Bowdon officials are working to keep two projects on track following last week’s death of City Manager Danny Mabry.

The city is in the process of conducting major upgrades to both its water and wastewater plants, projects in which Mabry had large roles.

The first steps in both projects have already been completed. The city’s request to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Environmental Protection Division to raise the city’s daily withdrawal permit from 1 million gallons a day to 2.5 million has already been submitted, and Mayor Jim Watts is waiting to hear if the request will be approved.

To accommodate the wastewater plant expansion required by EPD, the city agreed to purchase a 5.5-acre property near the existing plant in October. The city closed on the land on Thursday.

Mabry was hired as Bowdon’s city manager in April after spending a year and a half as city manager of Villa Rica and almost two decades as city manager and assistant city manager in Carrollton.

“We’ve got a lot of things going, and he was working on a lot of [them],” said Watts.

The water and sewage projects are the only tasks Mabry undertook since taking office without completing, Watts said. Mabry was able to help secure a new location for the city’s public works crew after the former public works building was destroyed in May, and worked with the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office to obtain an inmate work crew that will begin maintenance work in Bowdon next week. Watts said Mabry was also working to grade the land where the public works building once stood to be used for an additional multi-purpose field for the Bowdon Recreation Department.

“Everything I had envisioned has been completed,” Watts said.

Mabry garnered an impressive number of contacts through his work experience, an asset Watts said the city will miss.

“He’s going to be sorely missed by the people of Bowdon, and what he could have done for our city in the next several years,” Watts said.

Watts and the Bowdon City Council members will hold a closed meeting Nov. 4 to discuss the steps the city will take in finding a new city manager. The mayor and council collected resum©s earlier this year before offering the job to Mabry, and Watts said that some of those applicants may be considered for the job.

“It hasn’t been that long since we went through all the resum©s, and we may revisit those people,” he said.

Watts said that city operations have been running smoothly since Mabry’s death, but the loss has been hard on city employees and others who knew Mabry well.

“There’s still a lot of people calling that don’t know about Danny’s death, and they’re asking to speak to the city manager,” Watts said. “That’s sort of upsetting sometimes to the people who answer the phones.”

Patsy Bentley, a long-time City Hall worker, said that Mabry could have made a number of improvements in Bowdon over the next several years with his ideas and connections.

“It’s just a great loss,” she said. “He was one of the most intelligent people about anything you wanted to know. I felt comfortable asking him anything.”

While many have praised Mabry’s connections and professionalism, the loss was more personal for some.

“He will be greatly missed,” Bentley said. “He is irreplaceable in my eyes.”