Athens voters will cast ballots in two contested primaries today, while seven other races are uncontested.
Incumbents Paul Wiehl, Kathy Hecht and Pat Lang have no primary challenges for their positions as mayor, auditor and law director, respectively.
City council hopefuls Jeff Risner, Michele Papai, Christine Fahl and Jim Sands are the only Democratic candidates in their races.
Competition has been tense in the race for council’s three at-large positions, for which there are two incumbents and four challengers. Meanwhile, incumbent 1st Ward councilman Kent Butler hopes to fend off challenger Andrea DeMott.
Wiehl is the only Democrat facing a Republican challenger in November’s general election.
Make sure to check out The Post’s website throughout the day and night for the latest Election Day updates.
2 vie for spot as 6th student to serve on council
As Athens residents hit the polls today, three students will be among the candidates anxiously awaiting the results.
Democrats Nate Hall and Ibrahim Alassaf are each hoping to become the sixth Ohio University student elected to council. Meanwhile, graduate student and incumbent Elahu Gosney, who was the fifth student ever elected, hopes to retain his current council spot.
It’s been 23 years since Rex Scott became the first student to become a councilman in 1988.
But Scott’s trailblazing election to city council was no cakewalk.
He first moved to Athens in 1972, when his father took a job as a journalism professor at OU, Scott said, adding that attending college at OU was an easy and obvious choice for him.
And just a few months into his freshman year at OU, he threw his hat into the race for city council.
“I ran for the first time in 1983,” said Scott, who ran as a Republican. “I was the only challenger and all three incumbents were re-elected.”
Determined to not let the defeat deflate his desire to serve, Scott ran again in 1987 and was elected.
“What was predominant in my mind was being not just a representative of the student body, and also being representative of the hometown,” he said.
Scott was re-elected in 1989 and served on council until 1991.
It was six years before the next OU student — who is now a familiar face for many Athens residents — earned a council seat.
In 1997, a 19-year-old Patrick Lang, who is now the city’s law director, was elected to council.
“I ran because, having grown up just down the road in Albany, I felt that I had a good understanding of the issues important both to permanent Athens residents as well as OU students,” Lang said.
Lang is running unopposed to retain his current job and has declared himself a candidate for the soon-to-be vacant county prosecutor position.
But his 1997 campaign for council’s 2nd Ward seat forced him to win a contested Democratic primary.
“I campaigned hard, both on campus and in the neighborhoods,” Lang said. “It was quite an honor to win not only the student precinct (South Green) but all three neighborhood precincts.”
The next student elected to council was 20-year-old Sarah Sexton, a Democrat who earned 1,828 votes and one of the three at-large council spots in 2003.
“I thought I would be a close fourth,” Sexton told The Post in 2003, adding she thought her victory was “the shock of the night.”
And Sexton’s victory inspired one of the members of her campaign team, Amy Flowers, to seek a council a seat herself.
“I was in OU College Dems when she was running and was very, very inspired by what Sarah did,” Flowers said.
Flowers was elected in 2005 and re-elected in 2007. In 2008, she stepped down in order to take her current job as a bailiff in Columbus.
“Columbus is awesome, but I really miss Athens,” Flowers said. “There has been no better experience that I’ve had in my life than serving on Athens City Council.”
The most recent student elected to council, Elahu Gosney, is still a member and is seeking re-election in today’s primary.
Gosney was the third leading vote getter in the 2007 Democratic primary and was re-elected in 2009.
“I was born in Athens; I was raised here, and it is my home,” Gosney said at a recent candidate forum.
Both Hall and Alassaf have said they’d be honored to be the next student elected to council.
“It’s also a great experience for someone at that stage in life,” said Scott, reflecting back on his time as a council member.
Since becoming Athens’ first student member of city council, Scott, 47, has changed both his party affiliation and occupation. Although he was elected as a Republican, Scott says he is now a strong Democrat.
He left Athens following his time on council to become a teacher in Arizona. Since 2000, he’s been a school administrator, currently serving as the principal of Catalina Magnet High School.
And though he hasn’t been extremely politically active in recent years — he did volunteer for the re-election campaign for Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in 2008 — he says he’s not ruling out a political run reminiscent of his 1988 victory sometime in the near future.
“I would love to run for something again when I retire,” he said.
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