I promised an analysis of the 2025 District 3 election in Milton, so here it is. It is possible that this will be my only post before election day. (See Note 1.) We’ll see. Perhaps, events will play out such that I feel obliged to publish additional posts. BTW, early voting began October 13th. Election day is November 4th.
The District 3 race is the only competitive race this election cycle and pits a political George McFly (Back to the Future), incumbent Jan Jacobus, against a political Mr. Magoo, challenger Ike Yancy. Suffice to say, the District 3 race is not a battle of the Titans, but rather more of a school-boy tussle between two political flyweights. Unfortunately, citizens should not expect a ferocious debate about serious issues that Miltonites care about.
Let me be blunt. Neither candidate deserves the honor and privilege of representing the fine citizens of Milton. Miltonites deserve better . . . much better. However, elections often present voters with suboptimal—and in this case, unsatisfactory–choices. (That is why voters should have the option of “none-of-the-above” on ballots.) And that is the case with the District 3 race. Neither candidate clears the bar for acceptability. However, neither candidate is so unacceptable that I feel compelled to endorse his opponent.
While I cannot endorse either candidate, there is a preferred candidate and that is Jan Jacobus.
Below I will discuss my impressions—good but often bad—of both candidates. I hope my analysis is useful to citizens. However, I would certainly urge voters to attend a candidate meet-and-greet, to visit the candidates’ websites/Facebook pages, and to review each candidate’s campaign finance reports. Following is a link to the Milton Coalition page providing links to each candidate’s website, Facebook page, etc.
Following are my impressions of each candidate.
Jan Jacobus is the incumbent. He is the George McFly in this race. He is fundamentally a low-energy, passive, go-along-to-get-along council member. He is the weakest member of council . . . an archetypal back-bencher. I believe he only ran for council because the Crooked Creek HOA board (on which he served) decided it always needs a representative on council to protect/advance Crooked Creek’s interests. Perhaps good for Crooked Creek, but potentially adverse to broader community interests. Milton deserves council members that represent all citizens, not a narrow constituency.
In 2021, Jacobus slid onto council without opposition. And to my knowledge, before joining council, he did nothing to engage citizens about their concerns and aspirations. At the time, I criticized Jacobus for this passivity. Unfortunately, his lack of engagement carried over to Jacobus’s tenure on council . . . with one notable and important exception that I will discuss later. Jacobus is not one to make waves. He stood idly by while Council Members Rick Mohrig and Paul Moore ran amuck in Milton’s city government. This includes the Paul Moore ethics scandal, council intrusion into HOA minutiae, and Milton’s corrupt election design process. Jacobus even voted to eliminate a polling location in his own district. Jacobus was the ONLY council member that remained aligned with Moore and Mohrig until the bitter end: Moore’s withdrawal from the District 2 race and Mohrig’s stinging election defeat. The other four council members (belatedly but thankfully) came to their senses and endorsed challengers Hene and Cranmer. Jacobus said nothing about Mohrig’s bypassing the city manager to direct staff; about Mohrig’s misbehavior in designing Milton’s elections; about Mohrig’s ridiculous hacking claims; or about Mohrig’s trampling a citizen’s basic civil rights when he trespassed on said citizen’s property to conduct an unauthorized investigation. Not a peep. It reminds me of the quote from Edmund Burke: “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.”
So given these troubling negatives, why the preference for Jacobus?
First, there is one important policy issue where Jacobus has (belatedly) taken the lead: the master plan for the Deerfield/Highway 9 area. It took Phil Cranmer’s election to council to motivate Jacobus on this issue, but he has finally risen to the occasion and reportedly is the lead council member on this important initiative. And it is certainly worth noting that Jacobus’s challenger Yancy has been effusive in his praise for the proposed master plan. So there is certainly an argument to be made that, given his leadership role in the Deerfield/Highway 9 master plan, Jacobus probably should be allowed finish his work on this important initiative.
Second, while I typically have a soft spot for challengers/underdogs (and the energy and new ideas they bring), I believe Jacobus’s council experience, particularly when contrasted with Yancy’s cluelessness, is a strength.
Third, Jacobus is a do-no-harm sort of candidate . . . much preferred to a potentially harmful candidate such as Mr. Yancy . . . as I will discuss below.
