Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Early ruminations on City Council elections

Update: Ken Vance told me at last night's City Council that he is not supporting anyone in the race for his City Council seat. He went on to say that he had specifically told Phillip Joiner that he would not support him or anyone else until the election, if at all.
"There are 17 more City Council meetings left in my tenure and during that time I will be doing my best to represent the people of District 4," he said.


I know we should be talking more about the 2010 Governor Race as it is only a year-and-a-half away, but I thought we'd focus on something a little more local for now.
I called Patti Rushin, Milledgeville's elections superintendent, today to begin thinking about a timeline for this year's municipal elections.
Mrs. Rushin didn't have any answers that could be considered fit to print--elector training isn't until the first full week of May and after that she'll know what the important dates are and whether or not they'll be any changes for this time around (it'll all be news to me as this is my first city election).
But before I could get too far away from the phone, our City Editor Jonathon Jackson informed me that WMGZ's Phillip Joiner is the chosen one to run for Ken Vance's City Council seat.
Phillip had told the Baldwin Bulletin about this time last year (well ahead of qualifying for the County Commission elections) that he would be making a bid for the downtown Council seat--he is one of their commentators.
But I guess that it has been a year since he announced, so that is news again.
In the 2005 race Ken Vance won by an eight-vote margin over Georgia College & State University student Zach Johnson. As Joiner is a GCSU Alum who stays pretty active on the GCSU, bringing us the likes of GCSU Idol and Milledgeville's Got Talent, I'm sure he'll be actively courting the student vote.
And I bet that vote will be important in this election as President Barack Obama's election energized a large amount of the youth vote.
But how will Joiner's candidacy play on Liberty Street?
And will Joiner have opposition?
I guess we'll see.
Watch the print edition to hear more about Vance's deal with Joiner, Jonathon said that there would be something coming soon. I'll ask Ken Vance about it at tonight's City Council meeting so that we're not scooped by the Bulletin.

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