Several months ago, people began to ask me if I was going to run again - from close friends to people I had never met before. It became evident to me that I would need to go ahead and make a decision. What I want to share with you is how I went about making the decision to run again.

In 2013, I sought the office as Mayor of Statesboro, because I felt our community needed a political “shot in the arm”. Communities around us were dealing with and looking beyond the issues that had plagued their communities for years and were now flourishing. I felt Statesboro needed to take a fresh and progressive approach to governing and planning without losing what makes Statesboro and Bulloch County so special to those that live here.

It has been a little over three years since I took office, and there has been much water under the bridge as it were. City Hall is running smoothly and lean. We are in the process of developing a much needed and important strategic plan for the city to follow. Employees have seen their pay scale become commensurate with neighboring cities, and we can now focus on creating our future, instead of battling our past. We have a solid foundation from which to move forward.

In my process of discernment, I reviewed what I said four years ago. Did I still feel that way? Had I been true to what I pledged was my reason for running. This is what I said that jumped out at me, and it is a quote from the January/February 2014 issue of Statesboro Magazine.

“I was taught and continue to believe that public service is an honorable calling, and should be sought for the right reasons, not for glory, money or recognition, but because you are charged with putting things in place that will benefit the generations that you will never know, and to be the caretaker of what has been created by those before you.”

I feel that way today, much more so than I felt almost four years ago. I know our community is on the edge of a transformational period, and I have never been more honored to serve. But what is so exciting to me is what I will never see, what my great grandchildren will celebrate about our community decades and decades down the road.

Jan Moore
Mayor of Statesboro