Nicky Gwinnett, Brooklet City Council member in Seat 1, is now the unopposed candidate to be Brooklet's next mayor, since he signed up and paid the fee during last week's five days of candidate qualifying. Mayor Joe Grooms III, elected in 2019, decided not to seek re-election, but his term extends through December.

Lonnie W. "Nicky" Gwinnett Jr., who will be 64 next month, is a lifelong resident of Brooklet and a graduate of Southeast Bulloch High School. A cabinet maker, he has owned and operated Kitchen Craft Custom Cabits for 38 years. Besides serving one current term on City Council, since winning the 2019 election for the seat, Gwinnett served a previous four-year term about a decade before that.

He served as mayor pro tempore by selection of the other council members during the first three years of his current term and was also mayor pro tem part of his first council term. Gwinnett's committee assignment, public works, has involved him directly in planning for some of Brooklet's major current projects, such as building a sewer system and installing a third well for the water system.

Serving as mayor is something he says he has always wanted to do.

"I've been in this town all my life, I've watched the older folks before me, the ones that were mayor, and growing up, you know, I thought that would be cool to do one day," Gwinnett said Monday. "I guess you could say this is one of the things on my bucket list, and honestly, I love this town."

His two grown children and five grandchildren are Brooklet residents. He and wife Sandra have been married about 27 years.

Seat 2 Councilman Bradley Anderson, the current mayor pro tem, will also appear unopposed on Brooklet's Nov. 7 ballot. After he qualified for re-election to the seat and nobody else signed up, Anderson will start a second four-year term in January.

But because Gwinnett signed up to run for mayor, he couldn't also be a candidate for his council seat. In fact, nobody had qualified for Brooklet Council Seat 1 by the close of regular qualifying at 4:30 p.m. Friday.

However, City Clerk Lori Phillips was able to extend qualifying for just that seat by two business days, 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, Aug. 28 and Aug. 29.

Before 5 p.m. Monday, three candidates had qualified to contend for Council Seat 1. They are Melanie Garcia, a paralegal with the Mock Law Firm; Hubert Keith Roughton, a compliance officer with the Georgia Southern University Athletic Department; and Seth Cannon, a general contractor. 

Qualifying for the seat remained open for a final day Tuesday.

Register

A similar, extended qualifying situation occurred in Register, where Town Council Seat 5, which had been vacant since the resignation of Ann Ross a year earlier, had no qualifiers during Register's original three-day qualifying period, Tuesday through Thursday of last week.

But qualifying was reopened Monday and Tuesday for Register Town Hall's regular office hours of 9 a.m.–3 p.m., and two candidates — Richard Canady and Melanie Nessmith — qualified for Seat 5 on Monday, reported Town Clerk Annette Waters.

Canady, a retiree, previously served four years on the council but not in the current term. Nessmith is activities director for Statesboro Primitive Baptist Church.

Incumbent Register Council members Tonya Boyd, in Seat 3, and Alfred Jones, in Seat 4, qualified last week and are unopposed for re-election.

Portal

In Portal, all three incumbents whose offices were up for election, Mayor Billy Boggs, Post 2 Councilmember Roy Johnson and Post 5 Councilmember Delina Woods, qualified for re-election at the beginning of last week and remained unopposed at the close of qualifying Friday.

So Portal could cancel its Nov. 7 election, as Georgia cities are allowed to do when all offices have unopposed candidates.