On October 18, 2005 at the Monthly General Meeting of the Lodge we held nominations for the election of the Board of Directors that will be serving you for the next two years. President Dotson chose not to run for re-election.
Detective Bill Keeling was the only candidate that chose to run for the Office of President. (Since Bill was unopposed, he is automatically elected President and will be sworn in at the December General meeting.)
Two candidates have chosen to run for the Office of Vice President. Incumbent VP Jon Pugh will be seeking a second term. Sergeant John McGuire is throwing his hat into the ring for this position.
Long time Recording Secretary Paul Schweizer was also unopposed. Paul is finishing up his 11th year as Recording Secretary and will serve another two years. He holds the distinction as being the longest serving member of the Executive Board. (Since Paul was unopposed, he is automatically elected Secretary again and will be sworn in at the December General meeting.)
Two candidates will be squaring off for the Office of Treasurer. Steve Schweitzer is the incumbent that will be fending off challenger John Mellen. The winner of this race will take on the financial duties of the Lodge for the next two years.
There are two interested parties for the Office of Financial Secretary. Incumbent Denis Spalding will be facing off with Dale Leichty. Both have served terms on this board and previous boards.
The Office of 2nd Vice President which was formerly the Conductor position will be filled by one of the two candidates. Incumbent Gary Conner is being challenged by Yolanda Baker for this position.
Inner Guard Robert O'Neil went unchallenged to retain his post, but the Outer Guard position is hotly contested by 3 candidates. Incumbent Leslie Watson has two other people running for her position. Matt Staples & Jonathon Bryant are both seeking to try their hand at this position.
Jeff Harris has gone unopposed for the distinguished position of Lodge Chaplain. Jeff must have the Big Guy on his side because he has not faced a challenger in several elections now.
Officer Chris Brands has also scared off all opponents in his bid for the State Lodge Trustee position. There will be 5 people running for the other 4 Lodge Trustee positions. Ed Davis, James Embry, Lonnie Gullion, Brad Woolridge & Dale Lankford will all be vying for 1 of these 4 positions.
There are 26 Delegate Positions. We initially had 28 people running for the Office of Delegate. At the nominations 1 dropped out and another ran for a different position thereby dropping the number to 26 people running for 26 positions. Therefore, they are essentially unopposed candidates and are automatically elected and will be sworn in at the December General meeting. At the November Board Meeting we will draw their names out of the hat for positioning order for the roster. Normally this would have been done by vote totals, but since they are already elected we felt this would be the fairest way to accomplish this task. (In deference to Jerry Zehnder who felt alphabetical order was prejudiced!)
Your new Lodge 614 Delegates for 2006-2007 are: Chris Ansman, Tom David, Jim Gray, Scott Lehman, Rhonda Pendigraph, Brian Royse, Jeff Schmitt, Jason Schweitzer, Gary Simkins, Les Skaggs, Mont Taylor, Jerry Zehnder, Amy Brown, Larry Priddy, Gary Fischer, Dave Culler, J.T. Duncan, Kim Lankford, Glen Simpson, Sam Tucker, David James, Kristen Anderson, Bob Gant, Jay Scott, Denny Alfred & John Keeling.
Elections will be held in 6 locations on November 15, 2005. Standard Election rules apply. We will be using electronic voting machines at each location which will be monitored by individuals selected from the election committee and the Jefferson County Board of Elections.
The locations are:
1. Downtown at the Call to Court Office
2. The FOP 614 Lodge
3. The 3rd Division
4. The 2nd Division
5. The 8th Division
6. The 5th Division
The Polls will be open from 6 am to 6 pm. We will remind everyone before the election by e-mail and by letter. The results of the election will be verified by the committee and read at the General Meeting that night.
This is a historic time in our Lodge. This is the first Election of Officers for River City FOP Lodge 614. Since 2003 we have been operating as a Board Appointed by the State President Martin Scott when our Lodge was created.
Congratulations to everyone already elected and good luck to the candidates in the contested races. As always we ask everyone to refrain from acting like politicians and keep all literature and campaign material above board.