Candidates for Municipal Election Set

The candidates for the East Ridge Municipal Election are set, as qualifying deadline was Thursday at noon.

Two council seats are open as well as the mayor’s position.

For Mayor, City Councilman Brian Williams is asking voters to move up to run the council meetings. Williams is in the middle of a four-year term.

Former City Councilman Jim Bethune, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2014, is asking voters to return him to elective office. Bethune was narrowly defeated by Williams for a spot on the council in 2016.

There are eight candidates running for two seats on the City Council. The top two vote-getters will serve a four-year term.

Jacky Cagle is seeking re-election to his seat on the council. Denny Manning, who stepped down in 2016 as he was term-limited, is also running.

Gregg Shipley, the Chairman of the City Beer Board,, is asking voters for a seat on the council dais. Shipley ran an unsuccessful campaign for council in 2016.

Mike Chauncey, a real-estate agent and the Chairman of the East Ridge Planning Commission, is also running.

Political newcomers Jeff Ezell, Robert Gilreath Jr., Robert Jones and Aundie Witt round out the crowded field seeking a council seat.

Incumbent Court Clerk Patricia Cassidy is asking voters to give her four more years as clerk. She is being challenged by Wayne Thompson, a retired city employee with more than 30 years of service, and Doris Rogers, a retired banker, who was rejected by voters in previous runs for East Ridge City Council.

In an attempt to inform voters, East Ridge News Online will do a series of candidate profiles in coming weeks leading up to the election.

Early voting for the non-partisan election begins Oct. 17. Election day proper is on Nov. 6.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.