Charles Wilborn

1. Please list the names of your spouse and children.

Children: Bonnie and Barry Wilborn

2. Please list your educational background.

Graduated from Southwest DeKalb High School

Graduated from DeKalb Community College

3. Please describe your professional background.

Self-employed Tailor, 60 years

Worked for:

People’s Drug Store

J.C. Pool Company, 35 years

Cohen’s Men’s Shop, 9 years

New Shoez

R.L.’s on the Square

4. Please describe your community/non-profit/public service background.

Served 14 years on Covington City Council

Past President Covington Kiwanis Club

Past Chairman of Keep Covington-Newton Beautiful

Vice Chairman of Habitat for Humanity

Newton County Hospital Auxillary

Mentor for Porterdale Elementary School

5. What is the most important issue facing your city?

Jobs. And business downtown and housing. People are without jobs and are losing their homes to foreclosures. That’s a big issue now. People don’t have money to stay in their houses because of the high utilities, and because people just don’t have jobs.

6. If elected, what are your goals for office?

Try to bring mens, ladies and children’s businesses downtown and grocery stores, along with jobs. I want to bring the square back to life with business.

I plan to work with the Chamber of Commerce. I talked to John Boothby for a long time before he left. I plan to talk to Josephine Kelly and Main Street Covington and to Randy Vinson, the city planning director. When you talk to those people you learn a lot.

I also want to ask people to shop at the stores we already have. We have restaurants here, I work at one, R.L.’s. We have good restaurants and stores.

On his brochure Charles Wilborn lists:

Protecting current jobs

Support and expand economic development initiatives

Revitalize the downtown development authority

Hawnethia Williams (incumbent)

1. Please list the names of your spouse and children.

Charles L. Williams, spouse, deceased

2. Please list your educational background.

Graduated as valedictorian from R.L. Cousins School (before integration)

Graduated from Clark College with honors in B.A. degree in psychology.

Graduated from Georgia State University with honors with Masters degree in Social Science Education

3. Please describe your professional background.

Taught 23 at the Monroe Area Comprehensive High School

Taught nine years at the Newton County High School and retired from NCHS in 2001

Taught G.E.D. program for the Newton County Board of Education and for Newton County Reads

4. Please describe your community/non-profit/public service background.

Former Chair of Harristown Community Neighborhood Association

Past member of the Newton County Voters League

Past member of the City of Covington Housing Board of Appeals

Past member of the City of Covington Historic Preservation Commission

Member of the Newton County M.L. King Celebration Committee

Member of Grace United Methodist Church

5. What is the most important issue facing your city?

Since my district has more blight than any other area of the city, I see the most important issues are the need for community development and providing more affordable housing, thus eliminating substandard housing.

6. If elected, what are your goals for office?

- To continue to work hard throughout my district to eliminate blight and substandard housing and to help those with foreclosures

- To work with the Urban Redevelopment Authority to attract businesses to re-invest in these blighted areas as I have been able to do in helping to get reinvestment in Harristown with the Affordable Equity Partners to build Harristown Park, a $9 million affordable senior housing facility.

- To work toward pedestrian infrastructure for my district.

- Continue networking and communication with businesses and industries.

- To work toward a grocery store  in downtown to accommodate not only the citizens of Covington, but especially the senior citizens of the High Rise.

- As I have personally advocated with community representatives to bring public access channels, on one of which the council meetings are shown. I will continue to bring transparency to my administration, by having town hall meetings to inform my constituents about the issues so they can be given more insight into the political process, therefore, providing a forum whereby they can raise their concerns.