Elected commissioners look towards new-look City Commission

(ALBANY, GA)-Come January, there will be some fresh faces on the Albany City Commission.

In addition to new mayor, Bo Dorough, Chad Warbington will begin as the new Ward 4 Commissioner, and Demetrius Young will take on the role of Ward 6 Commissioner.

“Really, even since the election, I’ve already started meeting with staff and joining up with the key leaders in our city. And really, I would say the things I ran on for my platform are what I’ve continued to focus on,” says Warbington.

Young told us Thursday afternoon, “We have been campaigning really hard, and we’ve been talking to the neighbors, talking to the voters. And when we came in, it was almost like the celebration didn’t quite start…”

Both Warbington and Young spoke about working with the Albany police to cleanup crime in the city.

But both also have other areas they want to focus on in 2020.

Warbington asks, “How do we grow our city? How do we put things in place and what projects do we focus on to help increase population, and businesses, such as expanding ones, and start-ups.”

“Definitely one of the things that was on my platform to tackle was the Albany Parks and Rec situation. And I want to start by making sure that we put the proper allocation of funds to that department,” says Young.

In addition to tackling what the new commissioners built their platforms on, they’re interested to see how well the new figures will mesh for the Albany City Commission.

“The challenge is going to be whether or not, who’s going to embrace the status quo, what we’ve been doing before. As well as who is going to embrace change,” says Young.

Warbington tells us, “I think one of the challenges will be for us to come together as a group and learn each other, build trust with each other, and for us all to agree and say ‘hey, here are the top two or three things we should look at going forward.”

The new commissioners will be sworn into service in January.