Efforts to block commercialization of Paulding County’s airport may have gotten a boost in county commission primary elections Tuesday, as two candidates who oppose the plan won races for key seats.
Tony Crowe and Vernon Collett each won Republican primaries for seats on the Paulding County Board of Commissioners, according to unofficial election results. They will be unopposed in November.
Crowe got nearly 59 percent of the vote to beat incumbent David Barnett, while Collett got nearly 62 percent of the vote in a race with two other candidates for a seat to be vacated by commissioner Tommie Graham.
Voter turnout in Paulding County was about 14.4 percent.
A third anti- commercialization candidate, Democrat Patti Smith, also won with 71.3 percent of the vote against Patton Hughes, a pro-airport candidate. In November, Smith will face incumbent Todd Pownall, a Republican who is also against the airport commercialization, and independent Mike Pope.
That could give anti-airport commercialization commissioners a majority on the five-person Paulding county commission. It’s unclear how that will affect the issue, however.
“I think the people spoke,” Pownall said. “We have some serious things to look at at the airport.”
But the airport is run by the Paulding County Airport Authority, a separate entity that gets some county funding.
“I need to find out what all the options are,” Collett said.
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