‘I’ve done all I can do’: Augusta Commission member Alvin Mason resigns

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Augusta Commission member Alvin Mason resigned Tuesday.

He announced it at the commission meeting, and said it was effective immediately.

He listed a lot of reasons, and health was one of them.

“I’ve done all I can do,” he repeated multiple times.

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People applauded him as he hugged commissioners, Mayor Garnett Johnson and staff members.

He’d stepped down temporarily in the past for medical reasons.

A year ago, he left for three months because of back surgery.

At that time, he asked Commissioner Francine Scott to represent his constituents in District 4.

He was originally elected to the commission in 2007 to represent the south Augusta district. He left for a while and was later appointed to take over District 4 once Sammie Sias was convicted of federal crimes. Then Mason was elected to the post once again after that.

Before that, he served for two decades in the Army, from 1984 to 2004.

The Lord spoke to him and told him to “resign today,” he said at the meeting.

“I am resigning from this commission, and it’s someone else’s job to take it from here,” he said. “I’ve done all that I can do. My mom said and the Bible says when you’ve done all that you can do, then you stand and you stand on the truth that you always stood for. So I’m standing. I’ve done all that I can do.”

He thanked many of his commission members.

“I thank you. I thank this commission. I thank all of the commissioners up here,” he said.

Later, he gave an interview.

“Today is a day for reflection and resignation,” he said. “So I issued my resignation effective immediately, because I’ve accomplished my mission, and now I’ve got to deal with my own health situations.”

He’ll be starting physical therapy, so “I can’t give what I need to give to my standard for this community, then I won’t shortchange it.”

He said it takes “a lot of energy and passion that I have and the fire that I have to, to help this community. So again, I want to say thank you to all of the constituents.”

What advice does he have for the other commissioners?

“Well, I would hope that they understand that they we can be whatever we want to be, but we have to do it with truth and with love. If it’s not truth and with love, then you’re going to get a lot of deception, a lot of falsehoods, so forth. So we have to hold people accountable. I just want this commission to be accountable, to be responsible and so that we’re credible.”

He noted that he’s taken a lead role on trying to keep the James Brown name on the new arena that will be built.

“I’ve laid the groundwork. It’s time for somebody else to pick up the mantle and move,” he said.

What has been his biggest accomplishment?

“Well, there’s so much that has happened here and I don’t want to say, well, for me, it’s not, building or it’s just representing. My biggest accomplishment is representing the same way from day one in January 2008 to June 17th, 2025, with a break in between. ... And I’ve never changed. I’ve never wavered and I’ve never caved in.”

He added:

“And so when you’re talking about that in politics, when you going through bribery attempts, people trying to assassinate your character, people trying to take you, take you a federal job away, saying that you’re doing, local business on federal time. Going through all of that, and I’m still standing and let anything change me. Who I am. And, now it’s time to take care of me.”

he said he’s tried to take care of this community.

“And that’s where I’m at today. So, again, all I can say is thank you. I appreciate it. We have an opportunity here to address the situation. Now so that it does not continue to move to a national level where you have national folks coming in to ascending on Augusta, Georgia, because of this type of stuff that’s going on.”