COMMISSION COULD HAVE FOUR WOMEN
For the first time in 16 years, at least two women will be elected to the Hamilton County Commission.
The Democratic primary win in District 4 on Tuesday by health care navigator Katheryn Geter assured that outcome since she has no Republican general election opponent in August. Incumbent Sabrena Smedley in District 7, who had no Republican primary opponent and has no general election foe, is the other woman on the nine-member body.
The last time two women were elected to the commission was 2002, when incumbents Charlotte Vandergriff and Jo Anne Favors won re-election in Districts 3 and 5, respectively.
For not quite a year, from early 2004 to early 2005, three women were on the body. In addition to Vandergriff and Favors, Lou Miller, the widow of Commissioner Ben Miller, was appointed in early 2004 to fill her husband’s seat until the August general election. Although she was elected in August to finish the remaining two years of his term, the body went back to two women in early 2005 when Favors resigned after being elected to the state legislature.
Favors’ replacement, Greg Beck, was the man Geter ousted by only 15 votes earlier this week after more than three terms.
Come August, the commission actually could have a record number of four women if Democrats Elizabeth Baker in District 2 and Rosabelle Gorman in District 3 are elected. Both will have uphill battles, though, because both districts are heavily Republican and their respective GOP opponents, Chip Baker and Greg Martin, have strong name recogition and public service records.
In the race between Beck and Geter, we believe voter fatigue with the incumbent — rather than a specific issue — may have made the difference. The challenger, 43, ran as a “champion of change,” while the body’s senior commissioner, 70, said he ran in order to complete projects that had been started.
Neither candidate spoke ill of the other one in interviews with the Times Free Press, and one of the few specific knocks on Beck we’re aware of is his lack of as close a relationship with his school board representative, Karitsa Jones, as some other commissioners have.
The District 5 commissioner was emotional before his colleagues during Wednesday’s meeting, saying it had been a “pleasure” and an “honor” to serve. We hope, for the sake of residents of his district and beyond, that he’ll continue his public service behind the scenes.
County voters will have their first chance to elect a woman as mayor in August. Aloyse Brown, who is employed by a church pension firm, is the first woman of either party to be a general election candidate for the position.
Like Baker and Gorman, though, she will have a difficult battle against a popular and well-financed opponent, incumbent Mayor Jim Coppinger.
Aside from District 5, the only county commission primary race to raise much interest — no matter who won — was District 8, where two-term incumbent Tim Boyd was taking on challenger Brent Lambert, the mayor of East Ridge.
The race had little fanfare and even less participation from Lambert until a planted question in a March Pachyderm Club meeting asked Boyd about a call he received from Lambert in which Boyd allegedly threatened his opponent to leave the race. Boyd had information, he said, about contributions Lambert received the previous summer that, while not illegal, were ethically questionable.
By the day of the meeting, unbeknownst to Boyd, Lambert had told law enforcement authorities the commissioner had threatened him in what turned out to be the first of three calls on the race. Lambert, legally, taped all three. The upshot was an extortion indictment for Boyd on a Class D felony, on which he is scheduled to plea today before a specially appointed judge.
The whole episode smacks of a political set-up, and Boyd’s attorney has asked the judge to dismiss the complaint.
On Tuesday, voters spoke their minds, overwhelmingly electing Boyd with 61.8 percent of the vote to Lambert’s 36.7 percent.
Lambert had tried to make it a contest, putting up signs the last two weeks of the race and sending out at least two push cards, the first using Boyd’s police mugshot with the headline “Tim Boyd Indicted For Extortion” and the second using a stark black-and-white photo of Boyd with the headline “Grand Jury Indicts Tim Boyd.”
The last similar political stunt, used by U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann against challenger Weston Wamp in the 2014 Republican primary, nearly got the then-two-term congressman beaten. Fleischmann changed campaign strategists after that race and has not come close to defeat.
Boyd, like Beck, addressed the commission Wednesday after his race, saying the outcome was “one of the most satisfying moments of my life” and that he “slept good last night.”
We trust August’s election — with seven contested county races, plus gubernatorial, U.S. Senate and state legislative primaries — will beat the pathetic 10.6 percent turnout in Tuesday’s election. But, more so, we hope we’ve seen the last of the dirty politics employed in the District 8 race.