Just last week, on Tuesday, August 25th, the city of Gaffney elected a new mayor. This came after a runoff between the top two candidates who received the most votes on the original election date, August 11th.

There were five candidates who decided to run for mayor in the August 11th election: Henry L. Jolly, Bernestine Dawkins, Randy Moss, Bernard Smith, and Steph Smith. Prior to this election, Henry Jolly has served as mayor of Gaffney for the past 20 years. He decided to run again this year in hopes of being elected for his sixth and final time.

After the first election on August 11, it was revealed that Bernestine Dawkins got 143 votes, Henry Jolly got 351 votes, Randy Moss got 641 votes, Bernard Smith got 609 votes, and Steph Smith got 789 votes. In order for a candidate to win they have to win at least 50% of the vote, which none of them were able to do. In this instance, there is a runoff between the two candidates with the most votes, which happened to be Randy Moss and Steph Smith.

After the August 25th runoff election, Dr. Randy Moss ended up winning with 56% of the votes even, though he acquired less votes than councilwoman Steph Smith in the original election on August 11th. This could possibly be because of Bernard Smith’s endorsement for Moss after he lost the election the first time around.

Dr. Moss says he plans to get straight to work on fulfilling his duty as mayor. Some of the things he intends on accomplishing are improving the roads and restoring the beauty of our city, as well as developing a public transportation system and a community center.

Wishing Dr. Randy Moss a successful term as he serves as mayor of the city of Gaffney!