Filing period begins for Buncombe County municipal elections

Black Mountain and Montreat seats to be determined in November

Fred McCormick
The Valley Echo
July 6, 2020

Prospective candidates seeking offices in Buncombe County municipalities this fall can officially declare their intention to run for office. 

The filing period for candidates in the Nov. 3 general election, which will determine three seats on the Black Mountain Board of Aldermen, two seats on the Montreat Board of Commissioners and Montreat’s mayor, began at 8 a.m., Monday, July 6 and will remain open until noon, Friday, July 17. 

The general election will be the first held in Montreat and Black Mountain since 2017, after the N.C. General Assembly approved requests by both municipalities to hold elections in even years only, moving the 2019 election to 2020 and extending each elected official’s term by a year. 

Incumbent Montreat Mayor Tim Helms, who ran unopposed in 2015, filed to seek re-election on the opening day of the filing period. Commissioner Kitty Fouche, who was elected to her seat on the town council in 2015, has filed to run for re-election, as well. Jane Alexander, who was appointed to fill the vacancy created when former Montreat commissioner Bill Gilliland resigned last August, has also filed to run for a seat. 

The three seats up for election on the Black Mountain Board of Aldermen are currently occupied by Vice Mayor Maggie Tuttle, Larry Harris and Jennifer Willet. Tuttle and Harris won their respective seats in 2015. Willet was appointed to the seat in March of this year, filling a vacancy left by the passing of Carlos Showers in January. Showers was appointed to fill the seat in December of 2017, after its previous occupant, Black Mountain mayor Don Collins, was elected to his current position in November of that year.

The Buncombe County Board of Elections website reported no candidates had filed for the Black Mountain election as of 1:30 p.m., July 6. 

Montreat and Black Mountain operate under a council-manager form of government, in which an elected body functions as the municipalities guiding entity and appoints a town manager or administrator to oversee day-to-day operations. Each town’s boards include five voting members and meetings are presided over by the mayor, who only votes on issues before the council in the event of a tie. 

At-large, non-partisan elections for each municipality are held every two years.

Four seats on the Buncombe County Board of Education will also be decided this November, including a representative from the Owen District and an at-large seat. The filing period for candidates seeking those seats also began on July 6 and will remain open until noon, Friday, Aug. 7. Black Mountain resident Linda Tatsapaugh filed to run for the Owen District seat on the opening day of the filing period.