Bernadette Pelissier
After two terms on the board, Orange County Board of Commissioners vice chair Bernadette Pelissier will not seek reelection next year.
I still can't get over the race for the at-large seat on the County Commissioners. I'm sure no-one was surprised that Bernadette Pelissier won the primary handily. She was a well-qualified and well-organized candidate, and I think she'll be a great addition to the Board. Neloa Jones had very little name recognition, and even less resources to back up her campaign. I was quite impressed with her 20% showing. It demonstrated some real voter concern about the landfill and the racial justice issues that she raised.
But what really shocked me was the nearly 30% voting for Mary Wolff. This was a candidate that had almost no visible campaign other than the ambigious yard signs that will presumably be recycled in the fall for her husband's Republican run for the same seat. Having never heard of her before, and knowing that the Wolffs just moved to the community 3 years ago, I wrote her candidacy off. My expectations were quite wrong, so I decided to dig deeper into these results...
Filing for the Orange County Board of Commissioners election begins February 11th. Of the folks rumored to be considering a run, Chapel Hill-Carrboro School Board Chair Pam Hemminger has been at the top of the list, and on Monday the Orange Chat blog made it official. Another likely candidate is Bernadette Pelissier of the Orange-Chatham Sierra Club (and formerly of the OWASA Board). I've also heard rumbling about an African American challenger from the county, and of course incumbent Valerie Foushee is expected to run for re-relection as well.
An interesting question emerges about which candidates will run in their respective districts, and which will go for the at-large seat. District 1 (Chapel Hill & Carrboro) will be electing 2 seats, while the rest of the county will elect one person from District 2.
With Moses Carey Jr. running for state Senate and two additional seats on the county Board of Commissioners, we'll have some new faces on the board next year.
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