Councilman Tom Owen undecided on re-election bid as first candidate files for District 8 race
Posted ByJoe SonkaOnIn Government,Metro | Comments Disabled
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Councilman Tom Owen, D-8
Democratic Councilman Tom Owen still is undecided on whether to run for re-election next year for Metro Council, as this week a candidate filed to run for his seat in District 8.
Owen served for eight years on the Louisville Board of Alderman in the 1990s, and has been the councilman for District 8 — mostly encompassing the Highlands neighborhood — since merger in 2002. Tony Hyatt, spokesman for the council’s Democratic Caucus, says Owen is undecided on a run for another term, though adding that “he has encouraged challengers in the past, and he believes that has made him a better councilman.”
William Corey Nett, a 2012 delegate to the Democratic National Convention and a member of the Tyler Park Neighborhood Association, filed to run for the District 8 seat this week — the first candidate to file for any of the Metro Council races in 2016.
Following the decision of former Councilwoman Tina Ward-Pugh to not run for re-election in 2014 in the similarly liberal District 9 — encouraging new blood to represent the district she had served since the merger — 13 Democratic candidates filed for the office.
The filing deadlines for candidates to run for Metro Council is Jan. 26.
