19 candidates, seven offices and four days to deadline

With four days left to qualify, New Albany now has 19 people seeking the city’s seven elective offices.

The only candidate without an opponent is incumbent Chief of Police Chris Robertson.
The deadline to qualify is 5 p.m. this Friday, Feb. 5.

Primary elections will be April 6 and the general election will be June 8.

Because the races for Ward Two alderman in the Democratic primary and for Wards One and Four aldermen in the Republican primary have three candidates each, run-offs April 27 are possible. A candidate has to receive more than 50 percent of the vote in a primary to avoid a run-off.

The races for alderman in Wards One, Three and Four will effectively be settled in the primary or run-off prior to the general election because candidates are only running in one party in each of the three contests.

Incumbent Ward One and Ward Two aldermen Amy Livingston and Johnny Anderson decided not to seek re-election so the board will have two new members regardless and could possibly have all five if the Ward Three and Four incumbent aldermen, Kevin Dale White and Will Tucker, are defeated.

Likewise, incumbent Alderman-at-Large Clint Conlee is being challenged, as is Mayor Tim Kent.

The races for Mayor, Alderman-at-Large and Ward Two Alderman definitely will not be settled until June 8, but they could be the only three.

Having few contested races in the primary and general elections could lead to a low voter turnout. This was the case four years ago when only about 22 percent of the city’s registered voted went to the polls.

Newly elected officials will take office July 1.

Here are the candidates for office in New Albany as of Monday afternoon:

Mayor: James Dean (D), Chuck Garrett (R), Tim Kent (R)(i)

Chief of Police: Chris Robertson (R)(i)

Alderman-at-large: Keith Conlee (R)(i), J. Lynn West (I)

Ward One Alderman: Mark Bishop (R), Judith Bennett (Benjie) Foley (R), William Ashley Kidd (R)

Ward Two Alderman: Gary Edwards (D), Adam Hardy (R), David Drew Horn (R), Tim Johnson (D), Jessica Winston (D)

Ward Three Alderman: Penney Blissett (D), Kevin Dale White (D)(i)

Ward Four Alderman: Diane Jones (R), Ronnie Parker (R), Will Tucker (R)(i)

(D) = Democrat, (R) = Republican, (I) = Independent, (i) = incumbent

No one had qualified to run in the Town of Myrtle this past week, although Municipal Clerk Lisa Cook said all the incumbents had picked up qualifying paperwork, but not submitted it.

In the Village of Blue Springs, only incumbent Mayor Rita Gentry had qualified and Municipal Clerk Jan Musgrove said some incumbent aldermen may not be seeking re-election.

Although no one has qualified, the current Myrtle mayor is Micheal Canerdy and the aldermen-at-large are Milton McDonald, Cynthia Parks, Dustin Rasberry, Teresa Smith and Sean Wiginton.

In Blue Springs, current aldermen-at-large include Shirley Allen, Rick Bradford, Lynda Bramlett, Andrew Grisham and Malcom Leath.

The aldermen in Myrtle and Blue Springs all run at large and city officials have sometime had to go out and recruit people to help fill the aldermen’s vacancies due to small size of the respective municipalities and possible lack of interest.

To run for city office one must be a qualified elector and resident of the municipality or ward, for aldermen, at least two years. Party candidates must pay a $10 fee and submit a statement of intent. Independent candidates pay no fee but need a petition signed by 50 qualified electors in support of being placed on the ballot.

The Democratic and Republican primaries to be held Tuesday, April 6, with a runoff, if needed, April 27, determine party nominees to be on the general election ballot in June.

Based on the circuit clerk’s records New Albany has about 4,900 registered voters.