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Mayoral Candidate LaKeisha Gantt Says She Will Represent ‘Invisible’ Communities

Clarke County Board of Education member LaKeisha Gantt announced her candidacy for mayor last week with a promise to represent marginalized communities.

Gantt launched her campaign Saturday, Sept. 20, giving speeches at three points of significance to her life, starting at the entrance to the Columbia Brookside mixed-income development. She grew up in what was formerly the Jack R. Wells public housing complex, better known as Pauldoe. She then stopped at the now-shuttered Frank C. Maddox Center on Magnolia Street, where her education began, and concluded the tour at City Hall, backed by about 50 supporters (among them Deborah Gonzalez, the former district attorney). 

“We tend not to think about what we can do for others, what we can do for the collective Athens, and that needs to change,” Gantt said. “We need leadership that’s bold and connected to the communities that are unheard.”

If elected, Gantt said she would support small and minority-owned businesses, as well as find creative new partnerships to bring more affordable housing to Athens. She noted her mixed feelings about the Pauldoe and Bethel Midtown Village redevelopment projects, which brought additional low-income housing but at the expense of destroying existing neighborhoods. 

Gantt graduated from Clarke Central High School and holds a master’s degree in community counseling and a PhD in counseling psychology from the University of Georgia.

She worked as a career counselor and behavioral specialist for the school district before being elected to the school board representing District 7 in 2018 and again in 2022. She served as its president from 2019–2024, during which time she was a staunch supporter of controversial former superintendent Demond Means before helping to hire the more widely accepted Xernona Thomas and Robbie Hooker.

One of Gantt’s colleagues on the school board, former Athens-Clarke County commissioner Tim Denson, is also in the race. So is current commissioner Dexter Fisher, a former CCSD and UGA administrator. Gantt’s candidacy is likely to draw voters both from the Black community who might have gone for Fisher and Denson’s base of mostly white progressives.

Gantt called Denson “a strong candidate,” but said that she would be better able to reach marginalized communities. “This isn’t any fault of Tim’s, but there is a segment of the population that still doesn’t think they have someone in leadership who’s connected to their struggle,” she said.

Likewise, she said that, as a native Athenian, she is better equipped to build trust with those voters than Fisher, who has lived in Athens for 35 years but is originally from North Carolina. “There’s a group of Athens people who were born here who feel invisible,” she said.

With qualifying still almost six months away, other candidates could still get into the race as well. The election will be held in May. Incumbent Mayor Kelly Girtz is limited to two consecutive terms and cannot run. 

Gantt’s campaign website is lakeishaforathens.com.

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