Three candidates in a special Statesboro city election in Council District 1 – Tangie Reese Johnson, Ken Jackson and John Grotheer – are wrapping up their race for the unexpired term of former Councilmember Phil Boyum, with early voting ending at 5 p.m. Friday and Tuesday being Election Day.

In fact, the city special election is included on the same ballots that Council District 1 voters see in the regular general election for all other offices – from president of the United States to county commissioner. However, the city ballot item appears under a “special election” label.

Boyum, who had represented District 1 on City Council for nearly 12 years, resigned effective Aug. 1. After the council called its special election for the same day as the general election, the three contenders signed up during a three-day qualifying period later in August. Like all of the city’s elections, it’s nonpartisan.

Each district is apportioned roughly one-fifth of Statesboro’s population, now estimated at more than 34,000, so District 1 supposedly has more than 6,800 residents, which also includes children and other non-voters.

Tangie Johnson

Tangie Reese Johnson has not sought elected office before. Currently records and compliance coordinator for human resources at Georgia Southern University, she has been a Statesboro District 1 resident since 2017, which is also the year she started working with the university’s Office of Human Resources.

Before then, she was a police officer, serving with the Dublin, Georgia, Police Department from July 2010 to November 2012 and with the Georgia Southern University Police from November 2012 to April 2017.

“I serve on the Statesboro Housing Authority board, and I’m always serving and volunteering in various roles within the city and within the community, as well as District 1,” Johnson said in August. “I believe that there is a vision for change, and I just feel that it’s time, and I think that our community can do more together than we can apart.”

Johnson wasn’t reached by phone or text Tuesday, Oct.  29, for a further comment, but this story remains open for possible update.

Ken Jackson

Ken Jackson is also running for public office for the first time. Jackson owns Leap Joy Inflatables on Walnut Street in Statesboro and at first said he became a candidate primarily to represent the interests of small business owners in the city.

“I’m not a politician, but I want to make sure the concerns of small business owners are heard at every meeting,” Jackson said in August. “The city is getting bigger and more and more small businesses are springing up. Not just downtown, but all around the city. Sometimes I think we get overlooked and all the attention is paid to larger businesses.”

Since then he has been going door-to-door to talk with people in District 1, he said this week.

“I have been walking all over the district,” Jackson said. “I can’t tell you how many subdivisions and apartment complexes and streets I’ve been up and down, but every day we’ve been walking, at least two hours.”

This week he was taking a few days off but planned to be back campaigning during the weekend.

One of the concerns he has heard from residents is a need for more sidewalks.

“That’s been a part of my platform the whole time, sidewalks, and then probably a second concern would be the higher taxes and then a third would probably be that lots of streets haven’t been repaved in our district,” he said. “It’s like they stopped when they got to District 1.”

He acknowledges that East Main Street in District 1 received a major sidewalk extension but says other streets need them. Jackson said he wants the district to get its fair share of street resurfacing, with the transportation sales tax, or T-SPLOST, not property tax, to pay for such projects.

Jackson moved to Statesboro in 2005 from Jacksonville, Florida. He owned a number of mobile homes and started in Bulloch County as a landlord. While he’s mostly out of that business, he became a real estate agent, too. Jackson said he started Leap Joy Inflatables in 2007 out of a storage unit as a side business, but it later grew to be his main business concern.

John Grotheer

John Grotheer previously ran for mayor in 2017. A Statesboro resident since early 2014, he has not served in elected office but has 20-plus years of experience as a professional working for other city and county governments. He served 13 years with the city of Covington as its city clerk and finance director, and later was finance director for the Bryan County government, based in Pembroke, for eight years before his retirement and served one month as interim county administrator.

“I … believe in an open, transparent government, one that is interested in listening, being responsive, and genuinely committed to serving all the citizens of the city of Statesboro,” Grotheer said in an announcement of his District 1 candidacy. “I have chosen Statesboro as my forever home and would like for it to remain a safe community and one that offers an outstanding quality of life.”

Grotheer’s campaign activities have included participating in a candidate forum hosted by the Bulloch County NAACP, Georgia Southern NAACP and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority in mid-October on the university campus.

“I enjoyed meeting people there and talking with them and listening to their concerns,” Grotheer said. “It’s great to have an opportunity to talk with the citizens and hear their concerns, and meet my neighbors here in District 1 and so forth.”

Tangie Reese Johnson also participated in the forum. Ken Jackson missed that event but instead spoke to the Black Men Vote group whose walk to the early voting site two weeks ago was organized by John Robinson.

Taxes are one issue Grotheer has been hearing about from fellow citizens.

“People are concerned about taxes, and I do feel that my experience as finance director could be helpful in that position,” Grotheer said. “Having prepared a $120 million budget for a city (Covington), that experience would help me go through the city’s budget in hard times to keep the taxes lower.

“Growth places huge demands on the city, but I feel it’s going to be necessary for the city to operate more efficiently, and we just can’t continue raising taxes every time, you know, there’s a new subdivision,” he said.

Where and when

For city District 1 residents voting early, the voting locations have also been the same as for all other Bulloch County voters.

On Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, when traditional precinct polling places will be open 7 a.m.-7 p.m. for their voters who didn’t vote early, the one place the city election is expected to appear on ballots is the county’s “Church Precinct” at Statesboro Primitive Baptist Church, 4 South Zetterower Ave. All Statesboro Council District 1 voters vote there in county elections, and the city temporarily reassigned its precinct so they don’t have to vote in two separate places.

The winner Tuesday – or in a possible runoff – will serve the  remainder of the term, through 2025, but would have to run again in next fall’s regular city election for the possibility of a new four-year  term.