Franklin residents are getting a new city council member tonight, bringing an end to a two-month string of resignations due to public concerns over the actions of two council members.
County Republicans will conduct a caucus tonight where six people who generally help organize election work will instead be picking a new member of the Franklin City Council. Again.
Three people want the job. The candidates are retired Johnson County Sheriff’s Office deputy Danny Blankenship, network administrator Josh Prine and deputy prosecutor Lori Prince.
The District 1 seat on the Franklin City Council has been open since January, when longtime member Joe Ault resigned due to public concern about a derogatory post he shared on Facebook. A caucus was conducted to replace him, and Stephen R. Brown was selected among five candidates.
Brown’s 2016 arrest and criminal charge for domestic battery was not widely known until after he was appointed, and the president of the city council and a precinct committee member called for his resignation.
The three candidates for the council seat were all candidates in the last caucus, but Prine was not eligible because a change to his voter registration information hadn’t been processed in time.
Six precinct committee members will select, by secret ballot, the new city council member, who will serve on the city council through the end of 2019 and finish Ault’s term. The precinct committee members are Pam Ault, Eric Fredbeck, John White, Kirby Cochran, Dan Richards and Jim Martin.
The new city council member will represent the residents of District 1, which includes a portion of downtown Franklin, approximately bordered by Graham and Younce streets on the east, U.S. 31 on the west, Washington Street and Parkview Court on the north and Youngs Creek on the south. A portion of the district also runs east, south of King Street, to just beyond Forsythe Street.
Whoever is selected will join the seven-member board tasked with setting the city’s budget or increasing any services or staff, such as adding police officers or firefighters or setting aside more money for street projects. Council members are paid $7,374.35 this year.
This will be the fourth caucus to replace a Franklin official in about a year. Last year, then-mayor Joe McGuinness resigned in the middle of his term to become commissioner of the Indiana Department of Transportation, and city council member Steve Barnett was selected as the new mayor. Bob Heuchan was selected to replace Barnett on the city council in a second caucus.
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Republican Party Caucus
Franklin’s Republican Party precinct committee members for District 1 will conduct a caucus to select a new member of the city council
When: 7 p.m. today
Where: Franklin City Hall, 70 E. Monroe St.
The event is open to the public.
Candidates: Danny Blankenship, Lori Prince and Josh Prine
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