By Patrick Yost
Editor

Republican candidate Phillip Clack defeated long-time Morgan County Commissioner Mack Bohlen Tuesday night in a District 3 Republican run-off election.
Clack won the position with 288 total votes (53 percent) to Bohlen’s 255 votes (47 percent).
The runoff was forced after the July 31 General Primary, in which neither Bohlen nor Clack received more than 50 percent of the vote. In the General Primary, Bohlen received 413 votes to Clack's 311 votes.
In the runoff, 24 percent of voters from District 3 voted.
Clack led in four of the five precincts voting in District 3. He won Bostwick 189 to Bohlen’s 175 votes; Rutledge 30 to Bohlen’s 23 votes; West Morgan 36 to Bohlen’s 23 votes and Apalachee 25 to Bohlen’s 12 votes. Bohlen won the Madison West Precinct 22 to Clack’s eight votes.
Both candidates emerged from a four candidate race in July to qualify for the runoff. Clack, 50, is a retired fire-fighter who served 30 years with the Gwinnett County Fire Department.
Bohlen, 61, was first elected to the Morgan County Board of Commissioners in 1993 and served as the board’s chairman a total of 10 years.
"This is what I had hoped for for the people of Morgan County," Clack said Tuesday night. "They had expressed concern for the way they been represented."
Clack, a Bostwick-area resident, said the election process had exposed him to a wide cross-section of Morgan County residents. "I was blessed. I got to meet numerous people that I would have never gotten the opportunity to meet."
Clack has no Democratic opposition and will take office Jan. 1, 2013.

Printed in the August 23, 2012 edition