Rawlings files to run for county position
Published 12:05 pm Wednesday, February 2, 2011
A familiar name in elections during the past decade will be on local ballots again this year, this time in a second bid for county supervisor.
Tommie Rawlings, 47, a construction worker by trade and a member of the Vicksburg Board of Zoning Appeals, filed Tuesday to run as a Democrat against District 2 Supervisor William Banks, to whom he lost four years ago as an independent.
“The office of supervisor isn’t as respected as alderman,” said Rawlings, who received 3 percent of the vote when he sought the city’s position of North Ward alderman in 2005.
In 2007, when he challenged Banks, Rawlings won 16 percent of the vote. In both races, he ran as an independent, which requires signatures from voters inside the district.
Rawlings said he is running as a Democrat because party loyalty was too strong to overcome last time in the district, which covers north Vicksburg and areas west of U.S. 61 North, including Eagle Lake.
“The district is about 80 percent Democrat,” he said.
Banks, 60, who owns a tax service and an auto title loan business at 1307 Clay St., was first elected in 2005 in a special election to succeed former Supervisor Michael Mayfield.
As a supervisor, Rawlings said he would vote to hold businesses to hiring 60 percent of their workers from inside Warren County if they want tax exemptions often afforded companies with new equipment or who build in the city’s historic district.
Party primaries are Aug. 2. The general election is Nov. 8.
In Warren County, voters will decide races in eight statewide races and 24 district-level and countywide offices. Also, voters will decide the fate of three initiatives placed on the ballot by separate petitions — definition of a person, voter identification and eminent domain.
Qualifying ends March 1 for statewide and local races and June 1 for legislative posts.
All five county supervisors will seek new terms this year. District 1 Supervisor David McDonald faces a primary challenge from businessman Joe Channell. District 5 Supervisor Richard George, an independent, has drawn one opponent, J.W. Carroll, an independent. Supervisors Charles Selmon in District 3 and Bill Lauderdale in District 4 have drawn no challengers.