Big Tuesday Vote: Stonecrest Holds First-Ever Mayoral, Council Election

DECATUR, GA -- Voters go to the polls Tuesday to elect the inaugural administration in the newly created city of Stonecrest. The city, carved out of small swaths of Lithonia and unincorporated DeKalb County, is proving to hold one of the more colorful elections in recent memory.

Three candidates are vying for the mayoral seat in Stonecrest: Douglas E. Favors II, Jason Lary and Charles Hill II.

Favors, using the campaign slogan "Vote For The Beard," is hoping that his unconventional approach will sway millennials to go to the polls.

Douglas E. Favors II: Nontraditional candidate

In a Facebook video the Georgia Southern University marketing major uploaded early Tuesday, the plainspoken but charismatic candidate is seen shirtless talking to the camera about the election: "Let's surprise everybody, let's make sure everybody knows ..." he stops because he gets some hair in his mouth.

Jason Lary: 25-year health care executive

Jason Lary is a health care executive who has a broad range of corporate experience. His affiliations include the Stonecrest City Alliance, Stonecrest Yes and Leadership Dekalb. He and his wife attend Union Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, where he serves as a deacon and she a deaconess. Lary is also chairman of the Trustee Board at the church.

Charles Hill II

Hill says he has extensive experience in land development and nonprofit experience. The 2008 Morehouse College poli sci major got his Master's from Harvard University in 2012 and is about to complete the Master's program at Yale as well.

Hill's campaign has been hit with controversy after a mailer went out this past weekend claiming that he was a "bipolar manic depressive." Hill says the allegation is false and an attempt to hurt his campaign.

Read more: Stonecrest candidate says mailer falsely labels him mentally ill

Stonecrest also hopes to elect five City Council members out of eight candidates. See the Sample Ballot Sheet here.

Runoff elections, if necessary, will be held April 18.

About 19 miles to the south, the new city of South Fulton is also electing a first-time major and city council to lead the new administration, formed after the November 2016 election.

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