YOUNGSTOWN If incumbent Youngstown council President DeMaine Kitchen would have been successful in collecting 50 valid signatures on his nominating petitions
YOUNGSTOWN If incumbent Youngstown council President DeMaine Kitchen would have been successful in collecting 50 valid signatures on his nominating petitions, there wouldn’t be a contested Democratic primary for his seat.
But because of that failure, Kitchen, who’s in his first four-year term as president, is running in an unusual race against two other candidates all as write-ins.
His two challengers in the May 4 Democratic primary are Tom Hetrick, a nutrition educator for Mercy Health-Youngstown and a former neighborhood planner for the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp.; and Lee David Pupio, a retired city wastewater collections system maintenance operations employee.
YOUNGSTOWN Christopher N. Travers is withdrawing as a candidate for Youngstown council president and throwing his support behind Thomas Hetrick.
Travers said Wednesday that he’ll contact the Mahoning County Board of Elections today about no longer being a candidate for the job.
What’s unique about the race is all of the council president candidates in the Democratic primary are running as write-ins after incumbent DeMaine Kitchen had to withdraw when the board of elections informed him he didn’t have enough valid signatures to get his name on the ballot.
Kitchen was the only person to submit nominating petitions for the position.
YOUNGSTOWN With Youngstown Council President DeMaine Kitchen having to run as a write-in candidate, he will be among four seeking the seat in the Democratic primary for the job.
In addition to Kitchen, who is serving his first four-year term as council president, the three other write-ins are Christopher N. Travers, Thomas Hetrick and Lee David Pupio.
The three all filed by Monday’s deadline.
The candidate with the most write-in votes during the May 3 primary will be the Democratic nominee for the position.
Kitchen of Struthers Liberty Road was the only candidate to file nominating petitions for the seat. But he withdrew Feb. 11 when the Mahoning County Board of Elections informed him he didn’t have enough valid signatures to get his name on the ballot.