Democrat Devin Pandy has announced his intentions to run for mayor of Gainesville.
Pandy, who was the Democratic nominee in November's 9th District Congressional race, talked Monday on WDUN's Martha Zoller Show about his plans to run for local office.
"Gainesville is a wonderful place," said Pandy, who recently moved to the city. "[But] there's a lot of potential that's being left on the table in Gainesville and we need to be encouraging and supporting all of our businesses, including our Black and Latino-owned businesses."
Pandy said as someone of both Black and Latino heritage, he's the right person to help those businesses.
"Nearly half of this city is Hispanic, yet there has never been someone from that side of town elected to office," Pandy said.
The retired Army officer said he's also concerned about the lack of affordable housing in the city. Pandy said houses are being built, but they're too expensive for a large part of the population. He pointed to county statistics, saying they impact the city of Gainesville, as well.
"With about 40% of the county's population being classified as low-income, they're unable to afford housing costing more than $135,000, yet only three percent of new construction homes in Hall County are priced under $200,000, " Pandy said. "The average selling price of a home in Hall County is $291,000."
Pandy said he also believes more needs to be done to improve public transportation in the city.
To date, Pandy is the only Democrat to announce his candidacy. Republican City Councilman Sam Couvillon has also announced his intentions to run for the office. Two other candidates - local businessman Morgan House and longtime council member George Wangemann - also announced plans to run, but both have since decided against seeking the office. Current Mayor Danny Dunagan announced in April he would not run for re-election as mayor; instead, he plans to run for the city council post now held by Couvillon.
