Field crowded in Niceville vote
NICEVILLE — Not to be overshadowed by the other city elections going on next month, Niceville has a big race brewing for the council seat of the late Terry Tislow.
Tislow died while in office in October, leaving an unexpired term to be filled through July 2009.
And while Niceville quietly had uncontested elections just six months ago, five people filed this week for the seat Tislow held.
David Branscome, Daniel Henkel, Frederick Jones, Roger Noel and Lynne Waltz are competing for the position.
“We’re excited. We’ll see what happens,” said City Clerk Dan Doucet.
Niceville holds its own elections independently from the supervisor of elections office, and Doucet oversees the process for the city.
He said he could not recall a time when there was so much enthusiasm for a seat on the City Council.
“We’ve got a lot of good people who are interested in it and interested in Niceville,” he said.
The election will be Jan. 3, with a runoff on Jan. 17 unless someone takes more than 50 percent of the votes.
“It would be tough to get that many, but you never know,” Doucet said. “The potential is there for a runoff, let’s put it that way.”