Special election set to fill vacant seat
on Mobile County Commission
Officials here this afternoon scheduled a special election to fill a vacant seat on the Mobile County Commission.
Dates for the special election in north Mobile County's District 1 are as follows:
- Party primaries, Aug. 28;
- Runoff elections, if necessary, Oct. 9;
- General election, Nov. 9 or Nov. 20 depending on whether runoff election are necessary for either party to choose its nominee. The general election would be conducted on the earlier date if no runoff elections were held.
The schedule was arranged in a meeting among Mobile County Probate Judge Don Davis, Mobile GOP chairman Mark Erwin and Mobile County Democratic Party chairman Brad Warren.
The qualifying of candidates opened immediately and a deadline of 5 p.m. Tuesday, July 17 was set. The cost of qualifying is $1,469.04 or two percent of the commissioner's annual pay of $73,452.
Controversy has swirled about the vacancy -- created when former County Commissioner Sam Jones was elected mayor of Mobile -- ever since Gov. Bob Riley appointed Juan Chastang, a black Republican, to fill the opening.
Democratic interests howled that a special election should've been set. Ultimately, they prevailed, but not before Chastang served about a year and a half in office.
Chastang was ousted May 1 when a three-judge panel ruled against him in a case filed in U.S. District Court in Montgomery.
The ruling held that Riley violated federal voting rights law in November 2005 by appointing a replacement.
Of the three Mobile County Commission districts, District One is the only majority black district. Its voters have elected black Democrats ever since the districted commission was established.
A $3.7 billion, 2,700 employee ThyssenKrupp steel plant was recently announced in the district near Calvert and Mount Vernon.
