Candidate for Athens commission can't use 'Mama Sid' on the ballot, says elections board

The Athens-Clarke County Board of Elections has narrowly rejected Athens-Clarke County Commission District 8 candidate Sidney Waters’ request to have her name on the May 21 ballot changed to include her nickname, “Mama Sid”.

The board voted 3-2 at a Tuesday hearing to reject Waters’ request, with opponents of the move contending “Mama Sid” was too close to the name of the eastside Athens-Clarke County pizza restaurant she and her family started years ago.

Mama Sid’s Pizza has operated on Barnett Shoals Road in east Athens since 1983. While Waters’ name remains on the state’s business registry as secretary of Mama Sid’s Inc., she said Tuesday she doesn’t now have an active role with the business.

State documents list her husband, James, and her son, Shaun, as chief executive officer and chief financial officer, respectively, of Mama Sid’s Inc.

At issue in Tuesday’s hearing was a section of the state elections code that governs how names are to be placed on ballots. Under the rule, candidate's name may include a nickname by which the candidate is commonly known in the community but shall not contain any spurious phrases, title or degree designating the business, fraternal, religious, or professional affiliation of the candidate, or political slogan or message.

More: Athens officials pass zoning rule to halt growth of short-term rentals. But is it enough?

Waters argued Tuesday that “Mama Sid” should be considered a nickname rather than a business name.

“I’ve been called that since 1981, when my son’s friends nicknamed me that,” Waters told the five-member board. Shaun Waters was on hand Tuesday to bolster his mother’s claim, explaining the nickname originated in his teenage years, when his friends found out his mother’s name was Sidney.

After that, he said, “My closest friends started calling me ‘Sid’.” Within a short time, he continued, his friends started calling his mother “Mama Sid,” and the nickname stuck.

“She was ‘Mama Sid’ for three years before the business ever existed,” Shaun Waters told the elections board.

Sidney Anne Waters said during Tuesday’s meeting, and reiterated in a short interview after the decision, that she was urged by friends and supporters to seek the ballot name change. She did not use the nickname in the Clarke County Board of Education races in which she was involved some years ago.

This time around, though, Waters told the board, “I have had many people say you should have put it (her name) on (the ballot) as Mama Sid Waters, because that’s who everybody thinks you are.”

Also attending Tuesday’s hearing was Carol Myers, the District 8 incumbent, who looked up the applicable section of the election code after learning via social media of a campaign to generate emails to the elections board supporting Waters’ request.

“I’m surprised that the question was actually being debated. … Mama Sid’s is the business name,” Myers, who will face Waters in May 21 balloting, told the elections board.

Myers, who holds a doctoral degree in education, and formerly served as dean of general education at Athens Technical College, pointed out to the board that the section of the election code at issue Tuesday prohibits her from using the title “Dr.” with her name on the ballot.

Myers also noted that Waters doesn’t use the name “Mama Sid” on her Facebook page, nor did she use it when she introduced herself when she spoke during the public comment period at a recent commission meeting.

“I can’t ask to include ‘doctor’ or ‘dean’ with my name,” Myers said, “and Sidney Waters cannot have her business name, ‘Mama Sid”’ on the ballot.

“Please use the law when you make your decision, and don’t decide based on the number of emails received,” Myers asked the board prior to its vote.

The five-member board, comprising one representative each of the local Republican and Democratic party organizations, and three members appointed by the technically nonpartisan Athens-Clarke County Commission, discussed Waters’ request at some length before voting.

More: Lawsuit accuses Athens commissioners of illegal discussions ahead of short-term rental decision

Hunaid “Hank” Qadir, a commission appointee, said he had known Waters as “Mama Sid” before learning that her first name was Sidney. But, Qadir said Tuesday, allowing Waters to use “Mama Sid” on the May 21 ballot would “give the candidate a slight advantage that I’m not comfortable with.”

Adam Shirley, anther commission appointee, conceded Waters’ nickname preceded the business name, but added he was uncomfortable with Waters’ request because the business name and the nickname “are too close.”

Similarly, board member Rocky Raffle, the panel’s Democratic appointee, said he was “given pause by the whole thing,” because the nickname and business name were “a little too close for my comfort.”

Patricia Till, the Republican elections board appointee, saw Waters’ request as a simple desire to include her nickname on the ballot. “Mama Sid is Mama Sid whether she has a business or not,” Till said.

Willa Fambrough, a commission appointee, took a similar view, telling her colleagues, “I really don’t associate her with pizza. I associate her with (the nickname) Mama Sid.”

After some parliamentary confusion over phrasing of the motion to address Waters’ effort, the board voted 3-2 to deny her request to add “Mama Sid” to her name on the May 21 ballot.

Following the vote, Myers said she thought the issue was “clear-cut from the state law.”

Waters said she “knew that it was going to be a very tight decision,” but added that the election board ruling wouldn’t be a disadvantage.

“I will campaign as hard as I can,” she said. “It’s up to me to prove myself.”

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Sidney Waters can't use Mama Sid nickname for Athens commission ballot