This November’s city elections figure to be a quiet one, as there will be only two contested city council races – one apiece in Covington and Mansfield – in the entire county.

Qualifying for those seats ended this week and the only two contested races will be:
- Covington City Council Post 1 east between incumbent Chris Smith and Maurice Carter
- Mansfield Post 4 between incumbent Lisa Dunn and Larry Cummins (who is actually also an incumbent, though he currently holds the Post 5 seat)

Newborn, Oxford and Porterdale do not have any contested races. Newborn Town Clerk Lisa Rowe said Newborn’s three qualifying candidates would all be automatically elected without an election; Porterdale and Oxford are not expected to hold elections either.

Below are the people who qualified by city.

Covington
Post 1 East Ward – incumbent Chris Smith and Maurice Carter
Post 2 West Ward – incumbent Hawnethia Williams
Post 3 West Ward – incumbent Ocie Franklin

Porterdale
Post 3 – incumbent Tim Savage
Post 4 - incumbent Mike Harper
Post 5 – incumbent Lowell Chambers

Oxford
Post 4 – incumbent David Eady
Post 5 – incumbent Jim Windham
Post 6 – incumbent Terry Smith

Newborn
Mayor – incumbent Roger W. Sheridan
Post 3 – Ruth Sams
Post 4 – incumbent Martha Ellwanger

Sams will be new to the council. Post 3 had been held by Tom Krieger, but he is working more out of town and didn’t know if he could devote enough time to the position, Town Clerk Lisa Rowe said. Sams is retired.

Mansfield
Post 3 – Jeff Riley
Post 4 – incumbent Lisa Dunn and Larry Cummins
Post 5 - Matt Clark

Riley and Clark are both new to the council. Riley is a business owner in the design, printing and promotions field and Clark is a software developer, according to their qualifying applications. Lyra Cocchi holds the post 3 seat, but she decided not to run again. Cummins holds the post 5 seat but apparently decided to run against Dunn instead of seeking his own seat.

With the exception of Covington, which has east and west wards, residents of other cities can run for whatever seat they want to. In Covington, residents must run in the ward they live in, but they can run for any of the three posts for that ward.