Pritchard making a post on the City of Tallassee Facebook page

Pritchard joins city staff

By Michael Butler

Griffin Pritchard has served on the Tallassee Parks and Recreation Board and the Tallassee Industrial Development Board. Those volunteer board positions are now in the rearview mirror, as Pritchard has taken a daily job with the City of Tallassee as the public information officer.

"I served three years," Pritchard said of his time with Parks and Rec. He spent two years on the IDB. "It was interesting. It was a good experience. It was a good see the mentality of industrial development. I'm curious to see from an outsider's perspective how they move forward because I'm going to be sitting in on the meetings now representing the city."

Tallassee mayor Johnny Hammock welcomes Pritchard to help with his daily workload.

"A lot of these cities have economic and community development teams. I've been trying to do all that going on five years now. I'm happy to have someone else come in and take some of that off my plate. There's only one of me.

"Griff's not only the public information officer with the city, he's going to help with some grants. I'm glad the city council saw fit to give an extra body to City Hall and help us with not only our public information in trying to be transparent but also with grant administration."

Prithcard has already gotten busy in working on Payne Park that will be located across from East Tallassee Baptist Church.

"I've never had to design a park before," he said. "The original projection was four park benches and a sign. You do a little research and realize that you can do the park benches same style for cheaper which allows you to get a picnic table. You start figuring out different options."

Hammock noted the learning curve in grant work.

"It takes a while to learn this. It took me a year and a half. In the next couple of months we'll send him to Troy online to become a certified grant writer, like I did. What the city is going to pay in his salary and benefits, we're actually going to come out ahead in the future."