Mayor Patti Garrett
Board Member (Former Chair)
Patti Garrett was elected to the City Commission in 2009, served as Mayor Pro Tempore in 2015 and was first elected Mayor in January 2016. She has been active in the community since moving to Decatur in 2001. Previously Patti served as chair of the Decatur Tour of Homes committee, house captain on the Martin Luther King Jr. Service Project, a board member of the Oakhurst Community Garden Project, and as secretary of the Oakhurst Neighborhood Association. She currently serves on the Advisory Council of New American Pathways. She also serves on the Community Resources Committee at the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), on the Regional Housing Task Force at ARC, on the Steering Committee for the One Region Initiative of Welcoming America and is past Chair of the Policy Committee of the DeKalb Municipal Association.
Patti is a 2012 graduate of Leadership DeKalb, a member of the 2010 class of the Regional Leadership Institute and serves on the Environmental and Natural Resources Committee of the Georgia Municipal Association (GMA). A graduate of Texas Christian University and the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Patti has taught nutrition at Georgia State University, provided nutrition counseling services at the Georgia State Counseling and Testing Center and worked as a Clinical Dietitian at Emory University Health Services. Patti also received the 2010 Georgia Dietetic Association Distinguished Service to a Community Award and was the 2017 recipient of the National League of Cities’ Michael H. T. Lynch Memorial Scholarship award. She is interested in health policy, particularly as it relates to access to healthy foods, environmental policies, active lifestyles and the role of local governments in fostering healthy, vibrant communities.
She and her husband, Gary, live in the Oakhurst neighborhood.