Thursday, December 8, 2011

March Knox County primary races set

The deadline to qualify for open seats in the March county election passed this afternoon, and the races are now set.

Incumbent Law Director Joe Jarret and Property Assessor Phil Ballard, each, will face competition from former elected officials in the Republican primary. Current Criminal Court Judge Steven Sword, however, has no challengers.

In addition, two of the four school board members also face challengers for their non-partisan seats. Cindy Buttry, who represents the 3rd District, opted not to seek re-election.

Instead, Bobby Edington, Doug Harris and Gina Oster will vie for the seat.

Additionally, no one opted to challenge current school board Vice Chairwoman Indya Kincannon for the 2nd District seat.

Karen Carson, the 5th District incumbent, will face Elaine Davis, who serves on the county’s Ethics Committee. In the 8th District, incumbent Mike McMillan will face Conley Underwood, a vocal supporter of the movement in East Knox County to get a new Carter Elementary School built.

Also, former county Commissioner Richard “Bud” Armstrong will square off against Jarret; and former Property Assessor John Whitehead will challenge Ballard.

The general elections will be held in August.

School board candidates need to get 50 percent plus one of the votes cast to move on.

4 comments:

Dan Andrews said...

what???? My groundswell petition to get Axl Rose on the ballot failed? Schucks!

Brian Paone said...

And thank God that it did. Really, I don't know who's worse - Axl or Vanilla Ice.

Your winners:

* 2nd School - Kincannon (obviously)

* 3rd School - Don't know any of 'em but will guess Edington.

* 5th School - Karen Carson, meaning Elaine Davis loses yet another election. (There's a reason for that, Elaine.)

* 8th School - Underwood'll give McMillan a run for his money but Mike'll pull it out in the end.

* Legal Beagle - Hopefully we retain Jarret.

* Property Value Person - I don't care who wins this race; I just wanna listen to 'em squabble.

Mike Donila said...

Vanilla Ice is worse.

I think the 8th District school race could be close, too.

Jarret and Armstrong will have a friendly race - at least in the beginning. I wouldn't be surprised if some supporters get a little aggressive but I don't think the candidates will.

Property assessor - yeah, this is going to be a fun one.

Brian Hornback said...

Ya'll mean the property assessor race is coming back to the ballot? really!?