CITY’S MAYOR, COMMISSION RACES SET FOR MAY RUNOFF

Vote needed because seven city commission and three mayoral candidates had petitions certified.

Dayton will have a special runoff election in May because seven city commission candidates and three mayoral candidates had their petitions certified by the Montgomery County Board of Elections.

Two people who filed to run for mayor did not obtain enough valid signatures to appear on the ballot.

The Montgomery County Board of Elections certified the mayoral petitions for Gary Leitzell, Jeffrey Mims Jr. and Rennes Bowers.

Leitzell served as Dayton mayor from 2010-2014, Mims is a current city commissioner, and Bowers is a retired Dayton firefighter.

The board voted Wednesday not to accept mayoral petitions submitted by Larry Ealy and Keiana Davis.

Mayor candidates needed to submit 500 valid signatures from registered Dayton voters.

But Davis had only 416 valid signatures, after submitting 840, the board said.

Ealy turned in 954 signatures but less than 10% were determined to be valid (91).

Signatures aren’t valid if they belong to unregistered voters or people who live outside of the jurisdiction in question, in this case Dayton. Signatures must match board of elections’ records.

Petitions aren’t valid if they don’t contain dates associated with the signatures, officials say.

Seven people are running for two Dayton City Commission seats.

The candidates are incumbent Commissioner Darryl Fairchild, former police officer Jordan Wortham, faith leader Scott Sliver, labor leader Stacey Benson-Taylor, former city employee Valerie Duncan and former city employees and community activists Jared Grandy and Shenise Turner-Sloss.

The May special election will decide who will advance to the November election.

The top two vote-getters in the mayor’s race and the top-four finishers in the commission race will compete in the fall. The city commission has two open seats.

Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley decided not to seek a third term in office.

Whaley has not shared what she plans to do next. But the New York Times reported that she may run for governor.

Board of Elections staff had to review more than 17,000 signatures submitted on petitions in

the Dayton municipal races, which included the clerk of court and judge races, said Sarah Greathouse, deputy director of the Montgomery County Board of Elections.

But staff probably reviewed more than 20,000 to 30,000 signatures to try to determine their validity, she said.