Hinesville’s city council candidates greeted potential voters and staked out their platforms during a neighborhood town hall Friday evening.
Held in the Azalea Street neighborhood, dozens of supporters and potential voters turned out to hear the candidates running for each of the city’s five council districts and for mayor.
Karl Riles, currently the District 5 council member, and Liston Singletary III are running to replace Allen Brown, who is reaching his term limit. Brown, who previously served two four-year terms, as at the end of his second set of two four-year terms.
Riles, a Hinesville native who owns a tax preparation firm, said the wish list for those seeking office is similar.
“What you find is we all want the same thing,” he said. “On the council, 95% of our votes are unanimous. We all want more services. We all want more activities. We want safer communities and we want our sales taxes to go up so our property taxes can go down.”
The question becomes, Riles said, is who voters want to represent the city. The mayor’s job, he pointed out, is different from the council members. The mayor represents the city on various boards, including the Liberty County Development Authority and the Friends of Fort Stewart, and sits on the Coastal Regional Commission.
“There are so many things the mayor has to do and I think it is important that the person we choose to represent us everywhere is of us,” Riles said.
Riles also said the city has to decide what it wants to be and then work to get others to see it that way, whether it is the “westernmost part of Savannah” or its own center for an area that includes Long, Tattnall and McIntosh counties.
“Currently, downtown Hinesville from the Coca Cola bottling plant to Eddie Lee’s gas station, there are 11 empty buildings. That’s the heart of our city,” he said. “We need to make it easier for people to get into those businesses, who you don’t have to go to Pooler or Savannah or even Jesup. We can do that.”
Riles also pointed out how his son is living in Atlanta and how many of Hinesville’s best and brightest leave the community without returning to make a living.
“We’ve done a fine job of raising our children and sending them out into the world,” he said. “But we have neglected giving them something to come home to. We are taking our most precious resource and we’re sending them to make Richmond Hill better and to make Atlanta better. We have to listen to our youth and we have to figure out what it’s going to take to get them to come back here.”
Having the forum in the middle of the Azalea Street redevelopment was fitting, Riles said. “This is a fantastic neighborhood,” he said. “We’re talking about home ownership for generations and generations and generations.”
But he also mentioned some of those around his age who grew up there and have left the community.
“Where is Juan Luckey? But where is Greg Wilson? Where is Kareem Bacon?” he asked. “They are somewhere else making that place better. We’ve got to make it possible that the next generation can grow up here, thrive here and give us another generation of people who are from here.”
Singletary, a mediator and also a minister at Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, is a Johns Island, S.C., native and retired from the U.S. Army. He is the president and CEO of The Mediation Group and has been in Hinesville for 26 years.
“I love this city,” he said. “I feel that with my 24 years of military experience, my time in corporate America, my time working in this city, but in other surrounding counties, this state, on the national level and international level bodes me well to be suitable to be mayor.”
Singletary said the mayor is the voice of the city and is a negotiator. He said one of the priorities he will have is to reach out to potential stakeholders and industries to come to the community. Singletary said it is not up to government to build such amenities as bowling alleys and skating rinks — Hinesville was home to one in the 1980s — but the people can choose to back one through a referendum.
“So what you can expect from me as mayor? I am going to be proactive,” he said. “Don’t look for me to be behind a desk. My work is in the community. And that’s where I will be.”
The city also has to address the homelessness issue sooner rather than later, Singletary said, along with subsidized and low-income housing. Singletary said it should be OK to reach out to other cities and see what has worked for them.
He also said the community, and the Black community in particular, does not talk about the effect of trauma.
“Unless we address that deficiency, we will continue to go along that paradigm,” he said. “Some need counseling. Some may need medication. I’m not the one, but I have access to those who have the knowledge God has given them to be able to address the needs that we have in our community.”
Singletary added parents are telling him there need to more support services for the special needs community when school ends.
He also noted this is his third run for mayor.
“The first time I ran was 2015. That was just planting the seed,” he said. “The second time I ran was 2019. That was the time to give the seed a chance to germinate and grow. And now it’s harvest time, Hinesville, it’s harvest time.”
In-person early voting begins October 16 and takes place Monday through Friday until November 3, from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. each day. There are also two Saturday early voting days, October 21 and 28, from 9 a.m.-5 p.m., at the Liberty County Voter Registration and Elections Office.
Voting at the polls will be held November 7 from 7 a.m.–7 p.m. at the Charles Shuman Recreation Center.
