After winning the special election Tuesday for the vacant seat on Wagener’s Town Council, Nytia Kitchings talked about her reason for running in a video posted on Facebook.
“I felt like that was another way that I could serve my community because I do love my community,” she said. “I love the Town of Wagener — I really do — and the people in it, especially the children of Wagener.”
In addition, Kitchings urged Wagener residents to become more interested in what is happening in the town.
“Let’s see what we can do to work together,” she said. “Let’s start coming out to the town hall meetings. Wagner needs your support. Wagener needs everybody to pull together to turn things around.
“There are so many things that we remember from our childhood about Wagener that we would like our kids to experience again,” Kitchings continued. “It’s going to take all of us to do that. It’s not just going to take the council members and the mayor.”
In the nonpartisan election, 125 votes in all were cast. Kitchings received 57, which represented 45.6 percent of the total.
Donald Sturkie was the runner-up with 36 votes.
The other candidates and number of votes they received were Kevin Young, 17; Chuck Abrams, 12, and Howard Fogle, 3.
There were no write-in votes.
The results were certified Thursday morning, said Aiken County Registration and Elections Executive Director Cynthia Holland.
Kitchings is the owner and operator of the Uneven Endz Hair Studio in West Columbia, according to her Facebook page.
Late last year, Taylor Love Wooten posted a letter announcing her resignation from Wagener Town Council on Facebook.
She wrote that she and her husband would be moving to a recently renovated home in Salley after living with her mother in Wagener while the work was being done.
In addition, Wooten expressed concern about how she was treated by Wagener Mayor Mike Miller.
Wooten wrote that Miller bullied her and addressed her “by different names.”
She also complained about the lack of support from other Town Council members and alleged that Wagener leaders didn’t use money properly and acted in an unethical manner.
Miller told the Aiken Standard that the information in Wooten’s letter was “inaccurate and exaggerated.”
