Fairbury voters will be given the task Tuesday to narrow a list of three mayor candidates to two for the November general election.
That is just one of several area primary elections scheduled for Tuesday.
Three Fairbury residents, LaVeda Fry, Jan Fogleman and Homer L. Ward, are hoping for enough votes in Tuesday’s primary election to get into the top two spots in the Fairbury mayoral race in the November general election.
Fry, the current mayor, said she is proud of the work the Fairbury City Council has done and would like to continue to serve the people of Fairbury.
“We’ve done really, really well,” she said. “I am really proud to have served on the council.”
Fry, in her second year on the council, was appointed mayor by the council in December after Mayor E.M. Mueller was recalled in a special election on Nov. 6 and when Fairbury City Council president George Phillips resigned on Nov. 20.
The council has made a lot of progress in the last couple of years, including balancing the budget, Fry said. With all the work that was done by the council, she would hate to see all that work undone.
“We’ve got the city going in the right direction,” she said. “We’re in the black for the first time in many, many years.”
With the budget balanced, she said the city is able to tackle some issues, like street improvement, that the city wasn’t able to do before because of lack of money.
Fogleman became politically involved in the city of Fairbury prior to when she moved there from Princeton almost seven years ago. Her experience of trying to get a law changed to allow her to have a pigmy goat at her Fairbury residence led Fogleman to became concerned that many of the laws the Fairbury City Council passed could be considered a violation of the resident’s civil rights.
Fogleman’s goal is to look at the city overall and ensure that people’s civil rights are not being violated and laws are enforced equally.
She would also like to give the residents a voice and allow for them to present ideas to the council, she said.
“There may be a whole list of issues people who were inhibited to bring before the council because it was turned down in the past,” she said. “Let them know to try it again.”
Fogleman is open to all ideas and has no hidden agendas, she said.
Fogleman would also like to see economic development in Fairbury and believes the city has kept that from happening.
“They do things to keep people from expanding here,” she said.
Ward comes with many years of experience, he said. He has served on the Fairbury City Council, the Fairbury hospital board, the Fairbury Foundation Board and the Hospital Foundation, he said.
He also served on the Board of Nebraska Diplomats, serving as president in 1988-1989 and was named as Diplomat of the Year.
“If you’re going to be in a community and if you want to see some things done, you’ve got to step up and do what you can,” he said.
He said that experience and willingness to serve would help the council and the city move forward.
“We just don’t have a lot of direction in anything right now,” he said. “I’m hoping to get some stability back.”
There are a number of different issues, like economic development, that Ward would like to address. However, his biggest goal is close what he called the division between residents, much of which he said happened as a result of Mueller’s recall.
“It seems to me that division has become more prominent,” he said. “It’s not healthy.”
Fairbury residents will also hold elections for councilmembers seats, with only Ward III and Ward IV having contested races. In Ward II, incumbent Shirley D. Bender and Donald W. Call are running against each other. In Ward IV, incumbent Douglas Brown and Kevin J. Hergott are running against each other.
In Jefferson County, voters will also decide on giving the county the go-ahead to build an $8.5 million justice center.
In Saline County, there are only a few contested primary races.
The first contested race is for District 5 county commissioner, where incumbent Janet Henning of Crete is running against Chuck Vyhnalek of Crete.
The Dorchester School District 44 Board has seven candidates running for three spots on the board. The top six in the primary will move on to the general election in November.
The seven candidates running include Ronnie Kahle, Mikki Holtman, William Boller, Kelli D. Burkey, Lisa M. Wells, Jeff Jacobson and Lindsey Zoubek.
In Pawnee County, there are two primaries for the District 1 county commissioner seat.
For the Republicans, Albert Chauza of Table Rock is running against incumbent Paul D. Rohrbaugh of Steinauer. In the Democratic race, Lester Saathoff of Table Rock, Edwin Krofta of Table Rock and Wayne Cacek of Lewiston are all running. Each race will be narrowed to one candidate.
Pawnee City residents will vote on a referendum on Tuesday. The referendum is asking to allow 50 percent of a one and one half sales tax to be used for an economic development program for the next 16 years.
Johnson County does not have any contested races on Tuesday.