Now, let’s take a look at Ike Yancy, who is the challenger and underdog. Yancy is the Mr. (J. Quincy) Magoo in the District 3 race. Yancy’s defining characteristic is his cluelessness. I’m not sure why he’s running and I’m not sure he even knows. I’ve examined his NextDoor postings and campaign website/Facebook page and have come to the inescapable conclusion that he suffers from extreme political nearsightedness and lacks the will/means to remedy his political myopia. I’ve never seen him speak at council or even attend council meetings. Even now in the throes of an election campaign, he is not attending council meetings. Troubling, to say the least.
Mr. Yancy’s singular focus is on the Highway 9 widening project. I applaud Mr. Yancy for engaging on this issue. He has been the loudest and most consistent critic of this project . . . and there has been much to criticize, including inadequate city supervision/engagement. However, based on his most recent utterings on the issue, it seems Mr. Yancy is mostly fine with the current design. When you strip back his musings on this issue—some of which are wild exaggerations (e.g., 100s of acres and 1000s of trees lost in Milton)—Mr. Yancy’s platform on Highway 9 boils down to the width of sidewalks. He advocates for 4-foot vs. 8-foot (current design) sidewalks. Highway 9 sidewalk widths seem to be the centerpiece of Yancy’s campaign. It’s a relatively trivial issue that most citizens likely don’t care about. And if they do, I suspect most would disagree with Mr. Yancy.
So why is widening Highway 9 such a big deal for Mr. Yancy? Well, Mr. Yancy lives in a townhome community along Highway 9. This is a personal issue for him. Yancy has been clear in asserting that the Highway 9 project is negatively impacting property values . . . that is, he has a financial stake in this matter. On social media, he has ranted about the road widening project (and perhaps he is correct about its impact on property values). But this gets us to a critical point. If Yancy ascends to council, based on his postings about the financial impact of the Highway 9 project on homeowners like himself, it seems Yancy has a clear (financial) conflict of interest. I believe Mr. Yancy would have to recuse himself when Highway 9 issues come before council. That he does not realize this conflict speaks to his naiveté. Citizens might recall that the Paul Moore ethics scandal consumed city resources and city council attention for over a year. Despite spending $100,000+, Moore was found guilty of 3 ethics violations, including financial conflict-of-interest. Perhaps Mr. Yancy will assert that he will assume the ethics risk and not recuse himself from Highway 9 project matters. However, is it fair or responsible for Yancy to subject council and citizens to yet another drawn-out ethics inquiry that would shame the city and drain government resources and attention? Considering Mr. Moore’s ethics convictions, I am quite sure that Mr. Yancy would not beat an ethics complaint filed against him. And I believe that this time around, he would find little sympathy/support (unlike with Paul Moore) from council or city staff. It strikes me that Yancy would have greater impact on Highway 9 issues continuing as a community advocate than as an elected but ethically recused council member.
One other point regarding Highway 9. Council recently (September 15) approved a Memorandum of Understanding with the Georgia Department of Transportation regarding the Highway 9 project. A perfect time for candidate Yancy to show up, address council, and voice his concerns, right? Unfortunately, Mr. Yancy was a no-show. Perhaps, even Mr. Yancy realizes his objections to the Highway 9 improvement project is not his ticket to city council. Mind you, there are other serious issues that Mr. Yancy could run on and win. However, he seems not to be aware of (most of) them. Some of these issues (but not all) involve problems that his ex-council member supporters (like Laura Bentley) would prefer he not broach because of their complicity in creating these problems . . . so perhaps Mr. Yancy finds himself politically hamstrung regarding certain issues.
Enough about Highway 9. I have several other concerns about Mr. Yancy. Like Mr. Jacobus, Mr. Yancy was also a Mohrig supporter, albeit much more strident. That should be a big red flag for voters. Given Yancy’s unwavering support for Mohrig, in the face of so much misconduct by Mohrig, it seems fair to ask whether Yancy would comport himself in a similar fashion? Would he bypass the city manager to direct staff (in violation of the Milton city charter)? Would he conduct unauthorized investigations of citizens that violate the basic civil rights of those citizens? Would Yancy observe Georgia’s open meetings/records laws? Would Yancy countenance committees that operate like Milton’s errant election design committee? Would Yancy lodge ridiculous complaints that waste valuable government resources?
