Nettles, Boston in runoff for council
By Bobby Bryant, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
A runoff election for an at-large seat on Darlington City Council will be held Nov. 19, county elections officials say.
Howard Nettles, director of community outreach and marketing for Genesis Health Care, and Ernest Boston Sr., who works for Generation 3 Powersports, will face each other in the runoff.
Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. You can vote in the runoff regardless of whether you voted Nov. 5.
Nettles got 780 votes in the Nov. 5 city elections and Boston, 643. They edged out another newcomer, Winfred Herrington Sr., a retired social worker, who got 638 votes.
After reviewing several ballots last week that had been challenged (mostly because of uncertainty about voters’ residency inside the city limits), elections officials determined that Nettles had not picked up the few additional votes he needed to claim victory in the council race without a runoff. (Nettles said on Facebook that he only needed three more votes.)
A recount confirmed Herrington had not made the runoff.
Nettles, in responses to a Darlington County League of Women Voters survey done for the Nov. 5 elections, said the city needs “more businesses, job opportunities, housing, events and tourism. … As a city, we need to work to resolve issues rather than create them for self-gain.”
Boston, responding to the same survey, cited the city’s problems with flooding and drainage: “How can we get funding for our drainage system to attract businesses to downtown Darlington? … There are more steps the council can take to help spur growth and development. We are not going backwards, but we are not moving forward, either.”
