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October 21, 2009

Candidate profile: Hogan wants to keep ‘community feeling’

By Mark Millican

Donna Hogan wants to see business growth come to Eton, but doesn’t want the burg to lose its “small town feel.”

“Eton is growing tremendously,” said Hogan, who is challenging two-term councilman Steve Shaw for the Post 2 seat in the Nov. 3 election. “We’re getting a new grocery story (Super Saver) and we’re in a new City Hall, and that’s great. I just want to help see that it continues to grow in a positive way, but I don’t want to get away from having that community feeling.”

A Whitfield County native, Hogan is a 1979 graduate of Southeast High School. She married Greg Hogan in 1995, and they settled in Ramhurst for several years before moving to Eton in 2001. Greg Hogan served as Eton’s mayor from 2004 to 2008, resigning to run for Murray County sole commissioner before losing to David Ridley.

Donna Hogan said her reasons for running are “not great or profound ... but I want to know what’s going on and to have a voice, to get involved.” She added that she is “excited” about the possibilities for new businesses in Eton.

“It will be nice to have a new grocery store so people here won’t have to drive to Chatsworth to buy groceries,” she noted. “And we may get a steakhouse, so you could get more than burgers here.”

But even with growth, Hogan said people feel safe coming to the small north Murray County community.

“I’ll have between 400 to 500 trick-or-treaters that will be coming to my house soon, and I’m not kidding, there’s that many,” she said. “That’s because people know they can bring their children here and be safe. I like Eton being that way.”

Hogan added a “challenge” would be to make sure growth doesn’t happen too quickly.

“I don’t want us to have growing pains, in other words, doing it so fast that we don’t adjust as we grow,” she said. “Here everybody is excited that we haven’t had to raise millage rates. Like with sewer, we did a little bit and paid for it, and now we’ve got it and businesses are taking advantage of it.”

She would also like to look at the possibility of procuring grants to help with growth.

“Those often have stipulations, so we have to look and see what we can do as far as meeting those requirements,” she said. “We may have to do things in a certain way to get those grants.”

Hogan said she “didn’t get real involved when Greg was in it (as mayor), but he had to listen to my opinion. I don’t see anything bad going on in Eton, but I think having different opinions on issues is good.”

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