Saturday, February 10, 2018

District Elections Questions

Greetings!

There are three incumbent city councilpersons whose terms are up in November; John Sawyer, Chris Coursey, and Tom Schwedhelm.  Once district elections are adopted in April, candidates for this Fall's elections will be required to live in the districts selected for election.


  • Unless the districts where these three incumbents live are selected, or unless they move to districts which were selected for election, they will be unable to run.
  • All incumbents may run in districts in which they reside, regardless of whether their terms are up for election in 2018.  Upon their election, they would begin a new four-year term, and the Council would select a replacement for the remainder of their current term.
    • Tom Schwedhelm is the only incumbent living in the northwestern portion of the City.
    • Chris Coursey lives in the Junior College area of the City which, if combined with the Luther Burbank area, would include the home of Chris Rogers.
    • John Sawyer lives in the Bennett Valley area of the City, which also includes the homes of Jack Tibbetts and Julie Combs.
  • The City Council may select districts in which no incumbent resides.  Areas including east of the Junior College all the way to Oakmont, South Park, Roseland, and almost the entire western portion of the City south of Piner Road qualify.  In that case, no current incumbents would be eligible to run.
  • The possibilities include:
    • No incumbents running for office, all open districts.
    • Tom Schwedhelm and two open districts..
    • Chris Coursey and two open districts.
    • John Sawyer and two open districts.
    • Two or three above incumbents running, one open district.
    • Tom Schwedhelm running, John Sawyer running against Jack Tibbetts, Julie Combs or Chris Rogers (or all three), and Chris Coursey running against Chris Rogers.
    • Two of the three scenarios above, plus an open district.
I am sure there will be other possibilities for candidacies, dependent on decisions the Council will make.

So far, Tom Schwedhelm and Victoria Fleming had filed their intentions to run in 2018 with the City Clerk.


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