Filing extended for Faith, Rockwell Not enough candidates run for open seats; 58 seek votes in municipal races

Published 12:00 am Saturday, July 20, 2013

Fifty-eight candidates filed for municipal seats before the noon deadline Friday.
Salisbury City Council had the most crowded race with 10 candidates, including all five incumbents, filing for five seats by Friday morning.
In Kannapolis, nine candidates are running for three City Council seats and three hopefuls are running for an office left open when current Mayor Bob Misenheimer announced he wouldn’t seek re-election.
But Rockwell and Faith aldermen races didn’t draw enough candidates to fill the open seats. Those races will remain open until Wednesday at noon.
The candidates are as follows:

• China Grove Town Council — Incumbents Charles Seaford, Brandon Linn and Mike Upright and challengers Butch Bivens and Barbara C. Doby are running for three seats.
• Cleveland Mayor — Danny Gabriel is running unopposed.
• Cleveland Commissioners — Incumbents Patrick Phifer and Travis Summitt and challengers Richard Taylor, Gerald Osborne and Leonard M. West have also filed for three seats.
• East Spencer Mayor — Barbara Mallett is running unopposed.
• East Spencer Alderman — Incumbents Tammy Corpening and Phronice Johnson and challengers Titus H. King, Sr., Robert A. Smith and Otis Gibson are running for three seats.
• Faith Alderman — Incumbents Keith Deal, Todd Peeler and Gary Gardner, along with challenger Michael Brinkley have filed so far for five open seats.
• Granite Quarry Alderman — Incumbent Eloise Peeler and challengers Michael Brinkley, Jake Fisher Jr., Arin Wilhelm and Wes Rhinier have filed for two seats.
• Kannapolis Mayor — Dennis Johnson joins current city Council members Tom Kincaid and Darrell Hinnant in vying for the office.
• Kannapolis City Council — William Cranford, Darrell Jackson, Thomas VanEtten, Amos McClory, Dianne Berry, Jeremy Ford, Sophia Wilkerson, Nina Covington and Doug Wilson are running for three seats
• Landis Alderman — Incumbents Dennis Brown and D. Craig Sloop and challengers Dorland Abernathy and Tony B. Corriher have also filed for two seats.
• Rockwell Mayor — Incumbent Beau Taylor will face challenger Tim Draper.
• Rockwell Alderman — Incumbents Timothy Justin Crews, Charles Wingerson and Chuck Bowman and challenger Chris Stiller have filed so far for five seats.
• Salisbury City Council — Incumbents Paul Woodson, Maggie Blackwell, William Pete Kennedy, Karen Kirks Alexander and Brian Miller face challengers William C. Peoples Jr. Kenneth Blake Jarman, Tom Speaks, Dale Stephens and Rick Honeycutt for five seats.
• Spencer Mayor — Incumbent Jody Everhart is running unopposed.
• Spencer Alderman —— Incumbents Jim Gobbel, Jeff Morris, Scott Benfield, David H. Smith, Kevin Jones and Reid Walters, along with challengers Mike Boone and Rashid Muhammad are vying for six seats.