A year after taking a buyout from Fox 5 as an investigative reporter, Randy Travis has decided to run for a City Council seat in Lawrenceville.
In November, he will face off against incumbent Austin Thompson, an engineer and operations analyst who is serving his first four-year term in office.
Travis, who came to WAGA-TV in 1990 and worked for the recently disbanded I-Team for 28 years, first caught the public service bug after joining a citizens review finance committee.
The 63-year-old University of Georgia graduate has lived in Gwinnett County for 35 years, first in Snellville, then just outside of Lawrenceville for 24 years. Last year, he and his wife, Joan, purchased a home in Lawrenceville. His oldest daughter, he noted, also graduated from Georgia Gwinnett College in Lawrenceville.
“We love the city,” Travis told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We love the potential for an even better way of life. In the future, I really want to spend my life serving the public this way.”
Travis said he has no specific issues with his opponent, Thompson.
“When I was a reporter, I felt viewers benefited when multiple reporters were chasing the same story,” he said. “It makes you work harder. When I’m running a marathon, I run faster when someone is ahead of me or next to me than when I’m by myself. I think voters deserve a choice. They will be more engaged.”
Thompson, who spoke to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Sunday by phone from the Georgia Municipal Association convention in Savannah, said he doesn’t know Travis personally but has seen him on TV for many years.
“He has that right” to run, Thompson said. “I’ve done my service to the community. I looked forward to another four years.”
Credit: WAGA-T
Credit: WAGA-T
Travis said he never considered running for office while he was reporting on politicians.
“I always consider myself a journalist,” he said. “We are watchdogs of government. We keep government in check. When I was on the I-Team, I’d take on Democrats and Republicans. After I got out, I wondered what it would be like to be a watchdog from the inside.”
Travis likes the fact that the council is nonpartisan.
“I think government works best if parties are not involved,” he said. “The Founding Fathers initially didn’t want political parties.”
Travis hopes his time on air has instilled faith in people that “I will tell the truth even if they don’t like the truth. I know how to talk to people and understand their concerns. I am comfortable talking to people from any walk of life.”
His opponent, Thompson, loves meeting constituents, holding “office hours” at 9 to 11 a.m. every first and third Saturday at Euro Gourmet, an Eastern European cafe and grocery store in Lawrenceville. He also cares deeply about improving economic growth and entrepreneurship in the city and hopes one day to bring a tech village to the area. He also encourages builders to set aside a percentage of any development to affordable housing.
Credit: City of Lawr
Credit: City of Lawr
In a 52-minute reelection video, Thompson noted how he has worked to add more sidewalks and ensure streetlights work. He is proud of a new dog park. And as a Guyana immigrant, he said he is proud to highlight the city’s increasing multiculturalism.
“My vision for Lawrenceville is a city open to all who wish to embrace it as their own,” Thompson wrote in a detailed vision plan for his second term. “I am proud of the work I have done since 2021, and I plan to expand my sphere of influence in preparation to serve this great city for another four years with all stakeholders in mind. Austin 2.0 is ready to go!!”
His advice to young people interested in public office: “Never do it for yourself. It’s always about the people: those who elected you and those who didn’t.”
Credit: City of Lawrenceville
Credit: City of Lawrenceville
The city, which has a population of about 31,000, is financially healthy with its own gas and electric company, Travis said. And because Lawrenceville is the county seat, it has plenty of government buildings, meaning 40% of the property in the city is nontaxable.
“One of my big pushes is to try to encourage new smart growth for properties to be redeveloped and bring in new housing,” Travis said. “Affordable housing to executive housing. That will take off the burden of the people who already live here.”
And now that he’s retired, he said, “I have a lot of time to devote to what is essentially a part-time job.” (The annual pay is a modest $12,600.)
For the past 20 years, Travis has been master of ceremonies for the tree lighting on the Gwinnett Historic Courthouse in downtown Lawrenceville. “It’s my favorite live shot of the year,” he said. “It’s me and Santa, and we have a blast! I stand on this little balcony built into the side of the courthouse, read poems and sing Christmas carols.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Travis is following a path only a few journalists in metro Atlanta have gone down in recent years.
Dontaye Carter, briefly a reporter at what was then WGCL-TV (now WANF-TV) and 11Alive a decade ago, is currently running for mayor of Sandy Springs.
Former WSB-TV reporter Dale Cardwell in 2008 ran for Senate but failed to unseat U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss even after a publicity stunt in which he sat on top of Corey Tower off the nexus of I-85, I-75 and I-20.
Mo Ivory, a former talk show host on WAOK and V-103, pursued a seat on the Atlanta City Council in 2017 and lost, but easily defeated an incumbent this past November to win a spot on the Fulton County Commission. Consumer affairs reporter and talk show host Clark Howard, back in the 1990s, briefly considered running for Atlanta mayor but decided to stick with his syndicated radio show.
Credit: NATRICE MILLER
Credit: NATRICE MILLER
Steen Miles, an 11Alive reporter from 1984 to 1999, was a Georgia Senator from 2005 to 2007. She died in 2017 at age 70.
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