The results of Tuesday’s election have allowed Alamance County to fill a district court bench that had been a little rough hewn – with gubernatorial appointees warming two recently-vacated seats and a newly-created fifth judgeship waiting for its inaugural occupant.
The county’s voters ultimately awarded this new post to Meredith Tuck Edwards, who currently serves as the county’s clerk of superior court. In the meantime, they passed over the governor’s hand-picked district court judges to install local attorney Bryan Ray and Craig Turner, a member of Alamance County’s commissioners, in the other two contested seats.
This all-Republican lineup of new judges has nevertheless created some ripple effects for two of the county’s other elected positions.
The elevation of Edwards, for instance, will demand the appointment of a new clerk of superior court – a duty that state law confers on Andy Hanford, a Democrat who serves as the county’s senior resident superior court judge.
At the same time, Turner’s selection has created an opening on Alamance County’s board of commissioners. In this case, however, state law allows the executive committee of the local Republican party to a name a successor to serve out the two years which remain in Turner’s term on the board.
Kathy Page, the chairman of Alamance County’s GOP, has acknowledged that suitors for position have already begun jockeying for the executive committee’s appointment.
“Several Republicans have expressed interest in seeking the endorsement of the Alamance County Republican Party to fill the seat on our board of county commission that will be open with the resignation of commissioner Craig Turner,” Page went on to explain in an email on Wednesday. “As potential candidates have expressed interest as opposed to intent, I am not comfortable sharing their names at this time.”
Among the contenders for the committee’s appointment are the also-rans from previous races for the board of commissioners – and in particular those who competed in the GOP’s primaries for the county’s governing board.
The first runner up in this year’s primary was Ryan Bowden, a school board member who did not seek re-election to that post, but who has since fallen in the esteem of some Republican leaders due to his recent support for a Democratic aspirant to the board of commissioners.
Another potential contender is Leonard Harrison, who finished the primary a few hundred votes behind Bowden. The Alamance News tried to get up Harrison about his interest in Turner’s position, although he didn’t respond to the newspaper’s voice mail before press time on Wednesday.
A third prospect with experience as a commissioner candidate is Henry Vines – a farmer from Snow Camp who currently holds an appointed position on the county’s board of equalization and review.
Vines made several bids for the board of commissioners as a Democrat until he defected to the Republican Party after a lackluster showing in the Democratic primary in 2020. Despite his relatively recent political conversion, Vines believes that he has the conservative bona fides to satisfy the GOP’s leaders – should they give him a chance to do so when they gather together to pick Turner’s successor.
“I am interested in it,” Vines added in an interview Wednesday. “I’m hoping someone on the executive committee will nominate me…I know what’s going on in the county, and I think I could bring something to the commissioners’ board in a conservative matter.
“We certainly need to meet the needs of the county,” he added. “But the last raise [which the commissioners bestowed on county staff] was the third highest in the history of the county…I know we want to do something for staff, but we need to do something to make life easier for people who live in the county.”
Vines’ concern about the county’s property tax burden had been one of his calling cards even when he was running for office as a Democrat. Although his stance on this issue may put him in good stead with the GOP’s leaders, he has also been a vocal advocate of countywide zoning – a cause that has been much less popular with many influential Republicans.
Even so, Vines seems to be unwilling to abandon this issue for the sake of political expediency.
“My sense has always been that we need countywide zoning,” he told The Alamance News when pressed on the potential dilemma. “I know some people aren’t in favor of it…But with all the growth that we’re facing in the county and will all the extreme growth, we need some form of control. We need to get everything so we’re all on the same page.”
Under state law, the GOP’s executive committee has 30 days to name a successor to Turner once he resigns from the board of commissioners to assume his new post as a district court judge. If the committee makes its selection within this timeframe, the current board’s current members will be obligated to accept the party’s nomination.
An assemblage of party officers, partisan office holders, and current Republican candidates, the GOP’s executive committee has yet to set a date for its selection of Turner’s successor.
