Attorney Wight to Run for Council

Lilburn attorney Thomas Wight will run for the City Council seat that will be vacated by Johnny Crist, who will challenge incumbent Mayor Diana Preston in the upcoming city elections.

Wight, 49, is the fourth candidate to have spoken with Lilburn Patch about plans to run for city government. He joins a list of candidates that includes Crist, Preston and Scott Batterton, who will seek re-election for his Council seat.

Elections for mayor and two Council seats will be held Nov. 8. The qualifying period for candidates is Aug. 29 to Sept. 2.

Wight, a native of Roosevelt, Utah, has lived in Lilburn with his family since 2000. He has an extensive background working as an attorney for government agencies, including assistant district attorney for Georgia’s Enotah Judicial District (2008-2010) and Fulton County (2002-08), and has had his own practice since November 2010, specializing in civil litigation, criminal trials and appeals.

But his interest in seeking his first public office may date back long before he graduated from the Wake Forest University School of Law. Even before earning a degree in urban planning at the University of Utah.

While he was growing up in Roosevelt, he remembers how the discovery of oil turned his hometown from a quiet town into the “wild, wild West.” The town’s population tripled.

“That’s probably where my interest in urban planning came from,” he said. “There was nobody ready for that. … So, it showed that managing growth is extremely important.”

As a senior at Utah, he was the editor of a project that established a land-use plan for North Salt Lake City, which had been dealing with its own economic growth problems with an oil refinery within the city limits.

“I’m still interested in making places better to live in,” Wight said, tying in his interest in running for City Council. “[Running for office] is me going back to my first love.”

Wight, a father of four, said at 49-year-old, he offers a “generational shift” to city government. He favors “holding people’s feet to the fire” on how taxpayer money is spent and how projects are planned.

“We’ve got a lot of good things happening in Lilburn,” he said. “I think I have something valuable to offer in the way Lilburn looks going forward. I would like to add some pieces so that Lilburn is not just a bedroom community.

“I think we’re on a positive path in Lilburn,” he said. “It’s the right time [to run]. I think I’m the right guy.”