Replacement of the Chickamauga Dam lock should speed up with passage of the bipartisan water resources bill.Better ballot box than recall
Hamilton County School Board member Rhonda Thurman wants District 1 voters to have an option in August’s County Commission general election, and she’s decided to be the option.
Longtime District 1 Commissioner Fred Skillern was defeated by 52 votes by Soddy-Daisy accountant Randy Fairbanks in the Republican primary earlier this month, and that didn’t sit well with Skillern’s northern county ally. So she’s decided — after voters approached her, she said — to campaign as a write-in candidate.
Thurman, a hairdresser, is not up for School Board election this year, so she plans an aggressive campaign not only against the primary winner but also to educate voters that they will have to darken an oval on the ballot and write in her name.
She has an uphill job. If the same number of people vote in the general election as the primary, she would have to get all the votes Skillern got — as write-ins — plus 53 more. But no write-in candidate in modern history has been successful in a Hamilton County election.
In truth, all governmental bodies need a person such as Thurman to ask if something is necessary or to question if there is a more economical way of doing things. She is that for the School Board, but we believe Fairbanks would join Tim Boyd (if he is re-elected in District 8) in playing that role on the County Commission.