Clarkston voters elected a business owner to City Council during Tuesday’s special election.
Mark W. Perkins, who owns the consulting company Leadersolve, was elected with about 56% of the vote, according to results provided by DeKalb County. He will fill the seat vacated by Yterenickia “YT” Bell, who qualified to run for mayor during a 2020 special election but lost to Beverly Burks.
Perkins received 174 votes, while the other candidates, Dean Moore and Shana “Tiny” McAllister, received a combined 134 votes. The city, which has a population of nearly 13,000, has more than 6,500 registered voters, meaning only about 4.7% of residents participated in the special election.
According to his campaign website, Perkins graduated from the University of Alabama with a degree in interdisciplinary studies. He served on the Clarkston Community COVID-19 Task Force and cited pandemic recovery as one of his top priorities.
“Few things have highlighted the importance of good leadership and collaboration like the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said on his website. “... I plan to leverage my experiences leading and working on diverse teams and in complex contexts to help Clarkston survive, recover and rebuild from our current crisis.”
The election results are expected to be certified by the county on March 26. Perkins will hold the seat on the six-person City Council until the end of this year, when Bell’s term was set to expire.
