Local offices up for election in fall
- Published: June 25, 2009
The excitement of last year’s presidential election should only serve to underscore the importance of the local elections that are scheduled at the end of this year. On Nov. 10, 2009, three Village Council seats, Village mayor, three seats for Yellow Springs Board of Education and two seats for Miami Township Board of Trustees will be up for election. Candidates have until Thursday, Aug. 20, to register their petitions with the Greene County Board of Elections.
Three of the five Village Council seats — those currently occupied by Council President Judith Hempfling, Karen Wintrow and Kathryn Van der Heiden — will be up for grabs this November. The two candidates who receive the most votes will serve four-year terms, and the next highest vote getter will serve a two-year term. According to the Greene County Board of Elections, so far no one has taken out a petition for a Council seat.
Both Hempfling and Wintrow, who are at the end of their first four-year terms on Council, said last week that they had not yet decided if they intend to run for re-election. Van der Heiden, who is also undecided, is nearing the end of a two-year term she won in 2007, after running unsuccessfully for Council in 2005.
The other two Council members are John Booth and Lori Askeland, who are each in the middle of the four-year terms they won in 2007.
The position of Village mayor, which has been served for the past 18 years by David Foubert, is also up for election. Foubert does plan to run again for his 10th two-year term, he said last week.
For the Miami Township Board of Trustees, the seats currently occupied by Trustees Mark Crockett and Lamar Spracklen are up for election this year. Spracklen, who has served nearly 10 years on the board, plans to run again for office, as does Crockett, who has served eight years as a trustee. Both signed out petitions from the Board of Elections last week.
The trustees serve four-year terms. Chris Mucher is the third trustee.
The Yellow Springs school board has three seats available, currently filled by board President Aida Merhemic, Anne Ericson and Angela Wright, who are nearing the end of their four-year terms. Merhemic and Ericson both said last week that they were planning to run for their second terms. Still undecided as of last week was Wright, who has served nearly 16 years on the school board, though both she and Merhemic had signed out petitions with the Board of Elections as of this week.
The two other school board members, Sean Creighton and Richard Lapedes, are in the middle of their four-year terms.
Candidates running for Village Council or Village mayor need 35 signatures, or 1 percent of the electorate, from voters registered in Greene County. Those running for school board or Miami Township need 25 signatures. Candidates can pick up a petition at the Board of Elections, located at 651 Dayton-Xenia Road in Xenia. Office hours are Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Call the board at 562-7470 for more information.
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