THE HAMILTON COUNTY PRIMARY OFFERS FAR TOO FEW DEMOCRATS

Certainly you’ve seen the local political campaign signs in Hamilton County.

We have two two important local races on the March 1 Hamilton County primary ballot — criminal court judge and assessor of property.

March 1 also is Super Tuesday when Hamilton County voters may cast ballots to express their presidential preference primary support in each party, as well as votes for party delegates pledging support to individual presidential contenders.

Sadly, Democrats have only one candidate in the two local races for criminal court judge and property assessor.

No wonder Democrats are underrepresented locally. With far too few candidates willing to run, it appears we’ve thrown in the towel.

That dearth of local options for Democrats plays right into the hands of GOP strategy — especially the strategy honed by the tea party wing: “Winning by building, building by winning.”

It means, unfortunately, that Democrats will have no say in the very important choice of criminal court judge — unless we choose not to vote for a Democratic presidential primary contender and vote instead in the Republican primary.

But that’s not a real choice — at least not at this juncture in what’s left of the primary season’s short month before Super Tuesday.

That said, however, we do have recommendations for your local primary votes — for both ballots.

ASSESSOR OF PROPERTY MARK SIEDLECKI, MARTY HAYNES

› For Democrats or Independents, Mark Siedlecki is the only primary ballot candidate for assessor of property — and the best candidate.

Siedlecki, 55, is the owner and operator of Novare Digital, an ad agency with an emphasis on doing things online. He believes everyone deserves far more access to the assessor’s office online than the basic information now available by computer. He is correct. Compared to other counties in Tennessee and the country, the current assessor’s office online presence and assistance might best be termed Stone Age. Siedlecki’s experience in technology shows he clearly can lead a transition to modernization.

Siedlecki has three opponents squaring off in Republican primary and in August he will face either Marty Haynes, Sterling Jetton or Randy Johnson.

For Republicans, we believe Marty Haynes is the best choice.

Haynes is a Hamilton County commissioner who acknowledges that he does not have experience in the assessor office, though he does have years of experience as a manager and budgeter.

He also has proven himself fiscally responsible with his push on county commissioners to be publicly accountable for their individual expenditures of $100,000 each in so-called discretionary funds. Haynes also voted against the amendment to the county 2016 budget that paid for this year’s $900,000 in discretionary funds out of county savings.

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CRIMINAL COURT JUDGE, DIVISION 2 BOYD PATTERSON

In choosing a criminal court judge, the residents of Hamilton County would be in good hands with any of the three Republicans running for office: appointed incumbent Tom Greenholtz, Assistant District Attorney Boyd Patterson or Hamilton County Public Defender Executive Assistant Mike Little.

But because of our belief in Patterson’s sincere and longtime interest in helping this community overcome gang problems, we believe he is the best choice. Patterson has a long resume of court and gang task force work through both the Hamilton County District Attorney’s Office and the city of Chattanooga under former mayor Ron Littlefield. His work on the city’s gang task force focused both on crime suppression and community collaboration to design services aimed at keeping at-risk youth and adults out of the court system. His was a well-designed plan that was never implemented because of city regime change.

Now Patterson, as that former gang task force coordinator and delinquent youth counselor, rightly believes a criminal judge’s work is not just in hearing cases and passing sentences, but also in finding the right alternatives for the many firsttime adult defendants who wind up in court but — under state sentencing guidelines — won’t be spending much, if any, time in jail.

No Democrats sought election for this seat.