Yet another issue is some of Mr. Yancy’s Nextdoor postings, which not only highlight his lack of situational awareness, but also raise concerns about his judgment and his potential for recklessness.
It is interesting to note that Mr. Yancy invoked his veteran status to criticize Mohrig’s opponent Phil Cranmer for not voting in municipal elections, never mind that Cranmer served on Milton’s Parks and Recreation Committee for 5 years prior to his election to council . . . a much more serious demonstration of civic duty (than voting). Frankly, Mr. Yancy’s post was a cheap shot. For Yancy, Cranmer’s failure to vote was an egregious civic sin that warranted a scathing Nextdoor post, while Mohrig’s trampling of a citizen’s basic civil liberties went uncommented upon. This leads me to question Mr. Yancy’s judgment and/or lack of situational awareness.
A few other Nextdoor postings from Mr. Yancy are even more troubling. In one posting, he posted a link to a salacious political video whose creator is anonymous. The video was a hit piece that was short on facts and long on innuendo. In another posting, Mr. Yancy provided a link to a radical media website that has been judged by non-partisan media fact-check organizations to be highly biased and non-factual. Many of this media site’s story bylines are “staff writers.” Let’s be honest . . . anonymous posters/creators/reporters can say anything; they are not credible. By citing such anonymous sources, Mr. Yancy impugns his own credibility and provides troubling insights into how he gathers and processes information. Such postings do not inspire confidence that Yancy is a person that will dig deep and rely on facts and logic to make decisions on behalf of citizens.
Lastly, I am concerned about Mr. Yancy’s connections to certain former council members, particularly Laura Bentley. In 2023, when Paul Moore and Rick Mohrig exited council, the last of Milton’s political dinosaurs were put to pasture. Good riddance. For 17 years, Milton’s long-warring factions had bickered with each other over nonsense while important citizens’ priorities often languished. The current council has had to repair a lot of damage associated with Bentley-Moore-Mohrig era (2018 – 2023) . . . with additional mending still to accomplish. However, the current council is working well together and increasingly focused on Milton’s future, such as revitalizing the Deerfield/Highway 9 area (Mr. Jacobus’s focus area). A emphasis on the future and citizen prerogatives needs to be maintained and intensified . . . and the ghosts of past councils need to be kept at bay. Given his association with past politicians and his political cluelessness, a real danger exists that Mr. Yancy might (wittingly or unwittingly) provide these former council members an avenue for disrupting a future-leaning, citizen-centric council agenda.
Ordinarily, I am sympathetic to underdogs/challengers (having been one myself for much of my 10 years of involvement in local politics). And council certainly does need a member that will more forcefully challenge the status quo, with a particular emphasis on improving Milton’s governance model (how things get done): more accountability; increased transparency; higher integrity standards; improved competence; and greater fairness. Unfortunately, Mr. Yancy does not strike me as such an agent for change, but rather he seems to be a throw-back to an ugly past that Milton needs to move beyond.
Having said all that, I applaud Mr. Yancy for challenging Mr. Jacobus and forcing him to earn his seat on council. And I congratulate Yancy for his advocacy regarding Highway 9 (although I don’t agree with all his stances). I realize my criticism of Mr. Yancy (and Mr. Jacobus) is harsh. I do not mean to imply Yancy (or Jacobus) are bad people. I suspect both are good fathers, sons, husbands, colleagues, neighbors, and friends. However, Mr. Yancy’s obvious cluelessness combined with the questionable company he is keeping present a real-and-present danger. Unfortunately, it is the case that clueless council members in the clutches of unscrupulous politicians and political activists are easily compromised and often corrupted. The risk for such corruption seems high (and perhaps unacceptable) with Mr. Yancy. Little such risk exists with Mr. Jacobus, who is a mostly do-no-harm, experienced council member who is (belatedly) providing positive leadership of the Deerfield/Highway 9 (re)design initiative. Jacobus seems the better of these two underserving candidates.
Advocating For Good Governance
Tim
Note 1: Readers need to understand that posts like this one require a lot of time and effort. Publishing a blog is not a trivial exercise. It necessitates a big investment to discover facts; to work through the logic; to find the right message; to identify graphics; and to choose the right words. A typical long-form post (like the above post) requires 10+ hours.
Milton Coalition 