Last edited 1 p.m., Nov. 23, 2010Today is the final day for petition filing for opening positions on the Springfield City Council. The deadline is 5 p.m.
In order to be put on the docket for election to the council, candidates for zone seats must turn in petitions with 100 signatures of registered voters within their corresponding zone, and candidates for the general seats and for mayor must turn in petitions with 200 signatures of Springfield registered voters, City Clerk Brenda Cirtin said.
The city clerk's office, located at 840 Boonville Ave. on the fourth floor of the Busch Municipal Building, can be reached by phone at (417) 864-1650.
Cirtin said the city clerk's office has improved its turnaround time on certification of petitions, noting she would have to certify the ballot to the county next Tuesday.
The primary election will be in February and will narrow each council position down to two candidates, where necessary. The general election will be in April.
Though Cirtin said petitions could still come in before 5 p.m. today, a number of petitions already have been certified. Those candidates were listed in a news release sent Nov. 22.
Mayor Jim O'Neal, nearing the end of his first term, is listed as running unopposed. A Springfield mayor can serve four consecutive two-year terms.
General seat and zone council members can hold their positions indefinitely but are up for re-election after four years.
Current city council members are listed on the council's
Web site.
For General Seat C, Arthur Hodge Sr. was the only listed candidate in the release. Hodge is retired, has worked with Springfield Public Schools and has more than 20 years of military experience, according to a résumé provided by Cirtin.
The current Seat C holder, Doug Burlison, was not listed in the news release, but Cirtin said he had picked up a petition.
Dan Chiles, the current holder of General Seat D and the mayor pro tem, will not seek re-election, Cirtin said. The mayor pro tem is a position elected by the council and will be selected after the new council members are sworn in.
Thomas Bieker, of Midwest Environmental Consultants, is one of the candidates listed for the Seat D position. His campaign Web site can be found
here.
The other candidate for the seat, Fred Ellison, has run for city council before. In the 2009 election, Ellison ran for General Seat B but lost to John Rush, whose term expires in 2013, according to a Greene County election
precinct report.
For the Zone 2 seat, Jan Fisk, wife of Howard Fisk and
J. Howard Fisk Limousines co-founder and chief financial officer, and Cindy Rushefsky, who is in her first term, are listed in the release.
For Zone 3, Jerry Compton, who was appointed to fill the position when Ralph Manley resigned following the council election in 2009, is listed alongside Reggie Duke II and Stephen Keith Pennington.
Cirtin said biographical information on Duke and Pennington was requested but had not yet been received.
Nick Ibarra, Zone 1 council member, Scott Bailes, Zone 4 council member, Bob Stephens, General Seat A council member and John Rush, General Seat B council member, will be up for re-election in 2013.[[In-content Ad]]
