Two Men, One race, One winner

Two of Georgia College & State University’s own are running for the 4th District seat on Milledgeville’s City Council.

GC&SU student and President of Pi Kappa Alpha, Ray Nestlehut as well as the Director of Public Safety for GC&SU and current Milledgeville City Council member Ken Vance are running for the District 4 seat of the council. All six council seats, as well as the office of mayor, are currently up for election. The election for all city council members as well as the office of mayor for Milledgeville, Georgia will be held on November 6th, 2001.

“District 4 is the Historic district, then the downtown area, then it goes west out to the Bypass area, and then there is a section of District 4 that is around Central State Hospital,” Vance said.

Nestlehut, the President of the fraternity Pi Kappa Alpha, feels that he has a good chance of winning the seat, even though he is running against Vance, a 20-year incumbent in District 4.

“I was talking to a couple of buddies of mine, and somebody said that I should run for city council. After hearing that I could probably win if I did in fact run and some thinking, I decided to run,” Nestlehut said.

Vance feels he has a good chance of winning as well, based on his experience and past results. Although he is running against a student for the position of District 4 representative for city council, he sees Nestlehut as the only another person running for the same position and not against him.

“I have only had opposition two other times, and those were about eight years ago and sixteen years ago. To me, I don’t look at him as a student, I look at him as another person wanting to run for city council. Because if you divide it, then you’re saying it’s a student versus Ken Vance, and it’s not. It’s another person, hopefully running against another person who is running for city council,” Vance said. “I don’t run against people. I am running for the office. I am not running against anybody. Just because that person is a student makes no difference to me.”

Both candidates have strategies for getting votes from registered voters within the fourth district. Vance and Nestlehut both feel they have support from the community and have been active in their own ways to secure votes.

“I will do more as it gets closer (to the election). What I try to do is go visit people one on one. I don’t do signs. I’d rather go door to door–you know, just go and knock on people’s doors the old fashioned way,” Vance said.

“I think I have a very good chance of winning. I feel my percentage is very high, but I couldn’t put an exact number on it. I think that not just college students will vote for me. I have had many people from the Milledgeville area say that they were going to vote for me. I feel my biggest competitor will be the people voting themselves, because if nobody votes then I do not get those votes. I have been trying to let people know how important it is to vote and that their votes actually does matter,” Vance said

Nestlehut feels that his fresh attitude and willingness to listen gives him a good chance for securing the seat. Vance, on the other hand, feels his experience, training, and current knowledge of the law gives him an advantage in the race.

“I feel that I would be a newer face int city council, and I feel that this city needs that. I am open-minded, and I am a really good listener,” Nestlehutt said.

“One is experience, and that’s a double-edge sword: one side is good experience, and the other’s bad experience. Currently, I serve on three state boards; one is a peace officer standards and training board, which governs the training and discipline of every law enforcement and correction officer in the state of Georgia. I’m very proud of that,” Vance said.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 19 2001. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry