GOP Hamilton Councilman Ed Gore resigns
HAMILTON >> Soon a new face will serve on Hamilton Township Council.
That’s because Council President Ed Gore submitted a letter of resignation on Thursday, producing a sudden vacancy on the five-member governing body. The Republican councilman said he is stepping down effective immediately to return to his old job and passion of serving as Hamilton’s public defender.
“Since 2010, I have had the honor and the privilege of serving the citizens of Hamilton as their representative on our Township Council,” Gore said in his resignation letter. “It was a unique opportunity to make a positive difference for my community that I have truly cherished — and which was only surpassed in terms of personal satisfaction by my tenure of service as our community’s Public Defender.”
A lawyer by profession, Gore first assumed municipal office in April 2010 when Hamilton Council appointed him to a seat vacated by former councilman Tom Goodwin. He thanked the citizens of Hamilton Township for electing him to the seat in November 2010 and re-electing him in 2013. He also thanked his council colleagues, Mayor Kelly Yaede and his family for supporting him over the course of his seven years in elected office.
Full circle
In 2010, Gore resigned from his part-time job as the township’s municipal public defender to serve as a councilman, and on Thursday he resigned as a councilman to resume his old job.
“Ed did a terrific job the entire time he was on council,” Hamilton Councilman Dave Kenny said Thursday evening. “He was always knowledgeable and fair and willing to listen to both sides on the issues, and it will be a loss to the council.”
With Gore’s immediate resignation, Council Vice President Dennis Pone will become the new council president and Hamilton Council in the near future will have to appoint someone to serve for the remainder of Gore’s term, according to Kenny. Gore’s term runs through Dec. 31, 2017.
The Hamilton Township Republican municipal committee in the coming days will have to identify three potential candidates for Gore’s seat, and Hamilton Council will have to select one of those three candidates to fill the vacancy. Whoever gets appointed to the seat will likely seek election to a full four-year term in November.
In reassuming his old public defender job, “Not only am I excited and eager to return to this area of public service,” Gore said in his resignation letter, “but I also feel that I am providing a better opportunity for another qualified individual — whomever he or she may be — to enjoy the same opportunity that I enjoyed in serving on the Township Council.”
Years before becoming a councilman, Gore in the 1990s previously served as a Hamilton school board member.