In Woodford County, two mayoral resignations lead to very different outcomes

In Woodford County’s second-largest city, there’ll be a mayor’s race after all. In May, then-Midway Mayor Stacy Thurman announced her resignation. Days later, the Midway City Council unanimously chose her predecessor, Grayson Vandegrift, to serve the rest of her 31-month term. Tuesday, Vandegrift announced on social media that come November, there’ll be a write-in election.

“A friend in the legal community called me and pointed it out to me, and that's when I went to the county clerk, and it turned out that she was already looking into this, but it this is, you know, from the time I found out about this was just a matter of weeks ago, but there was verification that had to happen. There was communication between county clerk and Secretary of State's office.”

The election law in question states that resignations more than three months before the next election require a special election. However, the filing deadline was June 4th, thus the write-in contest.

“Pretty quickly I realized what, what an opportunity this is. I would rather be directly elected by the people, if I had the option, than just being elected by the council and serving out two and a half years.”

Meanwhile, in Woodford County’s largest city, Versailles Mayor Brian Traugott’s resignation will take effect October 1 ^st , so the city council will select the person to finish his term. If they don’t make a choice by the end of that month, the governor will.

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