Hampton city council, mayoral race candidates finalized

The 2013 Hampton city council and mayor's election will feature a light slate of candidates with only the race for the seat of mayor having more than one candidate.

Thursday was the final day for potential candidates to officially file candidate nomination papers for the city council - where three seats were up for election - or the mayor's seat. One final candidate filed nomination papers Thursday before the filing period closed.

The three council seats up for grabs are the at-large seat, held currently by Dick Lukensmeyer; the Ward II seat - held by council mainstay Jim Davies; and the Ward IV seat, being vacated by Craig Eckhardt.

Lukensmeyer is running for re-election to the at-large seat and he has no official opponents contesting him. 

Davies - who had decided over the summer to not seek re-election - changed his mind and filed official candidate papers and will be seeking to regain his Ward II seat. Davies, like Lukensmeyer, is running uncontested.

The Ward IV seat has only one candidate as well, that being Jay Hickman, who filed his paperwork today officially entering him into the race as the only Ward IV candidate to file nomination papers.

The only contested race of this year's election is that for the seat of mayor of Hampton - being vacated by Shawn Dietz.

There are two candidates for mayor - Brook Boehmler, the former executive director for the Greater Franklin Chamber of Commerce, and Diane Weldin, a school nurse at the Hampton-Dumont Community School District who formerly served as mayor of Hampton for eight years before losing to Dietz by 16 votes in the last election.

The election will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 5. Make sure to keep any eye on the Hampton Chronicle's Web site, Facebook page, and print edition for all the latest news on the campaign for mayor and a candidate forum tentatively slated for mid-to-late October.