Some of you will understand this. Some of you will question it. Both reactions are fair.

I am running for Ashburn City Council.

I could have announced that with a picture and a slogan. But y’all know I have never been short on words. 😂 And this one has some hard parts in it. So read it all the way through.

ASHBURN RAISED ME

Before the master’s degree, before the business, before I ever held an office, I was a young Black boy from right here — with dreams that felt bigger than what the world expected out of a boy from Ashburn.

Turner County educated me. The people here encouraged me, corrected me, and prayed for me.

Everything I have become has roots in this dirt.

SOMEBODY’S GOING TO SAY I LEFT ASHBURN

Yes, I travel. My work takes me to other cities and other countries. And when it doesn’t take me, I still go — because I have never been anywhere that didn’t teach me something I could bring back here.

I won’t apologize for that. It’s a big part of why I want more for this place.

I have walked through downtowns the size of ours that are full on a Tuesday night. Same size town. Same size budget. Somebody there just decided it was possible.

Here’s the other thing I’ve learned out there. Grant money lives online now — the applications, the deadlines, all of it. The towns bringing that money home are the ones with somebody who knows the systems and sits down and files.

Ashburn should not lose a single dollar because nobody filled out a form.

I didn’t come home wishing Ashburn were somewhere else. I came home knowing what’s possible here.

Ashburn is home. It has always been home.

LET’S TALK ABOUT THE PART YOU’RE ALREADY THINKING ABOUT

I’ve left office before. Some of you will say more than once.

Here’s what happened. Support I thought I had didn’t hold.

What I’ll own is what I did next. I let it get to me. I got to where I couldn’t move anything, and I decided that sitting in a seat holding a title while nothing changed for you wasn’t worth doing.

I thought that was the honest choice. I see it differently now. Y’all were the ones who lost the seat. That’s mine.

Here’s what I know now that I didn’t know then. I did speak up. I just decided it wasn’t worth much if I couldn’t win the vote behind it.

I was wrong about that. Being the voice in the room is the work. It’s not the consolation prize for losing.

So that’s what I can promise you no matter how any vote goes: you will know what’s going on in your city. Not a flyer taped to a door — information that reaches you where you already are.

And one more thing is different. I look at some of the people sitting on that council now and I see folks who genuinely want to move this city forward. Nobody builds anything alone. I don’t think I’d be alone.

If you trust me with this seat, I will finish the term. And if life ever put that in question, you would hear it from me first, and you would hear all of it.

But Ashburn deserves more than a conversation about my past.

WHEN DID WE STOP ASKING FOR THINGS?

Somewhere along the way, this town got talked out of expecting much.

You hear it in how people say it. We’re too small for that. That’s not gonna happen here. That’s a Tifton thing, an Albany thing, an Atlanta thing.

I understand where it comes from. People here have been promised things before and watched nothing come of it. After enough of that, wanting less starts to feel like protecting yourself.

But I’ve seen what towns our size are actually pulling off right now, and I’m telling you the ceiling we’ve accepted is not a real ceiling.

You are allowed to want more for Ashburn. That’s not being unrealistic. That’s the first step of every single thing that ever got built anywhere.

THE PEOPLE ALREADY DOING THE WORK

We have city employees who show up — the public works crew out in that July heat, whoever’s fixing a water line at two in the morning. They deserve support and the tools to do the job.

I’m not running because I think nobody is doing anything right. I’m running because I believe I can bring another set of ideas to the table.

WE START WITH OUR PEOPLE

No company plants itself in a town where the workforce isn’t ready, the streets are rough, and the houses are falling in. And if one does, it won’t stay long.

So we start with our children, our neighborhoods, and the way this place feels to live in. Not because business matters less — because this is the order that actually works.

Community development is where economic development begins.

OUR YOUNG PEOPLE NEED MORE THAN A BUILDING

Ashburn has a youth resource center. A building is not the same as a resource.

Right now it’s a place. It could be a program. Tutoring. Job skills. A computer that works. Somewhere to be on a Friday night that isn’t the street.

The city does not operate our school system. But we control what happens after 3:30, in the summer, and on the weekends — and we can put something real in those hours.

Here’s what I actually want out of it. I want a kid from here to stand up in a room full of strangers, say what they want to be, say where they’re from — and be proud of both.

Our educators cannot carry the future of our children alone.

A COMMUNITY OUR CHILDREN WILL WANT TO COME HOME TO

We see roads that need work and water lines that keep breaking.

We see Tom Whitsett Park sitting quiet, when it ought to be full of ball games and grandmothers in lawn chairs.

We see houses falling in while families can’t find a decent place to rent.

I believe that park can be full again. I believe we can rehabilitate neglected property and help more families move from renting to owning. And I believe a community garden can put a fourteen-year-old and a seventy-year-old on the same row of dirt.

Community development is not just about property. It is about pride.

WE BURY PEOPLE TOO EARLY

Every one of us knows somebody managing sugar, blood pressure, or a heart condition. A lot of us are that somebody.

And in this town, if you decide you want to start walking — where do you go? The sidewalk runs out. You end up on the shoulder of the road with cars coming around the curve.

