Kayann Hayden West Replaces Lindsey as Ellijay City Attorney

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The Ellijay City Council hired Kayann Hayden West as its new city attorney, according to a statement by Ellijay Mayor Al Hoyle this week.

The city’s current city attorney, David Lindsey, will be leaving to take his position as Pickens County Probate Judge on December 31st. Lindsey was elected as Probate Judge in July.

West, whose family first moved to Ellijay in 1984, is a current Ellijay resident and graduated from Gilmer High School in 1999. After graduating high school, she then received a bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science from Georgia State University. Later West graduated from Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama in 2006.

In 2006, she went to work with Ellijay Attorney Jeff Chatham as an associate at Chatham and Rea, Attorneys at Law. She then was involved with the state-wide pilot program Family Law Information Center for the Appalachian Circuit until opening her own law office in Ellijay in 2010.

”I’m excited about it. I was real excited about the opportunity. The other people they were considering, I know to be great attorneys, so I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the city council and the citizens of the city,”

West said. She also told FYN she was equally excited to be Ellijay’s new attorney since her mother, Marcia Whiteside Hayden, is a former Ellijay City Council member herself.

“It’s kind of fun to be the city attorney now. I know it’s not the same thing as being a city council person, but just since we have that little bit of history in our family, I’m excited about that,”

she said.

West will begin her role as the city’s new attorney on January 1st.

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