MANASSAS — With elections coming in November, Democrats in Manassas will hold a firehouse primary this week to select their candidates for city council.
From a press release:
The Manassas & Manassas Park Cities Democratic Committee (MMPCDC) will hold an unassembled party caucus to select three Democratic nominees for City of Manassas City Council in the November 6, 2018, General Election.
The unassembled caucus, also known as a “firehouse primary”, will be held on Saturday, June 9, 2018, from 10:15 to 11:45 am, at the Central Community Library, 8601 Mathis Ave., Manassas VA 20110 in the Central Community Room.
The nominating caucus will choose between the four candidates who have properly filed for the Democratic nomination – E. Michelle Davis-Younger, Ken D. Elston, Rex G. Parr Jr and Oliver T. Reid – in response to the MMPCDC’s call for candidates issued on May 1, 2018. The deadline for candidates to file for this Democratic nomination was June 2 at 5:00 pm.
Voting in the caucus is open to every citizen who is registered to vote in the City of Manassas and agrees to not support any candidate in the General Election who is opposed to the resulting Democratic nominees.
The doors to the caucus room will open for voter certification and voting at 10:15 am and will close at 11:45 am. Anyone standing in line at 11:45 am will be allowed to vote. Voting must be in person at the time and location noted above. Voters may arrive anytime between 10:15 and 11:45 am, cast their ballot, and leave. Voters will be allowed to vote for up to three candidates.
The caucus rules and other pertinent forms and information are posted on the MMPCDC website (www.manassascitydemocrats.org).
Three seats on the city council are up for grabs to include Republican Marc Aveni’s seat and Ken Elston, who is listed above. The holder of the third open seat Sheryl Bass, says she will not seek re-election to the city council.
As for the candidates listed for the firehouse primary, Rex Parr is making another run at a city council seat after losing a bid two years ago. Parr was CEO of Didlake, Inc. for more than 30 years when he retired in 2015.
Davis-Younger and Reid are newcomers to the city’s political scene. One is a human resources professional while the other is a minister, respectively.
News of the firehouse primary comes after a Democratic caucus scheduled for Wednesday in neighboring Manassas Park was canceled. The MMPCDC says two candidates — Alanna Mensing and Haseeb Javed — have filed to run for two open seats on that city’s Governing Body.
