Greenback gets new mayor

Jonathan Herrmann news-herald.net

Greenback will have a new mayor for the first time in many years after Dewayne Birchfield defeated incumbent Tom Peeler 238 to 146.

“I couldn’t ask for no better turnout than what we had,” Birchfield said. “Evidently a lot of people wanted change. I don’t have anything against the mayor, but people wanted change. I guess I had the right ideas about getting the young people involved in the community.”

Peeler has served as an elected official in Greenback for four decades and decided to run again after several requests. He had previously planned to retire.

He was not upset to lose the seat, he said.

“It was the happiest day of my life, I kid you not,” Peeler said. “It felt like a big ton of weight got lifted off my shoulders.”

Peeler does believe some false information spread on Facebook may have contributed to his loss, but said he is happy to step away from the position.

Birchfield ran in hopes of getting more youth involved in the community and maintains that hope as he prepares to take office.

“We need to get together and get things for the kids to do,” Birchfield said. “… They need to have a feeling that they can do things in their city theirselves.”

He also plans to work on communicating with the community about things going on within government.

“One thing I would like to get the communication out to the people better, post what’s on the agendas and stuff like that, get it out on the website,” Birchfield said. “We could post the minutes, what’s going to be on the agenda. Then I want the people to feel like they can come to the city council meeting and have a voice in what’s going on in the city and see if we can’t come together with them.”

Robin Blankenship, Delmar Davis, Polly Evans and Johnny Walker were all re-elected as aldermen after running unopposed.