Information from WYSH Radio
As of Thursday morning, 17 people had picked up qualifying petitions to run for seats on an Anderson County Charter Commission in November.
The Charter Commission will be comprised of one person from each of the eight Anderson County Commission districts, and it will be responsible for studying possible changes to the county government. Their recommendations would then be placed in front of county voters to decide in a countywide referendum that would most likely appear on a ballot in 2018. Once elected and sworn in, the Commission would have nine months to complete its work.
Some of the possible changes that could be made include slicing the number of county commissioners from 16 to nine members, establishing term limits for commissioners and the county mayor, and making the county law director position an elected office.
So far, seven people from seven of the eight Commission districts have picked up petitions to run, but none have yet obtained the necessary 25 signatures to qualify. The deadline to qualify to appear on the November 8 ballot will be noon on Thursday, August 18.
In Commission District 1, Floyd Grisham, Tim Risden, and retired Schools Director V.L. Stonecipher have all picked up petitions.
In District 2, Ron Langley and Steve Day have picked up petitions.
Anderson County Commission Chairman Steve Emert is the lone resident of District 3 to pick up a petition to be considered for the Charter Commission.
Commissioner Tim Isbel and Dennis Harshbarger have picked up qualifying petitions to run in District 4.
In District 5, Carl Beaty, Howard Farmer, Mark Garrett, and Commissioner Robert McKamey have all picked up petitions.
So far in District 6, only Commissioner Steve Mead and attorney Hugh Ward Jr. have picked up petitions to run.
In District 7, three people have picked up petitions: Marjorie Lloyd, Commissioner Theresa Scott, and David Stanley.
No one representing County Commission District 8 has picked up a qualifying petition as of late Thursday morning.
WYSH Radio is an Oak Ridge Today news partner.
More information will be added as it becomes available.
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