Candidates file for City Council positions
Voters in three Bartlesville City Council wards will have a choice to make in November, according to filings with the Washington County Election Board.
All five seats are up for election, but by the end of the candidate filing period on Wednesday, only the incumbents had filed in wards 1 and 5 — represented by Bartlesville Mayor Dale Copeland and Councilmember Trevor Dorsey respectively.
Ward 2 Councilmember Paul Stuart is not running for reelection, with two people running for his spot, Loren Roszel and Chelsie Wagoner.
Roszel is involved in several local organizations as a member of the Bartlesville Rotary Club and serving on the boards of the Bartlesville Regional United Way and Visit Bartlesville.
Wagoner announced plans to run for City Council on Facebook in December. In a public post, she wrote she had thought about running for about a year due to ongoing concerns as a constituent.
“The last two years have brought many concerns for most when it comes to government; overreaching outside of elected role duties has become more common than we deserve,” Wagoner wrote in the post.
Recently, she was a vocal supporter of Wendi Stearman’s reelection campaign for House District 11 and Jonathan Bolding’s campaign for Bartlesville Public Schools Board of Education. Both candidates lost their respective elections.
In Ward 3, incumbent Jim Curd Jr. will be challenged by Brandon Wade. Curd, owner of Dink’s Pit Bar-B-Que and Sterling’s Grille, has held the position for four years. He also served as the Bartlesville vice mayor in the 1990s and currently serves on the Bartlesville Development Authority.
In Ward 4, incumbent Billie Roane will be challenged by John Maples. Roane was appointed to the vacant seat by the Council in April 2021, two months after former vice mayor Alan Gentges stepped down to pursue a position as the Bartlesville municipal judge. She was selected from a group of seven Ward 4 candidates who expressed interest and completed an interview process.
Maples is the precinct chair for the Washington County GOP and the founder of the Washington County Freedom Advocates, a group that organized two protests in 2021 to oppose vaccine and mask mandates amid the spread of COVID-19. On its Facebook page, the group spreads political messaging about far-right candidates such as Josh Brecheen, who is running for Oklahoma’s second congressional district.
Brecheen, who Maples also endorses on his personal Facebook page, has been an outspoken proponent of Christian Nationalism — the idea that America was founded as a fundamentally Christian country and that public policy should reflect Biblical principles.
On social media, Maples is vocal about his beliefs the 2020 election was stolen and is outspoken against State House Rep. Judd Strom. Maples has issued press release censuring Strom for voting against bills supported by the Republican party, especially those relating to abortion and taxes.
This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Candidates file for Bartlesville City Council positions
