Three candidates for Springfield City Council have been certified by the city clerk’s office. Buckley “Buck” Van Hooser will run for Springfield City Council Zone 2, Bob Stephens will run again for mayor and Kristi Fulnecky will try for General Seat C.
Filing for five open city council seats began Tuesday.
Council seats on the April ballot are: mayor (Bob Stephens), General Seat C (Doug Burlison), General Seat D (Mike Carroll), Zone 2 (Cindy Rushefsky) and Zone 3 (Jerry Compton).
City clerk, Brenda Cirtin, says council elections are held every other year.
"Per city charter, we have council elections every odd year, and so every odd year the mayor is up because his term is a two year term, so we have the position of mayor. We have two general races and two zone races," she said.
Those who plan to run must officially file an application with the city clerk's office. It's open 8 am to 5 pm Monday through Friday.
The deadline for application and petition submissions is 5 p.m., Jan. 20, 2015.
Those wishing to file petitions must meet the following criteria:
- Be a qualified voter of the city and a resident of the city for at least two years immediately prior to their election
- If filing for one of the zone seats, must be a resident of their respective zone for at least one year prior to election.
To be valid, the petitions must meet the following criteria: For a zone seat the candidate must collect signatures of 100 registered voters who reside in the particular zone and for the general seat, signatures of 200 registered voters who reside within the city limits.
Cirtin explains why the signatures are needed.
"We do file by petition. We hold non-partisan elections, and we have a packet of information that you can get from the clerk's office. All of the information, with the exception of the petition, is available online also at the city's website," she said.
Petitions can be obtained at the clerk’s office.
The General Municipal Election is Tuesday, April 7, 2015.
For more information, contact: Brenda Cirtin, Springfield City Clerk at 864-1650.
