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Hinesville City Council District 1: Reid, Winn face off for open seat
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Editor's note: This article has been revised to reflect the following correction, which will appear in Sunday's print edition. Hinesville City Council District 1 candidate Cathey Winn pursued a marketing degree at Savannah Technical College, but did not obtain it. Because of incorrect information supplied to the Coastal Courier, it was inaccurately reported in a front-page article Wednesday that she had obtained a degree.

The seat for the Hinesville District 1 seat is open for a new face because its current occupant, Mayor Pro Tem Charles Frasier, is running for mayor.

Diana Reid, 57, works at the Liberty County Development Authority and has been a resident of Hinesville since 1962. She is a graduate of Bradwell Institute and a single mother of three, as well as a grandmother.

She is currently getting her degree in business management from Savannah Technical College, but she said it hasn’t always been easy.
“But I’ve stopped several times to take care of my mother,” Reid said. “Then I stopped another time to assist my daughter. So I’ve made sacrifices along the way for everybody else, so now is my turn to go back and finish.”

Her top issues concern the community and her constituents.

“My ideal is actually to strengthen the community,” Reid said. “I think a lot of times, people forget that your main focus should be the public, not so much as your personal agenda, and you can’t make vain promises. You have to first get in touch with people to see what they would like to have in this community.”

Reid also supports the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax because it strengthens the community.

“I think that way you know we all get (the) opportunity to contribute you know to something that not only helps strengthen the city but the county as well,” she said.

Reid said she has a heart to serve her community and has a listening ear.

“I am a woman of God. And I don’t do anything unless I’m there by the spirit of God,” Reid said. “And my main thing is to serve and to give back to the community that gave to me.”

Cathey Winn, 58, works as a Realtor at Realty Executives Liberty and has been in the real-estate business for more than 20 years. A lifelong Hinesville resident, she has two children and two grandchildren.

A graduate of Bradwell who once pursued a marketing degree from Savannah Technical College, Winn said that she has been in sales all her life and enjoys helping people.

“And that’s what made me decide to go for City Council,” she said, “because I feel like I can bring something to the table, you know, with a real-estate background. It helps.”

She said she has always felt that the American dream was of homeownership and that her vision is to see “Hinesville, Liberty County, to be the coastal living community of choice.”

Other important issues for Winn include encouraging affordable housing and employment.

“It’s hard for people, some of them — I meant the locals — to find a decent job,” she said. “So I want to encourage employment so we can strengthen our — when we give people employ(ment), then that means that we want to keep the money local, and it would be local.”
As a councilwoman, Winn said she would not only care about District 1 but also all of Hinesville.

“To see that we have smart growth, that if our kids go to college and come back home to Hinesville that they would be able to find a job here,” she said. “To live here because most of them do want to come back home.”

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