3 planning Council run in November

By Lauren Heaton

There are only two weeks left for those who wish to run for elected local government seats to finish their required paperwork. Three seats on Yellow Springs Village Council, two on school board, one on Miami Township Board of Trustees and the office of the mayor of Yellow Springs are up for election on Nov. 6.

So far, one incumbent and one new candidate have indicated interest in running for the three Council seats, an incumbent will run for one of the school board seats, and an incumbent seeks re-election to the single seat on the Township trustees.

The Council seats up for election are currently held by Bruce Rickenbach, Kathryn Chase and Kathryn Van der Heiden. The two top vote-getters in the 2005 Village Council election, Judith Hempfling and Karen Wintrow, received four-year terms and are not up for re-election this year.

As of Monday, new Council candidate Jerry Sutton and incumbent Van der Heiden had filed as candidates for a Village Council seat. Another villager, John Booth, has taken out a petition and said that he plans to run. Chase stated that she will not run and Rickenbach previously said he had “no comment.”

The open school board seats are now held by Richard Lapedes and Rich Bullock. Lapedes has filed to run in November and Bullock has stated that he will not seek the school board seat. So far, no one else has taken out paperwork to run for the second school board open seat.

Mayor Dave Foubert has filed to run for his eighth term in that office. For the township seat, incumbent Chris Mucher has filed to run for re-election.

Those who wish to run must pick up a petition at the Greene County Board of Elections office, 651 Dayton-Xenia Road, Xenia, and collect a minimum of 35 signatures of registered voters, although the board office suggests that twice that number be collected. The petitions must be submitted to the board office by Aug. 23 with a $30 filing fee.

According to his campaign brochure, Sutton is retired as the executive director of Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. In Yellow Springs, he has served on the Yellow Springs Community Council and the Community Information Project, among other groups. He is married to Sandy McHugh.

Booth, a teacher at Northridge High School in Dayton, is a member of the Village Human Relations Commission. He lives in Yellow Springs with his wife, Maria, and their two young children.

Rickenbach was elected for a two-year term in November 2005 as the third largest vote-getter in that election. Chase also ran in 2005 and was not elected to Council, but was subsequently appointed by Council to fill a vacancy left when Mary Alexander resigned in 2006.

Van der Heiden also ran in 2005, and though she was not elected, in January 2007 she was appointed to fill the seat of former Council President Jocelyn Hardman, who resigned.

Contact: lheaton@ysnews.com