Six candidates qualify for five Norris seats
As of Tuesday morning, six candidates – including all of the incumbents – have qualified ready to run for the five seats on the Norris City Council that will be decided in the Nov. 5 municipal election, according to the Anderson County Election Commission.
Besides the incumbents, former council member Ron Hill will be on the ballot.
A seventh potential candidate, James “Lee” Ragsdale, picked up a nominating petition on June 17, but had not yet filed it with the Election Commission by Tuesday morning.
But he has indicated to some of the present council members that he still intends to file.
Ragsdale has no prior council experience and has never been a candidate. He did attend Monday’s council meeting.
The deadline for filing petitions is noon Thursday (Aug. 15), according to the Elections Administrator Mark Stephens.
Besides Hill, who filed his petition July 2, the candidates who have already submitted their petitions and qualified to run are Mayor Chris Mitchell, who filed his petition on July 22; and the four other incumbents: Bill Grieve, who filed July 15; Loretta Ann Painter, who was the first to file, June 26; Charles P. “Chuck” Nicholson, who filed July 1; and William “Will” Grinder, who filed on Aug. 5.
In Norris, all five council members are elected every two years.
The mayor is chosen from among the council members by a majority vote of the new council when it meets for the first time, in December following the November election. The mayor’s position is never on the city’s ballot.
Mitchell is in his eighth two-year term as a council member and mayor, serving nearly 16 years.
Grieve has served nearly five terms on the council, and has also served as vice mayor,
Painter has also been on the council for nearly five terms, having been first elected 10 years ago at the same time as Grieve.
Grinder is serving his second two-year term on the council, and is a relative newcomer to Norris, moving there in 2018 from Rocky Top. He was first elected to the council in 2020.
Hill was appointed by the council to serve the remainder of an unexpired term in 2017, and ran successfully for a full two-year term in 2018. He came in sixth place for the five council seats in the 2020 election, in which he was replaced by Jill Holland, running for the first time.
Holland resigned her seat in September 2021, after serving only 10 months.
