Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Charlotte Reames

 

EDITOR’S NOTE: These results do not include 381 absentee by mail voting. These were the total number of votes received by 12:30 a.m. ET, at the time of print. Final results can be found on lagrangenews.com as they become available.

 

Once again, a new mayor will be sworn in for the city of LaGrange. In his second time running in as many years, Jim Arrington has won the seat for mayor with 2,419 votes as of the publishing of this article.

“I’m ecstatic,” Arrington said. “The results have been dragging in. So there’s just kind of been a little bit of emotions but yes I’m very excited, very ecstatic and humbled to receive that many votes from the city of LaGrange.”

Arrington, a former city council member, gave up his seat to run against the late Dr. Willie T. Edmondson for the role of mayor in 2022 and lost. After Edmondson’s sudden and unexpected passing, Arrington once again qualified to run for the role. 

This time around, Arrington ran against Chalton Askew and Dr. Israel Barsh in the special election. Askew was a supporter of Edmondson during his campaign and now serves as executive director of the Racial Trust Building Initiative in LaGrange. 

Askew has 818 votes and Barsh has 86 votes, at the time of publication. 

Barsh, a US military veteran, is the LaGrange City Worship Embassy Church’s Senior Prophet and was the founder and former principal of the K-12 Academy of Excellence in Washington. 

Looking ahead, Arrington said, “The first thing on the agenda is to figure that budget out. I haven’t seen it, and I’ve been sitting in with them but they have not presented it to any of the council yet.”

“I just want to say thank you to my family, and my campaign committee and my close friends and to the citizens of LaGrange that voted for me and have that respect for me and want to see me as mayor,” Arrington said. 

Askew told the LDN that he was not ready to make a statement at the time of publishing.