This comes as no surprise, but Athens-Clarke Commissioner Kathy Hoard told blogger JMac that she is running for re-election this year.

Hoard, who has served on the commission since 2003 and previously served on the Athens City Council, had hinted that this would be her last term. After her husband died last year, though, she’s been hinting that she would return.

Defense attorney Bill Overend was poised to run if Hoard retired.

Bad to worse

Paulding County voters elected a young banker named Daniel Stout to replace former House Speaker Glenn Richardson, who resigned after news broke that he’d had an affair with a lobbyist.

Stout, 29, admits to sleeping with his first wife’s mother 10 years ago. They divorced, and he remarried in 2005.