Hello Covington!

The City Council was informed yesterday afternoon that Governor Kemp has signed into law HB 688. This bill amended the charter of the City of Covington to place term limits on the Office of Mayor and City Council, effective January 1, 2019. Moving forward, all elected officials serving the City of Covington will be limited to 4 terms (16 years of service).

The original request by the Mayor and City Council was to limit us to 3 terms, however, as you may recall, this request was met by the resistance of some of our local delegation. Apparently 4 terms was was it took to get the bill sponsored by the opposition, and the bill passed the House and the Senate this year. Interestingly enough, Senator Bill Heath (R-31) of Bremen, GA was the only vote against the bill in the Senate. The House vote went 152-5, with all of our local delegation supporting the bill.

Please reach out to the bills sponsors and let them know we appreciate their willingness to sign on.

Dale Rutledge (R - 109)

Andy Welch (R - 110)

Pam Dickerson (D - 113)

Dave Belton (R - 112)

A special shoutout as well for Senator Brian Strickland for his assistance, and an even bigger shoutout to the citizens that got involved and made their opinions known!

This was my first experience with getting a bill drafted and passed in the Gold Dome. I appreciate everyone involved in the planning, discussions, and negotiations it took to get an idea turned into a bill, then get a bill signed into law. I look forward to working on bigger ideas with the members of our local delegation in the future!

Josh McKelvey

Covington City Council