A safe place to walk is not a luxury. It’s the one thing a seventy-year-old and a fifteen-year-old can both do, for free, every single day. It’s the cheapest health program a city can build.

I brought a walking trail grant to that table once. I couldn’t get it through. I’d like another run at it.

WHEN YOU CALL, SOMEBODY SHOULD COME

Our officers, our firefighters, our first responders — they’re not strangers here. They went to school with us. Some of them are our cousins.

A city our size can’t outbid Tifton or Albany on pay, and we lose good people because of it. That’s an honest council conversation to have.

But I’ll say the other part too. Safety in a town like ours has never come only from a badge. It comes from people knowing each other. It comes from a kid having somewhere to be on a Friday night. It comes from a street where the lights work and somebody’s looking out.

That runs both ways, and it has to. I believe most folks here — in uniform and out of it — want the exact same thing for this town.

THE PEOPLE WHO BUILT THE WAY

Our older residents worked, raised us, and held these churches and schools together. They should not feel forgotten in a city they built.

Our veterans deserve more than a mention on a holiday — real help getting the benefits they earned, and a seat at the table, because their discipline is exactly what our young people need to see up close.

And when somebody in this town loses a loved one, the plates show up before the paperwork does. That’s the church. The city has no business running the church, and the church is not a campaign stop. But we can work alongside our faith community as partners, while staying welcoming to every resident, whatever they believe.

WE ARE SITTING ON SOMETHING

Most towns in Georgia would trade anything for what we already have. I-75 runs right past us. The state has it designated as an official freight corridor, and 85% of everything shipped in Georgia moves by truck.

Companies spend millions trying to get close to a road like that. We were born on it.

But here’s the part we don’t say out loud. A company deciding where to put jobs doesn’t just look at a map. Somebody drives in. They take the exit, they come down the road, and in about four minutes they’ve decided whether this is a town on the way up or a town on the way down.

That’s why the empty buildings matter. That’s why the park matters. It’s not about looking pretty.

Fixing up Ashburn is not separate from bringing jobs to Ashburn. It is how we bring jobs to Ashburn.

RIBBON CUTTINGS ARE NOT ENOUGH

Badcock. Rite Aid. KFC. The bakeries. The bars.

Now, some of that had nothing to do with us. When a chain files bankruptcy up north, Ashburn doesn’t get a vote. But some of it did have to do with us. And I don’t believe this city has ever sat down and worked out which is which.

I believe our downtown can be full of businesses again.

Go after new investment, yes. But take care of the businesses already here. Sit down with the owners we’ve got and learn what’s in their way. Then call the ones who left and ask them straight: why?

If we never learn why businesses keep leaving, we can’t build the conditions that make the next one stay.

ALL OF US OR NONE OF US

A lot of people in this town are carrying something right now. Grief. Loss. Old hurt that never got answered.

Some of it is personal. Some of it is between folks who used to sit at the same table. And some of it goes back further than any of us.

I’m not going to pretend this town’s history is simple. It isn’t, and you’d know I was lying if I tried.

But there is no version of Ashburn that comes back with only some of us in it. Not one. Black and white, young and old, people in the pew and people who haven’t been in a while — a town this size does not have anybody to spare.

I’m not asking anybody to forget what they’ve been through. I’m asking whether we can build something together while we carry it.

WHAT I AM PROMISING

I am not promising to fix Ashburn by myself. I am promising to show up, listen before I assume, chase every grant dollar I can find, keep you informed, and stay when it gets hard.

Ashburn does not need another person chasing a title.

In the coming weeks I will release the full plan — The Ashburn Comeback Plan: Not a list of promises made to win an election. A starting point, with real goals you can hold me to.

And I’m not dropping it on you all at once. I’ll be posting on the things I care most about. Our young people. Our parks and our neighborhoods. Our roads and our water lines. Our elders and our veterans. Public safety. Our businesses. Housing.

One at a time. So you can see exactly what I mean.

And if something matters to you and it’s not on that list — tell me. I’d rather hear it before than after.

THE COMEBACK

I have seen what Ashburn was. I see what Ashburn is.

But when I look at our children, our elders, our veterans, our churches, and the people who flat-out refuse to give up on this place — I can see what Ashburn can be.

This city gave me a home, and I’m ready to give some back.

I am James Burgess, and I am running for Ashburn City Council because I still believe in this city.

And when I say comeback, I don’t mean going backwards. I mean this town getting back everything it’s capable of — and finally getting a shot at the things we never had access to before.

I believe that park can be full again.

I believe those buildings can have the lights back on.

And I believe our children can grow up, look around at everything the world has to offer, and still choose to come home.

ASHBURN CAN MAKE A COMEBACK.

ONE THING BEFORE YOU GO 👇

Comment one thing you want to see in Ashburn.

Don’t talk yourself out of it first. Something we used to have and lost, something we never had a chance at in the first place — a place, a building, a program, a night out. Big or small. I want the big ones too.

I’m going to read every single one. And when the Comeback Plan comes out, don’t be surprised if some of what y’all put in these comments is in it.