Candidate lists now final for city elections
All municipal races in Anderson County that will be decided in the Nov. 5 general election now have all of their candidates officially certified, including Clinton, Norris, Oak Ridge, Rocky Top and Oliver Springs.
As of the filing deadline at noon Thursday, Aug. 15, seven candidates – including all of the incumbents -- qualified to run for five open seats on the Norris City Council.
Besides the incumbents, former council member Ron Hill and newcomer James “Lee” Ragsdale will be on the ballot.
Ragsdale has no prior council experience and has never been a candidate.
• In Rocky Top, three candidates are running for two open seats on City Council: incumbent Stacy L. Phillips and newcomers Keith Daniels and Dewayne M. Seiber. Incumbent Zack Green did not file to run again.
• In Oak Ridge, there are three of the seven City Council seats up for election this year.
The three incumbents have qualified to run, including Jim Dodson, Derrick M. Hammond and Charles “Chuck” Hope Jr. The only challenger is Ruthie Pless Rizzie, who has no prior experience.
James T. “Jim” Normand is running unopposed for Oak Ridge city judge.
• In Oliver Springs, Kenneth T. Brown is unopposed for alderman in Ward 3.
• In Clinton, City Council candidates are newcomer Lucas Heaton and incumbent Robert Herrell running for the Ward 1 seat; incumbent Larry Gann is running unopposed in Ward 2; and newcomers Matthew Foster and Lorie Wilson are running for the Ward 3 seat being vacated by Jim McBride,
who chose not to run again.
• In Norris, the incumbents on the ballot are Mayor Chris Mitchell, Bill Grieve, Loretta Ann Painter, Charles P. “Chuck” Nicholson, and William “Will” Grinder.
All five Norris council members are elected every two years.
The mayor is chosen by a majority vote of the new City 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 for voters to choose.
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 November 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.
But he came in sixth place for the five council seats in the 2020 election, in which he was replaced by Jill Holland Ryan, who was running for the first time.
Ryan resigned from her council seat in September 2021, after serving only 10 months.