Vines defeats Moody in LaFayette mayor election

Published 8:56 pm Tuesday, October 6, 2020

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

LaFayette has a new mayor.

Kenneth Vines defeated incumbent LaFayette Mayor Barry Moody 487-334 in Tuesday night’s run-off. Vines had finished just shy of the 50 percent threshold needed in August.

“I owe it all to the good Lord,” Vines said. “I just want to thank everyone for coming out and supporting me tonight. I’m just looking forward to working with the city council. I’m just ready to go to work.”

Email newsletter signup

Tuesday’s runoff was a rematch of the 2016 runoff election, in which Moody narrowly defeated Vines.

“I thank the people this time from last time,” Vines said. “They bought into my vision and my plan of what I want to do for the city, and I thank them for that.”

Vines’ vision for the city of LaFayette has been to grow the city’s business infrastructure and help bring jobs and businesses to the city to help regrow the population.

“We’re behind,” Vines said. “My platform is not just for today or tomorrow. We have to look five, 10, 15 or 20 years down the road. I thank the people of LaFayette for buying into my vision this time. I just want to say thank you.”

Vines is currently working for Auburn University. He has seen the growth that Auburn and Opelika have recently had and wants the same for LaFayette. This growth includes housing developments.

“When I go to work and I see so much development that is going on in the cities of Auburn and Opelika have had, it’s kind of frustrating,” Vines said. “We can be doing the same thing. We’re only 30 minutes away. The last time that we’ve had any housing developments was 1989. That’s not fair for the citizens that pay taxes. We really need to get some things done.”

Moody had served as the city’s mayor the last eight years.

“I went out and ran a very hard race. I worked as hard as I could,” Moody said Tuesday. “I believe as I always have in LaFayette. I want to congratulate Kenny Vines. As we move forward with the city, I still want the best for the citizens.”