The race for District 6 City Council - WALB.com, Albany News, Weather, Sports

November 3, 2005

Valdosta - Robert Yost is finishing his first term on the Valdosta city council, and says his work is obvious by simply looking at his district. "I've represented the people of my district to the best of my ability, and I think our district is better off today than it was four years ago," said Yost.

Better off because of traffic changes he voted for, and projects that are just getting started he hopes he can see through. "If you look at Gornto and Jerry Jones, Baytree and Gornto, Alden and Jerry Jones, we've improved those intersections tremendously, the traffic's flowing better, and we're also working hard on paving some of the streets and piping some of the ditches," said Yost. "We need to finish the annexation issue, work very hard on implementing a storm drain utility."

Also running for the dixtrict six seat is Director of the Lowndes Drug Action Council, Brian Flemming. He admits the city has grown under Yost's leadership, but says he falls behind in the most important area, listening to the constituents. "I'm a district six constituent, and my elected representative didn't listen to me or a lot of us, especially on the Gornto Road issue," said Flemming.

He's talking about the Gornto Road widening project, which many residents of district six strongly opposed. "There was close to 200 of us that went to city council and made our voices known, and my opponent, our current representative, did not listen to us and voted against us," said Flemming.

Flemming promises to always be accessible, and says he'll carefully consider each constituent's concern. "Each district sent their representative to the council to be their voice, that's the definition of being a leader, and that's what I want to be," said Flemming.

Now whether he gets to be that voice, or Yost continues to be, is up to the voters in district six.

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