One challenger for City Council, none for school board

The deadline for candidates to qualify for the November 6 municipal elections was noon Thursday, and four Oak Ridge City Council incumbents have one challenger while there are three candidates for three school board seats.

Besides the four seats now held by incumbents, the November election will include the selection of an additional member of Oak Ridge City Council to fill the rest of the term of Hans Vogel, who was elected to a four-year term in November 2016 but resigned in June to take a new job at Idaho National Laboratory. Only one candidate, Derrick Hammond, has qualified as a candidate in that special election. Hammond was unanimously appointed to the seat by City Council in July to fill the seat through the November election. After his unopposed November election, Hammond will serve the last two years of Vogel’s unexpired term.

Also on the ballot in November are city council and school board seats in Clinton, Norris, Oliver Springs, and Rocky Top. That’s in addition to the state and federal elections for Tennessee governor, U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, and Tennessee Senate and Tennessee House of Representatives.

The four incumbents on the seven-member Oak Ridge City Council who are up for election in November all qualified as candidates by Thursday’s deadline. They are Kelly Callison, R.G. “Rick” Chinn Jr., Warren Gooch, and Ellen D. Smith. The four incumbents last had an election in November 2014.

Gooch is currently the mayor, and Chinn is currently mayor pro tem, meaning he fills in when the mayor is absent or temporarily unavailable. Council will appoint or re-appoint a mayor and mayor pro tem after the November 6 election. The seven City Council members appoint one of their members to serve a two-year term as mayor after each municipal election every two years.

The one challenger in November is Timothy L. Stallings. He was among the seven candidates who sought to fill Vogel’s seat last month.

That’s a total of five candidates for four City Council seats, plus the special election.

Two other residents, Wende Doolittle and Susan L. “Sue” Frederick, had picked up candidate petitions but had not filed by Thursday’s deadline. Doolittle unsuccessfully ran for City Council in 2016. Like Stallings, Frederick was among the seven candidates who sought to fill Vogel’s seat last month.

The three candidates for the three seats on the five-member Oak Ridge Board of Education are incumbent Laura McLean, first elected in November 2014; newcomer Erin S. Webb; and Benjamin J. Stephens, who was appointed and then elected to a seat this year. Stephens was appointed in March to fill a seat vacated by former BOE Vice Chair Bob Eby, who resigned after he was selected to serve on the state school board. Stephens ran unopposed in a special election on August 2 to finish the rest of that unexpired term, and he is now seeking a regular four-year term in the November election.

Eby is one of two school board members whose seats are up for election in November but who have resigned. The other is Paige Marshall. She resigned Thursday so she and her family can move to North Carolina for a new job.

On Friday, Oak Ridge Board of Education Chair Keys Fillauer said the school board will likely appoint Webb, director of children’s ministries at First United Methodist Church, to fill Marshall’s seat until the November election. The board could make that appointment next week.

This municipal election is less competitive than at least the two previous elections (2014 and 2016).

City Council and Board of Education elections are both staggered. For Council, that means four members are elected in one even-numbered year, and three are elected in the next even-numbered year. For the school board, that means three members are elected one even-numbered year, and two are elected in the next even-numbered year.

Most cities in Anderson County also have staggered elections, meaning council members aren’t all elected at the same time. But Norris does elect all members of its City Council at the same time.

To qualify and be placed on the November 6 ballot, a candidate had to collect 25 signatures from voters registered in the city where they are seeking election.

Here are candidates who qualified for the November election by the Thursday deadline for other municipal elections in Anderson County.

Clinton Board of Education

Ward 2

Timothy A. Bible
Curtis W. Isabell

Ward 3

Kimberly “K.K.” Webster

Clinton City Council

Ward 1

E.T. Stamey Jr.
Ronald Young

Ward 2

Brian D. Hatmaker

Ward 3

Zach Farrar

Mayor, City of Clinton

Scott Burton
Stephen McNally

Mayor, City of Oliver Springs

Omer Cox

Mayor, City of Rocky Top

Donald Douglas
Juden Poore
Timothy “Tim” Sharp

Note: A fourth candidate, Richard Lee Dunigan, picked up a petition to run for Rocky Top mayor but did not file by Thursday’s deadline.

Norris City Council

Larry Beeman
Bill Grieve
Chris Mitchell
Jessica Peacock Ogburn
Loretta Ann Painter

Note: A sixth candidate, Jack Black, picked up a petition to run for Norris City Council but did not file by Thursday’s deadline.

Oliver Springs Alderman, Ward 1

Robert L. Miller Sr.

Oliver Springs Alderman, Ward 2

Jeffery Bass
Paul Parson

Oliver Springs Alderman, Ward 4

Rusty Phillips

Rocky Top City Council

Brian Brown
Denise Casteel
Michael Lovely

Tennessee House of Representatives, District 33

Collin P. Riggs, an Independent Party candidate, picked up a petition to run for Tennessee House of Representatives, District 33, but did not file by Thursday’s deadline. That means the two candidates remain the Republican incumbent, John Ragan, and Democratic challenger, Richard Dawson. District 33 includes most of Anderson County, including Oak Ridge.

Oliver Springs Wine in Grocery Stores

A petition was picked up for Oliver Springs wine in grocery stores in March, but was not filed by Thursday’s deadline.

More information will be added as it becomes available.

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