Local contested races highlight April 4 election

The citizens of Perryville and Perry County will have their voices heard on several issues and local hot button contested races. Voters will be able to go to the polls on April 4 in the municipal general election.
Perry County Clerk Jared Kutz said that he expects anywhere around 20 percent of the voters to cast a ballot.
“We had just under 21 percent this time last year and I expect right around that area again,” he said. “Maybe if we get good weather on election day, we can get more people to come out because there are a lot of locally contested races. You have contested health board and hospital board races, and those have been hot issues over the past few years.”
Those boards include: the Perry County Health Department Board of Trustees where voters can cast a ballot for two of either Brenda Thurm Hopfer, Jeremy Brewster, Desiree Serini, and Gwen Moore Schweiss.
The Perry County Memorial Hospital Board Candidates include Darrell Niswonger, Joe Hutchison, and Robin Huber Sims. Voters will cast a ballot for one of those individuals.
For the Perry County School District No. 32 Board of Education voters will cast a ballot for three of five candidates: Jamie Robinson, Nancy Voelker, Melissa Hahn, Glendon Sattler and John Schaaf.
Altenburg Public School No. 48 Board will be between Jessica Hecht, Tamara Palisch, and Amy Ussery. There are also Fredericktown and Oak Ridge School board races which comprise a small portion of the county.
There will also be a contested race for the City of Perryville Ward I Aldermen between Dennis House and Seth Amschler.

The City of Perryville and Perry County, as well as Frohna and Altenburg have a question on the ballot for a 3 percent on all tangible personal property retail sales of adult use marijuana sold.
“That passed statewide, but not here,” Kutz said. “This is a tax on something that we didn’t like so we put it on there so that when something pertaining to marijuana gets here maybe we can make some money on it.”
Kutz said that the city or county won’t make much on the tax as he estimated that the county would make around $20,000 per year.
“For this it would make sense to go to something for law enforcement, but it’s not enough for a full salary, so we will have to work something out,” Kutz said.
There will be questions on the ballot for Altenburg and Frohna pertaining to forgoing annual elections if the number of candidates who have filed for a particular office is equal to the number of positions in the office to be filled by the election.
“They have to pass that every six years,” Kutz said.
Kutz is looking to have a smooth election next Tuesday.
“We have great election judges who are up to date in their training and are ready to go,” he said. “This is an important election because these are the people we help run a lot of important business within the county.”