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By Charlotte Reames

 

For the second time, Mayor Steve Tramell and City Councilmember Deedee Williams will go head-to-head for the mayor seat in West Point. The results of the election on Tuesday will determine whether Tramell, who has served as mayor for eight years, will hand over the title to Williams or continue serving as mayor.

With the election day nearing, Tramell and Williams answered some quick questions to help voters have a final look at their two candidates.

Steve Tramell

1. What’s your last second pitch on why someone should vote for you?

“I think people have seen the job that I’ve done, the growth that we’ve experienced in West Point. It’s my intention to continue moving forward the way we have here at West Point to continue to grow … and make West Point an even better place to live, work and play.”

2. List your top three priorities.

“My number one goal is to see continued growth in the city, and then beyond that, my intent as mayor is to continue to do what I can to help individual citizens just with their day-to-day issues … My third priority is to make sure that we get the new housing starts.”

3. Of those three, which one can you immediately make a difference in? How and why?

“Helping to facilitate ease in which new businesses can be started up here in West Point, is one of the things I think I’ve excelled at and certainly want to continue that.”

4. How would you handle a situation where the majority of the council felt differently than you, and you needed to sway their opinion?

“The proper answer is, ‘How would I in cases of ties persuade at least one of the council members to vote the way I felt?’ Then I’ve got three people that I can work on and hopefully can get somebody to see it my way. But you know, it’s their vote. It’s their decision.”

5. What’s an interesting fact about you that voters may not know?

“My wife is the native to this community. I’m not originally from here.”

Deedee Williams

1. What’s your last second pitch on why someone should vote for you?

“I would like for people to vote Deedee for mayor because a vote for me is a vote for your future, future children, grandchildren, and we can be on the list of best places to live in America, not just Georgia.”

2. List your top three priorities.

“Education, recreation, housing.”

3. Of those three, which one can you immediately make a difference in? How and why?

“I don’t know that I can immediately make a difference in any of those and that is because they are pretty lofty ambitions. But I can make an immediate effort to work on them, and I intend to do that before we start to try to affect change in any one of those areas.”

4. How would you handle a situation where the majority of the council felt differently than you, and you needed to sway their opinion?

“As long as the mayor tries to keep consistent with what the majority of the citizens are interested in, I think there’s a pretty good chance that they will be able to collaborate with council members because, at the end of the day, the citizens are the ones that continue to elect those to represent them.”

5. What’s an interesting fact about you that voters may not know?

“I am very much so a proponent of public education.”