Another county commission candidate will face the winner of the June 26 primary Republican election in the November general election.
Montezuma County Clerk Carol Tullis informed Greg Kemp last week that his name will be placed onto the 2012 general election ballot for District 3 Montezuma County Commissioner.
Tullis said Kemp submitted 325 petition signatures, and a total of 280 were ruled valid and accepted. The minimum required number of valid signatures was 217.
Dewayne Findley and Casey McClellan will face each other on June 26 for the opportunity to move forward to the general election, in which the top vote getter will be opposed by Larry Don Suckla and Kemp. Suckla and Kemp are unaffiliated candidates and do not need to run in a primary in order to appear on the November ballot.
The District 3 commission seat is currently held by Gerald Koppenhafer, who is term-limited.
The initial deadline to turn in petitions to run for office as an unaffiliated candidate was June 4, though Tullis said that date has been pushed back to sometime in July.
No other prospective candidates have picked up the paperwork needed before starting to collect signatures.
Kemp has a bachelors degree in economics from Wayne State University in Detroit, where he worked in industrial supervision, responsible for maximizing the output of the available resources while maintaining established quality standards.
The candidate said this is precisely the same task that county commissioners face.
Kemp currently works part-time at Slavens Hardware. where he has been for the past 10 years.
He decided to seek office because he wanted to be more effective at what he is already doing, which is promoting economic growth and management in the county.
As a commissioner, Kemp said he would bring new ideas and significant energy to build on the foundation of the diverse assets that already exist in the county.
Kemp said he decided to run as an unaffiliated candidate because he believes he can best represent all the residents of the county by avoiding allegiance to the demands of a specific political party.
As an unaffiliated county commissioner, I believe that I could deal with state or federal elected officials more effectively by not encountering any bias based on political party affiliation, he said.
Pat DeGagne-Rule, Keenan Ertel and Bud Garner are competing for the District 2 seat being vacated by Larrie Rule who is also term-limited. Because there is no unaffiliated candidates for this seat, the winner of the Republican primary will be unopposed in the general election in November.
Reach Michael Maresh at michaelm@cortezjournal.com