Lynn Harper is challenging Mike Rainey for the Ward 2 at-large seat on the City Council.
Harper became the final candidate to file for the fall municipal elections in Vance County when she submitted her paperwork this morning. She was the only candidate to file today before the noon deadline.
Her action means that Hendersonians will have six contested races on the ballot Oct. 11. Mayor Clem Seifert and Ward 4’s council members, Lonnie Davis and Ranger Wilkerson, are the unopposed exceptions.
Kittrell voters will have no choices. Mayor James Howard Wynne has no opposition for re-election, and newcomer Jack Ball will join incumbents Millard Grissom and Tex Finch as town commissioners.
Middleburg, on the other hand, will have a ballot full of options. Mayor Vivian Edwards faces a challenge from Commissioner Ray Bullock, and Frances May, Annie Fudge, Ruth Nance and William Abbott Jr. are competing for three commissioner seats.
The lineup in Henderson includes contested races for each council seat in Wards 1, 2 and 3. People in all four wards get to vote in the at-large races.
In Ward 1, incumbent Mary Emma Evans and Glean Henderson Jr. are seeking the ward seat, and incumbent Bernard Alston faces a rematch against Sara Coffey for the at-large seat. In Ward 2, incumbent Harriette Butler faces Robert Gupton for the ward seat, and Rainey and Harper will contest the at-large seat. In Ward 3, longtime council member John Wester is giving up his ward seat to challenge at-large incumbent Elissa Yount, and Marty Gister and Garry Daeke are vying to replace Wester.
In a phone interview, Harper said she waited until the last day to file because she struggled with whether she could best serve her adopted hometown, where she first moved in 1974, as a member of the City Council or as an active volunteer.
“This is the best thing I can do for the city now,” she said.
Reached at his office at City Tire, Rainey said he didn’t know Harper had filed to run against him. He said it will be up to the voters to decide who should represent them.
“I’ll just do what I can do and try to continue what I’ve been doing,” the first-term council member said.
Harper, the former co-owner of Harperprints, is best known locally for her active chairmanship of the Clean Up Henderson Committee since the spring of 2003. Two other original community members of that committee, Evans and Yount, went on to win seats on the council in the fall of 2003.
Harper emphasized that her work as the head of the cleanup committee and the mayor’s housing task force was never meant to be a pathway to political office. Instead, she concluded that the best way to move those efforts forward was to seek a council seat.
She also said her decision is not an attack on Rainey. “I think Mike Rainey and Nora are two of the nicest people I know.”
But Harper lives in Ward 2, meaning she could challenge either Rainey or Butler. Harper didn’t want to create a three-way race with Butler and Gupton, and she said her issues fit an at-large campaign because they have effects citywide, from Red Hill to North Henderson to West Henderson to Flint Hill.
Harper echoed Yount in calling for benchmarking Henderson’s programs and spending against comparable North Carolina cities. “We need to learn from people who have been where we want to go.”
She said the cleanup committee and housing task force have learned from Roanoke Rapids, Rocky Mount, Wilson, Troy, Raleigh and Durham.
Harper also said her business experience should be valuable to the city as it tries to regain its financial footing and to attract jobs.
Rainey said he also is concerned about the city’s finances and about bringing business to Henderson.
He said he wants to rebuild the general fund balance, in part by looking for expenses that can be cut. “We need to try to get everything back on an even keel.”
He said he’ll continue to push for the move of municipal operations into a renovated Operations & Service Center on Beckford Drive across from Sonic. That move would reduce city expenses and provide the opportunity to raise revenue by selling the current Municipal Building.
Harper pledged to familiarize herself with all city issues, including the consolidation of the government in the Operations & Service Center and the $21 million plan to expand the regional water plant.