The Norcross City Council debate on Tuesday, Oct. 6, was cancelled after one of the two candidates running in the Nov. 3 special election had to leave town amid a family emergency. A week later, it was called off for good.
Norcross PDC organizer Chuck Paul, who set up the first debate between former Mayor Bucky Johnson and former council member Jeff Allen, announced on Oct. 13 that the community forum won’t be rescheduled.
Family and health first
Paul said Allen emailed him that he would not be able to engage in a debate amid his family’s ongoing medical situation.
“I appreciate everyone’s effort in order to ‘try’ to make this happen, but to no avail,” Paul wrote. “We pray for Jeff’s family as well.”
Both candidates are former elected officials and well known in the city of about 19,000. Because voting at city hall began Tuesday, Oct. 13, ballots are already being cast.
Allen notified forum organizers and his opponent about the late-breaking family emergency on Monday, Oct. 5.
Allen and Johnson are vying for one of the city’s four council seats, which opened after Council Member Marshall Cheek died of cancer. Council members officially adopted a resolution naming the Norcross Public Safety Building’s plaza after Cheek at the Oct. 5 meeting.
Cheek in Norcross
Mayor Pro Tem Bruce Gaynor, whose item formalizing the city’s asset-naming policy was also approved, said Cheek was instrumental in ensuring the project came in under budget and on time.
“It’s been such a successful project, and he was a key person in making that happen,” Gaynor said. “Honoring him by naming the public safety building plaza after him then forever his name will be associated with that building.”
Once that project is bid out and completed, Cheek’s name will be on a couple of buildings in Norcross: the plaza of the public safety hub along Buford Highway and the Jefferson Plaza office building.
Paulson-Cheek Mechanical, co-founded by Marshall in 1998, leases space for its metro Atlanta headquarters within the 7-story building at Peachtree Industrial Boulevard and Holcomb Bridge Road. The company’s logo faces the intersection at the Norcross-Peachtree Corners border.
