Jayden Williams, former mayor of Stockbridge. Photo courtesy: Jayden Williams/Facebook
STOCKBRIDGE - We had planned to talk about who Jayden Williams was as mayor. By the time we spoke, the question had changed.
This wasn't the interview originally planned.
Jayden Williams and I were scheduled to talk as part of Leaders in Focus, a series of conversations with Henry County officials about the people behind the titles. That interview never happened.
When Williams and I eventually spoke by phone, the goal wasn't to go back over everything that had already been discussed publicly. The question had shifted.
Who is Jayden Williams when the title is gone? What does he believe he got wrong? And what comes next?
Williams' answer began with something that hadn't changed.
"I am still a country boy whose hometown is Stockbridge," he said.
Williams said the experience revealed something about his own "tenacity" and "courage."
That confidence exists alongside an acknowledgment that he could have been better prepared for the job.
Williams said he entered office expecting onboarding on the city's financial, administrative, and legal procedures. He said he did not receive the level of onboarding he expected. At the same time, he acknowledged that he could have taken more initiative himself.
"I take full accountability that I could have asked for training," Williams said. "I could have asked more questions."
Later in the conversation, Williams returned to what he could take from his mistakes.
"Nobody's perfect, and we all make mistakes," he said. "Sometimes it takes a point to where you have to just ask yourself, 'Hey, you messed up. You need to learn from that.'"
But Williams was equally clear that he had no intention of disappearing from the community.
"I have no reason to disappear," he said.
Williams acknowledged that the experience had been "heavy" and that he needed time to "take a moment and just kind of relax and get myself together." But he said there was never a point when he intended to stop showing up in his community.
He described the ordinary life that was still there outside City Hall: sitting on his porch, talking to his neighbor while she cuts the grass, laughing over "some iced tea or something."
"I was not going to give up because people try to embarrass me in the public," Williams said. "That's not what my grandfather taught me, my grandmother, or even my parents."
Asked how he was doing emotionally, Williams was direct.
"I'm okay."
He said his family is "close-knit" and that they had been leaning on one another. Williams said he had been leaning "more on my faith more than anything," drawing strength from the biblical story of Daniel.
Williams has not decided what his next step involving Stockbridge will be. He said he is taking things "one day at a time" and talking with his family and legal team.
On the subject of service, Williams was clear.
"I don't see it as politics," he said. "I see it as service."
Williams said he has been involved in community service since he was 13, long before becoming mayor.
"I don't have to do it with a title."