Lavonia Elects Umbehant as New City Councilman

The City of Lavonia has a new city councilman

He is Courtney Umbehant, director of the Lavonia Chapel of Strickland Funeral Home.

Umbehant beat out challenger, local businesswoman Nora Chambers in a special election Tuesday for the Post 1 City Council seat by a vote of 215 votes to Chambers’ 88.

It was a very low turnout for the special election with only 255 voters out of a total registered voter population of 1,022.

Umbehant said his first priority as the new city councilman is to work with the rest of the council members to find a new city manager.

“It’s very important we choose a manager who will be able to lead the City of Lavonia into the future and will be able to deal with changes ten and 15 years from now,” he said.

Umbehant said he is also concerned about getting young people involved in thefuture of Lavonia and said he would like to see more venues for young people to go to in town, especially the teens.

As for the future economic growth of Lavonia, Umbehant said he will work to ensure that growth continues.

Umbehant said he will work to encourage more development around the Exit 173 interchange at I-85 as well.

Umbehant will fill the unexpired term of the late City Councilman Don Canady, who passed away in April.