Three candidates: Melissa Tuttle, Daniel Carey and Robert Lancaster Jr will be on the ballot in the Republican primary.
None of the candidates have previously served as a judge but all three have priorities of creating new “specialty dockets” for the court.
One additional candidate, Brian Driscoll, will be listed on the ballot. However, Driscoll told the Springfield News-Sun he has dropped out of the race and is no longer campaigning.
Driscoll’s decision to withdraw from the race came too late to have his name removed from the ballot.
The winner of the Republican primary will face the only Democrat nominee, David Herier, in November’s general election. The winner of that race will replace incumbent Thomas Trempe, a Democrat who was first elected in 2003.
Springfield residents will cast their ballots on a 0.4%, 10-year income tax renewal levy. Funding from the levy will be used for public safety and other operating expenses as well as street and other capital improvements.
The levy was originally passed by voters in 2017. Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck said the renewal will not increase the percentage of income tax that voters currently pay.
City officials say that since the original levy was passed, the city has been able to reopen a police substation and a fire station as well as pave 34 neighborhood streets.
Heck said by extending it for 10 more years, the levy will allow the city to engage in long-term planning related to local infrastructure improvement projects as well as protect investments made in the community.
That includes continuing street paving projects, focusing on infrastructure upgrades as well as further investing in the city’s local fire stations, which are on average 56 years old, and replacing old equipment used by first responders, Heck said.
“If it is not renewed, we are looking at significant cuts,” Heck said.
Mad River Twp. residents will vote on two property tax renewals. One will be a five-year, 0.80 mill property tax levy that will provide funding for “protection against fire, maintenance of apparatus and appliances, building and sites for apparatus and appliance,” according to the levy’s description on the Clark County Board of Election’s website.
The second levy will be a five-year, 1 mill property tax levy that will provide funding for ambulance services and emergency medical services.
Village of Enon residents will vote on whether to allow the Enon Food Mart located at 6875 Dayton Springfield Rd. to sell wine and mixed alcoholic beverages.
There are no county-wide issues on the ballot for Champaign County residents, but some residents will vote on a substitute school levy in the Northwestern Local School District and Urbana voters will elect a new city council member.
Northwestern Local School District, which serves residents in Clark and Champaign Counties, is asking voters to approve a 7.16 mill, five-year property tax substitute levy. Money generated from the levy will be used for operating costs for the district.
The substitute levy represents about 10% of the district’s operating budget and the amount of revenue generated by the levy is $1,715,690.
“It is not a new levy and it’s not a new tax. It’s called a substitute levy but it is the same tax, or the same levy, that we renewed in March of 2016,” Superintendent Jesse Steiner said. “It won’t raise taxes.”
Steiner said if the substitute levy doesn’t pass, the only way to make room in the budget would be to cut personnel.
“To put it into perspective of what that means as far as staff is that if we were trying to cut staff to make up for the loss in revenue from that levy, then we would have to start with our newest teachers and we would cut positions from there and move up,” Steiner said.
Urbana residents will be asked to vote between two candidates seeking the council seat representing the first ward. Amy Jumper and Charles Moody, both Republicans, are competing for the seat.
Staff writers Hasan Karim and Brooke Spurlock contributed to this report.
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