By Joseph M. Morgan

Editor and Publisher

joseph@southerntorch.com

FORT PAYNE, Ala.—There was major breaking news in Fort Payne today regarding the upcoming race for city council.

In a move many voters did not see coming, incumbent Fort Payne City Council President Dana Goggans has dropped out of the Aug. 23, 2016 race for Fort Payne City Council, a source close to the campaign confirmed to Southern Torch early on Tuesday.

President of the Fort Payne City Council since 2012, the incumbent Goggans was one of the strongest candidates on the ballot and a shoe-in for re-election to the council.

Southern Torch broke the story around midday on Tuesday, and Councilman Goggans reached out shortly thereafter to help us and our readers better understand the motivation behind the unexpected move to suspend his campaign for re-election.

Goggans said that over the past few days he had begun to realize that the sense of excitement he has always felt about serving on the council just wasn’t there anymore. He said instead of being excited, he has found himself thinking more and more about his children and all that he has missed out on over the past four years and how much more he would miss by serving another term on the council.

“I struggled with it and more and more,” Goggans said, “and as time went on I just wasn’t excited about it anymore. I already had to decline when I was asked to coach my son in his last year of peewee football because of council business. Thinking about missing things like that again made me realize that being on the council again would be a really hard thing for me to do. I woke up yesterday and my wife and I talked about it, and I want to be there for the kids.”

Goggans said he realized that if he was not excited and passionate about serving on the council again, moving forward with the campaign and committing to serve four more years would have been unfair to the people of Fort Payne.

“I’ve got two 11-year-old twins and a four-year-old and I just went through a grueling process of going through law school,” Goggans said. “I was spending a lot of time away. Every Saturday for nearly five years I was gone to school, and then studying every night, and studying for the bar and trying to serve on the council….and it hit me yesterday that my heart’s just not in it. I had to be honest with myself and do what was best for me and best for my family—what’s best for Fort Payne. Staying in the race just for the sake of staying in would have been a disservice to the city, and first and foremost to my family.”

Goggans said that there are several strong candidates running for city council and that he believes Fort Payne will ultimately be left in capable hands.

“We’ve got a lot of good candidates out there,” Goggans said. “We’ve still got three good incumbents running. But I needed to step away. My wife and I talked it over a good bit yesterday and I mulled it over today. I talked to some folks and talked to some folks again today, and finally decided that was the thing I needed to do. I decided it was the right thing to do. And thats really all there is to it. At the end of the day, I just want to be there for my wife and for the kids.”