By Mark Woolsey
The races have now been set for the Nov.4 Cobb County municipal elections, as voters will pick among mayoral, city council and school board candidates in six of the county’s seven municipalities.
Only Smyrna will not be taking part in the balloting, as the next municipal election there won’t be held until 2027.
Candidates filed a notice of candidacy and an affidavit to qualify while paying fees that ran into hundreds of dollars. In Georgia, the filing fee for a municipal election 3 percent of the gross salary the position paid in the prior year .
In Marietta, incumbent mayor Steve “Thunder” Tumlin, a CPA and an attorney faces opposition Sam Foster, a systems engineer. He’s said to be one of the youngest candidates for mayor in Marietta’s history, at the age of 24.
In Ward 1, Cheryl Richardson, the incumbent and an attorney, faces a challenge from Anthony McCalla, a security consultant. The Ward 2 post also drew multiple candidates, with Akella C. Clore, a bailiff, squaring off against Vicki Lucas, who is retired and Jason Waters, a mortgage lender and certified financial planner. None of the candidates is the incumbent, as longtime Ward 2 councilman Griff Chalfant chose not to seek re-election.
In Ward 3,with incumbent council member Johnny Walker stepping aside, a trio of hopefuls has surfaced; Daniel Gaddis, a planner, Nora Gaudet, a retired educator, and Boozer McClure, who is in retail sales.
In Ward 4, a pair of hopefuls seek to capture the seat held by the retiring Andy Morris. They are: Byron “Tee” Anderson, a homebuilder and West House, a mechanical engineer.
The race in Ward 5 pits Reggie “Game Changer” Copeland against incumbent Carlyle Kent, who beat Copeland for the seat four years ago. Copeland is listed as a CEO and business owner, while Kent works in the real estate field. Kenneth Wright, who is retired, is also vying for the post.
In Ward 6, realtor Andre’ Sims is unopposed, as is attorney and leasing manager Joseph Goldstein in Ward 7.
In Marietta school board filings, incumbent Jeff DeJarnett is unopposed in Ward I. He is a real estate managing broker.
In the race for Ward 2, Jason Waters is leaving the board to run for the Marietta City Council Ward 2 seat. That has opened the door for a couple of possible successors; Nicole Tirado, who works in technical program management and Laura Holder, whose occupation was not provided.
School board Ward 3 finds a pair of candidates tossing their proverbial hats into the ring; Jeff Collins, whose occupation is listed as sales, and Matt Courtoy, a digital marketing director. They seek to replace the retiring A.B.Almy.
Incumbent Jaillene Hunter is running unopposed for the Ward 4 seat. She’s director of the Georgia Press association.
Incumbent Ward 5 member and nonprofit executive Angela Orange faces a challenge from Jesse D. Bonner Jr, who is retired.
With Ward 6 board member Kerry Minervini stepping away, Christina Rogers, a registered nurse, and realtor Tony Viola seek to win her seat.
In Ward 7, incumbent Irene Holly Berens is unopposed. She is retired.
ACWORTH
Longtime Mayor Tommy Allegood is running for re-election unopposed.
In the race for Post 4 Alderman, incumbent and retiree Tim Richardson faces a challenge from Kimberly Haase, who is the CEO of a concierge service company.
In the Post 5 aldermanic race, incumbent Tim Houston is unopposed.
AUSTELL
In Austell, all three council posts up for grabs will be contested races.
In the Post 1 at-large race, incumbent Melanie Marie Elder, a claims team manager, will square off against Jonathan Foster, an on-site representative.
In Council Ward 1, incumbent and tax accountant Marlin Lamar, Jr. ix being challenged by Derek Caffe, a licensed general contractor and real estate broker.
In Ward 3, incumbent Meredith Adams, a senior operations manager, will contest for another term against Shawndra Williams, who is self-employed.
KENNESAW
In Kennesaw, one post is shaping up as a horse race while two other positions are unopposed. In the Council at-large Post 3 Race, Jonathon Bothers, a real estate broker, faces Donovan Giardina, a graduate research assistant. In at-large Post 4, optician Antonio Jones is running unopposed, as is Anthony Guiterrez-Leon in at-large Post 5.
