Filing period set for next round of municipal elections
By Steve Herring
Published in News on February 11, 2013 1:46 PM
The filing period has been announced for the Nov. 5 municipal and sanitary district elections in Wayne County.
Filing will begin at noon on Friday, July 5, and end at noon on Friday, July 19, for five of the county's seven municipalities and five of its seven sanitary districts. All of those races are nonpartisan.
For the current mayor and commissioners in Mount Olive, who are elected every two years, the election means a shortened term. The same is true to a lesser extent in Seven Springs, where the mayor serves a two-year term, while commissioners serve for four years.
Those offices were to have been decided in 2011 and would have been up again this year. However, the elections were delayed until May 2012 since voting district lines had to be redrawn because of new census data. That resulted in terms closer to one and a half years instead of two.
The November election will put the offices back on their regular two-year cycle. The 2015 election will do the same for the four-year offices that were delayed from 2011 to 2012, including Goldsboro.
Up for election in Mount Olive are Mayor Ray McDonald Sr.; Ray Thompson, at-large commissioner; Kenny Talton, District 1; Hosea Manley, District 2; George Fulghum, District 3; and Gene Lee, District 4.
Talton, who did not seek re-election in 2012, was the unsuccessful Republican challenger to Wayne County District 2 Commissioner J.D. Evans.
Newcomer Ed Cromartie was elected to Talton's former seat.
Evans died within weeks of taking his oath of office, and Cromartie was appointed by county commissioners in December to complete the first two years of Evans' four-year term.
Cromartie will have to win election in 2014 to finish the final two years.
Talton has since been appointed to his old seat by the Mount Olive town board.
The other municipal offices to be decided are:
* Seven Springs: Mayor Alan Cash, Commissioners Lisa Cash and Karen Mozingo
* Pikeville: Mayor Johnny Weaver and Commissioners Lyman Galloway and W. Ward Kellum
* Eureka: Mayor Doug Booth and Aldermen Billy Martin and Leroy Wellington
* Walnut Creek: Mayor Darrell Horne and Councilman Russell Prys.
The full five-member boards are up for election for the Belfast-Patetown, Eastern Wayne and Southeastern Wayne sanitary districts.
Three seats will be decided on the Fork Township Sanitary District board and two on the Southern Wayne Sanitary District board.
They all serve four-year terms.