville is the kind of community I want to help establish for [my] children to grow up in,” he said

Ayers is the brother of Mark Ayers, the current Hogansville councilmember of post 4.