Filing ends: Big races set for county commissoner districts, city school board

Dec. 15—There will be contested races for two county commissioners seats, which will both be decided in the March primaries, with a three-way Democratic contest for District 4 and a head-to-head face-off for District 2. There is competition for the city school board, as four are vying for three available seats, and a new face is poised for the county school board, with three filing for as many seats and an incumbent electing not to seek reelection.

Filing concluded at noon Friday. Primaries will happen in March leading up to November's election.

There are hotly-contested races for both vacating seats on the Sampson County Board of Commissioners, with incumbents Jerol Kivett, the current board chairman, and Lethia Lee filing to seek reelection to District 2 and District 4, respectively, and challengers quickly stepping up during the two-week filing period in an attempt to oust them from their posts.

Republican Jerol Kivett is the current representative for the District 2 seat, which he has held since 2016. He is also the board chairman and was unanimously voted this month by the board to continue in that capacity. He is seeking his third term in office. Kivett is the president and CEO of a furniture business Kivett's Inc., which bears his name. He's a Clinton High School graduate and is a lifelong resident of Sampson County.

Kivett said he was initially encouraged to run for the District 2 seat back in 2015 by the Executive Committee of the Republican Party, and again in 2020. The local Republican Party, which has been headed in recent years by Kivett's wife Telia, urged him for a third time to run in 2024.

Challenging him will be Sheriff's Capt. Eric Pope, also a Republican. Both filed as soon as the filing period for the upcoming election opened Dec. 4.

Pope has served the county's public safety community in one way or another since he was 16 years old. He started out as a volunteer member of Clinton-Sampson Rescue before his first law enforcement job with the Clinton Police Department, ascending the ranks to his current position as captain with the Sampson County Sheriff's Office.

District 4 will similarly be a contested race between Lee, Raymond Hayes Jr. and Andrea C. Rouse, all Democrats.

Lee, who became the county's first Black female to be elected to the board in 2020, is seeking reelection to her second term.

She was a family service worker for the Head Start program for more than a decade, served for 15 years as an income maintenance caseworker for the Sampson County Department of Social Services and spent seven years at the Sampson County Center for the Expanded Food Nutrition Education Program, through the Cooperative Extension.

Lee said she is proud of what has been accomplished in her tenure as a county commissioner, and wants to see that continue.

In her way are two challengers, Hayes and Rouse.

Hayes is a resident of the Ivanhoe community, where he has lived for the past 21 years. He owns property in the Snow Hill community, which is also part of District 4. For the last 13 years, Hayes has served the mental health community as a psychiatric tech at Novant Hospital. Before his work in mental health, he dedicated 15 years to teaching in both the Union and Clinton school districts. Additionally, Hayes served as a state correctional officer for five years.

Jennifer Naylor filed as candidate for Sampson County Board of Education, which, along with the Clinton City Board of Education, has three seats vacating in 2024.

The three seats vacating on the Sampson County Board of Education include those currently occupied by Sandra Carroll, current vice-chair, Eleanor Bradshaw and Glenn Faison. Carroll did not file for reelection, paving the way for newcomer Naylor to take her place, with only three people filing for three spots.

On the Clinton City Board of Education, the seats currently held by Linda Strickand-Brunson, the current chair, as well as Oscar Rodriguez and Jeremy Edgerton are expiring in 2024. All three filed seeking reelection, along with challenger Patrick Cooper, leaving four people to vie for three spots.

Another local key post opening in 2024 is the Sampson County Register of Deeds, with Anita Lane officially signing the dotted line to seek her second term. She has no opposition.

Lane spent 13 years working in the Register of Deeds office prior to taking over as the register. Under former leaders Paulette King and Eleanor Bradshaw, she spent 12 years working as assistant register. Before coming to the office, she worked with the Farm Service Agency for seven years. In 2018, she was hired as the senior planner for Sampson County prior to her election to Register of Deeds.

In state contests, N.C. Senator Brent Jackson (R-Sampson) is seeking his eighth term in office. He has represented Sampson County in the state senate since Jan. 1, 2011. He represented District 10 for more than a decade, encompassing Sampson, Duplin and Bladen. Starting with the current term, redistricting changed that number to District 9, which includes Sampson, Duplin, Bladen, Jones and Pender. He will have opposition in November from Jamie Campbell Bowles, a Democrat.

N.C. House of Representatives District 22 Rep. William Brisson (R-Bladen), whose district includes Sampson, is serving his ninth term in the office and his term also expired in 2024. Sampson native Joshua Harrell, a Democrat, has filed for District 22 N.C. House and will face off with the incumbent in November, pledging to bring a presence to Sampson that he said the office has not had with Brisson.

NC State Senate District 12, which encompasses Harnett and Lee counties, and a portion of Sampson, is currently represented by Senator Jim Burgin, a Republican. He is seeking reelection to his fourth term, with Tanya White Anderson, a Democrat, stepping up to challenge Burgin in November.

Editor Chris Berendt can be reached at 910-592-8137 ext. 2587.