By DEBRA HAIGHT
ST. JOSEPH – The Nov. 2 election features contests in just two Berrien County municipalities. Voters in the cities of Benton Harbor and St. Joseph will decide who they want to represent them in coming years on each city’s governing board.
Eight people are running for four open Benton Harbor City Commission seats, while six people are running for three seats on the St. Joseph City Commission. The seats on the Benton Harbor City Commission are for four years, while two of the three St. Joseph City Commission seats are for four years with one is for two years. All are non-partisan.
In Benton Harbor, incumbents are facing challengers in the Third and Fourth Wards. Incumbent Ruthie Haralson is facing Ethel Clark-Griffin for the Third Ward seat, while incumbent Juanita Henry is facing Ronny Booker for the Fourth Ward seat.
Incumbents Duane Seats and Ron Singleton are facing off with challengers Ambie Bell and C.F. Jones for the two at-large commission seats.
Issues raised in a recent candidate forum included jobs and job training, home ownership, home rehabilitation programs, programs for youth, becoming more business friendly and combatting crime.
In St. Joseph, incumbent Michele Turner Binkley and challengers Thomas Dean Jennings, Ben Rimes, Michael Sarola, Brook Thomas and Marc Williams are running for the three seats. The top two vote-getters will get the four year terms while the third place vote-getter will get the two-year term.
Issues addressed in a recent candidate forum includes downtown parking, taxpayer dollars being spent efficiently, long term rentals in the city, keeping the city attractive to young people, mask mandates and city commissioner responsibilities.
It’s been an overall quiet year when it comes to elections.
This year’s elections started off with a Royalton Township fire equipment millage election in May and continued in August with elections in St. Joseph and Oronoko Township. That election featured a police millage renewal request in Oronoko Township and a race for the St. Joseph City Commission to reduce the number of candidates from nine to six.
2022 will be a different story. People will vote on candidates and races at the local, county, state and federal levels. Local races include those for numerous city and village posts as well as local school boards, while the county races are for the 12 Berrien County Board of Commissioner district seats. The number of county commissioner districts have not changed although the boundaries likely will.
At the state level, people will decide who they want to be the next governor as well as who they want to serve in the state legislature with all state representative seats up for election and half of the state senate seats. Federally, all seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are up for election including the 6th District seat now held by U.S. Rep. Fred Upton.
Area audiences have already heard from a number of Republican gubernatorial hopefuls with three speaking this summer and early fall to South County Republican Club members in Buchanan.
Republicans Tudor Dixon and Ryan Kelley spoke to the gathering in late June, while Republican Mike Brown spoke to the group in September. Brown is one of two law enforcement officers in the race. He is a Stevensville resident and commander of the Michigan State Police’s Fifth District post in Paw Paw.
Former Detroit Police Chief James Craig has also announced his run for the Republican nomination for governor. In all, nearly a dozen candidates have filed to run for the Republican nomination for the chance to face off with incumbent Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
There is also a good sized field of candidates for the Republican nomination for the seat currently held by Upton. Upton has served over three decades in Congress and hasn’t announced yet whether he will run for re-election.
Last week, Dr. Sherry O’Donnell announced her candidacy for the 6th District seat. She is a St. Joseph doctor and has undertaken several medical mission trips to locations in the United States and abroad. She spoke at the Oct. 24 South County Republican Club meeting on medical freedom and other topics.
Others running for the Republican 6th District nomination include Berrien County Commissioner Ezra Scott and State Rep. Steve Carra.
The state redistricting effort is also heating up. Members of the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission have released draft maps for congressional, state senate and state representative districts and are inviting public comment on them.
Voters approved establishing the commission in 2018. The goal was to take the partisan politics out of redistricting efforts.
Both U.S. Rep. Fred Upton and State Sen. Kim LaSata have expressed reservations about the draft maps being drawn up. They say the new maps would dilute Berrien County’s and Southwest Michigan’s political power.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.