AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – The race for Augusta-Richmond County’s next mayor is underway, and four candidates are vying for the position.

Eric Gaines, a business owner and real estate investor, said Augusta has been stuck in a cycle of broken promises for decades.

Gaines is a first-time candidate, but he said the problems he’s running on are anything but new.

“Throughout every election cycle that we have here, we’ve had the same group of individuals, I call them, I call it recycled leadership, get on the ballot running for public office, making promises in front of the community, and then when they get into office, they don’t stand behind those actual promises that they’re making,” Gaines said.

Gaines said he noticed a pattern dating back to consolidation.

“Going all the way back to consolidation, I noticed that a lot of the folks in our community are not being heard. The community at large wasn’t being heard, and so that’s the missing link in anything that we do in any type of government. We’ve got to make sure that we bring the community to the table in all decisions that we make here, because that’s the only way that we’re gonna truly thrive and make sure that every voice is heard in this county,” he said.

Infrastructure concerns

He pointed to the downtown Augusta neighborhood where he built his home as evidence of what years of neglect look like on the ground.

“One of the biggest things is infrastructure. We’re gonna, you know, we’re gonna upgrade your infrastructure. We’re gonna fix your neighborhoods. We’re gonna reduce some of the blighted structures that we have around, the overgrown vacant lots. These are some of the same typical issues that we keep hearing every election season,” Gaines said.

“Augusta’s a very old city, and when you go back and look all the way back into consolidation to now, we have not done a very great job at all when it comes to upgrading our infrastructure,” he said.

Gaines said the area where he built his house had not been touched since prior to consolidation.

“I built my house in downtown Augusta. In the actual area where I built that, that area hadn’t been touched since really, since prior to consolidation. Road is broken up, overgrown lots, just really not being able to have the actual infrastructure there to be able to even do development. And so that was one of the biggest things that pushed me, as a business owner here, a real estate investor, to really just try to take charge and figure out how we can actually make this city best and make it work for the actual community here. We’re not making practical decisions here in Augusta-Richmond County that works for our actual residents,” he said.

Augusta 2045 plan

Gaines said he has a plan to address infrastructure issues.

“I’ve come up with an actual plan, Augusta 2045 Capital Acceleration Framework. This is a 20-year vision where we actually get out there doing strategic upgrades in all of our corridors here in the, in Augusta-Richmond County,” Gaines said.

“So I want to actually do this strategically. And so the thing about it is, is that it has to match, not only infrastructure upgrades and utility improvements, but it needs to match the actual economic development that’s coming here, and so that’s the biggest thing of my actual Augusta 2045 Capital Acceleration Framework,” he said.

Budget oversight proposal

He also wants a citizen-led budget advisory committee to track how the city spends money.

“There’s also some other details in here as far as like how do we get out there running our actual finances here in Augusta, Richmond County. We’ve had a huge string of misappropriation of funds recently. And so one of the things that I want to work with the commissioners to implement is a citizen budget advisory committee, and this is the actual committee that I want the actual community to actually nominate folks onto, to work with the finance director to review projects, see where we’re at as far as completed projects and not, projects that haven’t been completed, and then also figure out where our actual money is going,” Gaines said.

“Some of those folks that I want to serve on the actual panel is some folks with some CPA background, some business owners here in the community, and just folks that have some really true experience surrounding money. And so the thing also I’ve also understood here is that we just– we’re electing folks that have no prior understanding about business or just how to do anything when it comes to growing outside of the government. And so we’ve got to really make sure we’re putting folks into office that have some technical experience, and have an actual working background to really be able to go in and further strengthen our government instead of hiring consultants every time that they get elected into office,” he said.

Government culture

Gaines said the culture in local government needs to change.

“This is what I have noticed here in our government, where we have… the culture needs to be changed here. We have a fragmented government where we have different people that are communicating with various different leaders throughout the organization, and this causes a lot of confusion throughout the organization. And so this is something that I wanna level out with the actual commissioners. But also taking a step further is implementing that Augusta 2045 Capital Acceleration Framework,” he said.

Gaines said he wants to implement a mayor roundtable.

“And then another thing too is I wanna implement as well is a mayor roundtable. So that way– And this mayor roundtable will be basically folks in our community that our folks here believe needs to– that are basically boots on the ground to provide information about what’s going on in our community,” he said.

“So I just think that a lot of the things that we’re doing here, we’re not listening to our residents. And then taking it a step further, making sure that we are implementing just overall practical things that does make sense here,” Gaines said.

Transparency pledge

“We’ve got to be transparent about how we’re running this government, whether it may be good or bad, and have it publicly displayed. This is one of the reasons why I wanna have some type of public dashboard where folks can actually go through and actually see where we’re at in our government and what we’re doing. But it also takes an actual strong leader providing clear direction about where we’re going as a city, and actually work with our actual commissioners, and not have any of the fussing and the public infighting that we have seen happen time and time again,” Gaines said.

“We’ve got to really put our actual community forward, and we’ve got to really lead by example, and that’s something that I wanna do on day one as mayor of Augusta-Richmond County,” he said.