MABLETON
Two out of the three posts open in Mableton drew multiple candidates. In council District 2, Dami Oladapo, the incumbent and a senior technology manager, faces Michael McNeely, a public safety executive.
In District 4, incumbent Patricia Auch, who works in the pharmaceutical area, faces a challenge from Cassandra Brown, a development director.
District 6 council member Debora Herndon is running for re-election unopposed. Her occupation is listed as legal support specialist.
POWDER SPRINGS
All three candidates for city council posts are running unopposed. They are Raja Antone in Ward 1, an IT program manager, retiree Doris Dawkins in Ward 2 and funeral director Dwayne Green in Ward 3. The latter two are incumbents
I live in Marietta Ward 3 and was checking out, or rather attempting to check out, our city council candidates. I had AI analyze the candidate information (and/or lack thereof) presented. As a result, I have questions!
Nora Gaudet’s own website lists quite a bit of herstory, but not anything about her specific vision for Marietta’s future or her strategy for enacting her vision. She lists a few meaningless platitudes that sound great for the target audience, but nada about how she would accomplish them.
Daniel Gaddis’ own website chose to present a photo of himself and his family out front of West Side Elementary. I’ll acknowledge that a tiny portion of Ward 3 voters reside in West Side’s school district, but the vast majority of us are in the Hickory Hills district. Their choice of that photo at West Side leaves me wondering if Mr Gaddis really even understands Ward 3.
Boozer McClure claims to be running for Marietta Ward 3 City Council, but with no candidate website of their own and zero available information (that I could find) about their candidacy, either they take their own victory in Ward 3 for granted for some reason (does anybody know what that reason, if it exists, might be?), or maybe they aren’t really a candidate and could possibly be using their declaration of candidacy as a tool for getting free publicity every time their name is mentioned.
We look up their unusual (and thus very easily internet-searched) name, Boozer, only to find one website, and that one website is for their retail store that just recently expanded, what are we to think about them/that? A serious candidate would have search results for Boozer for City of Marietta Council Ward 3. An un-serious candidate would leave their search results alone, allowing for everyone searching “Boozer” to find their retail store and only their retail store.
The election is only about 11 weeks away. What do these folks want to do for City of Marietta (if even anything, in the case of “Boozer”)? Ms Gaudet’s website is the only one to list any vision, but they could have been written by AI (like Sam For Mayor’s “Fairer Tax” info, lol), applying in theory to the most generic municipality conceivable, but nothing directly applicable to City of Marietta in 2026 and beyond.
What about the Flock tag reader cameras all around town now? Marietta once had “a few” at its borders with questionable neighboring areas so we could “be alerted when criminals and/or stolen tags are entering the city,” but now these cameras are all over the place. Have you noticed the tag reader at Burnt Hickory and Polk? If you drive by there, it’s definitely noticed you every single time!
What about all the e-scooters that are showing up despite Marietta’s ban of rental e-scooters? Are they bikes? Could they use bike lanes (if we even had those)? Are they cars? Can they use the Mountain to River trail? If so, do they have speed limit? Can they ride on the sidewalk? Are helmets required for adults?
What are going to do with our ineffectual school board? They exempted themselves from the floating homestead exemption recently approved by all Georgia voters, and their excuses were the exact same excuses given 30+ years ago the last time they decided our property taxes should forever-increase based on guesstimated values. And their reason? “Bills.” Our school board has bills, just like every school board, and just like the last time they decided to keep our property taxes forever-increasing. We have 30+ years without progress on property tax relief to allow Marietta homeowners to own their homes rather than rent their homes from the school board. Given the school board’s ineptness with budgets (combined with their zealotry with banning books), it’s time for City of Marietta to rethink how our educational system is governed. We have to ditch the failed “school board” concept and find something responsive to its citizen supports when our need is something other than banning a book.
The election is about 6 weeks away. What do these folks want to do for City of Marietta (if even anything in the case of “Boozer”)?
We have so many real issues, but nobody’s speaking to them.