Qualifying for the special election to select a new council rep for post 4 ended last Wednesday at 4:30 PM. The City still hasn’t published anything on the main page of its website about who signed up to run for the Special Election to be held on Tuesday, March 15 at City Hall.. The informtion is buried on the Elections page, which few residents know about, much less monitor. The City seems inclined to let this be a silent race where the insiders quietly gather their ranks of toadies and point them in the desired direction while the larger community has no idea what is going on.
The two people who are running are Alvin Hicks and former councilman Mike Sullivan.
Both were out at the City Council work session on Monday, along with the City’s inner circle who were eager to chat them up after the meeting. I overheard some interesting commentary from Sullivan in those conversations, who seems to be taking issue with some of the public's "anger" toward the City of Sugar Hill right now. He seems compelled to explain to us all how we're completely wrong.
On his way out, I caught up to Alvin Hicks and introduced myself. We spoke briefly, until Mike Sullivan came back in, seeming a little eager to break up the conversation.
Mike Sullivan is a former councilman for the City of Sugar Hill (2006-2017). He decided not to run again for his Post 5 seat and was replaced by Taylor Anderson, who was apparently hand-picked by Sullivan and the rest of the Council as a replacement.
Since leaving office, Sullivan has remained active with the City as the Youth Council sponsor. The City named him "Volunteer of the Year" on January 28, perhaps signalling their choice for the open Council seat along with a little helpful free publicity.
I don't know very much about Alvin Hicks yet. He seems to be very active with the North Gwinnett Co-Op, which does great work for the community. As far as I can tell, he does not seem to be super connected to the City's inner circle, although he's not a total stranger to them. He seems to have friends in that group, but he's not a person whose name has repeatedly come up while I've been observing the City government for the past 3 years. That is a positive sign, as Sugar Hill could use some new people to break up the politically incestuous government system it has right now. I'm looking forward to learning more about him and his specific ideas for serving ALL THE PEOPLE of Sugar Hill.