Campaign Season Comes to Hyattsville
Registration, campaigning for city council seats can begin today.
Starting today, campaign signs can start sprouting on lawns and candidates may begin registering for Hyattsville's 2013 municipal election.
The registration period is open from Feb. 25 through March 29. The election is set for Tuesday, May 7. Here's a full breakdown of Hyattsville's election calendar.
However the election shakes out, one thing is already guaranteed; Hyattsville's City Council will look radically different come May 8. More than half of Hyattsville's 10 city council seats will be up for election this year, with one seat from each of the city's five wards plus an additional vacancy created by the recent resignation of City Councilor Nicole Hinds Mofor (Ward 5). The mayor's seat is not up for election again until 2015.
In addition to Mofor's seat, the seats held by councilors Eric Wingard (Ward 1), David Hiles (Ward 2), Matt McKnight (Ward 3), Carlos Lizanne (Ward 4) and Ruth Ann Frazier (Ward 5) will all be contested.
Only Wingard and Hiles have said that they plan to run for re-election. McKnight, Lizanne and Frazier will each be retiring from the city council after their terms are up in May.
Hyattsville's municipal clerk has set up a website with all of the necessary filing documents as well as some extra information which could prove enlightening for city council candidates.
For the first time, Hyattsville's city council candidates will have to file financial disclosure forms required by state ethics legislation enacted last year.
The 12 part financial disclosure statement asks candidates to disclose their property and business holdings, gifts received from or debt owed to companies or individuals who work with the city, any familial relationship with city staff, and other information.
Shani
10:15 am on Monday, February 25, 2013
The financial disclosure form sounds much more daunting than it is. Rather than asking candidates to disclose truly sensitive information such as salary, stock holdings, mortgage amount, school loan amounts, etc., it's more along the lines of:
Do you have a job? List address of employer.
Do you own a house? List name of the company which holds your mortgage.
Unless your finances are intertwined with a business entity or person that does extensive business dealings with the City of Hyattsville, the form should take about 15 minutes to fill out (plus getting it notarized).