Hutchinson files to challenge Morris for Rockingham mayor

ROCKINGHAM — John Hutchison, the current mayor pro tem of the Rockingham City Council, will challenge Mayor Steve Morris for his seat in the municipal elections this fall.

Morris filed to run for reelection last week. Hutchinson, accompanied by two of his children, Alex, 11, and Eve, 8, filled out his paperwork as he shared his thoughts on his candidacy Thursday. He and Morris have worked together on the council since 2005, when Hutchinson was appointed to fill a vacant seat. Morris has been on the council since 2000, and has been mayor for eight years.

Hutchinson said Thursday that he and Morris have a great relationship, and that no one will hear him say a negative word about the mayor during this election season.

“I’m not really competing with him, I see it as just two people who are applying for the same office, the same position,” Hutchinson said of Morris in an interview, adding that the two have been friends for decades. “I’ve got nothing but respect for [Morris].”

In his announcement video posted to Facebook, Hutchinson said that the decision to run was made difficult because of his relationship with Morris and the success they’ve had as a council, but also made easier because of the timing in his own life.

“Now is the time for me,” Hutchinson said. “I’ve got the energy, I’ve got the enthusiasm. I’m hearing a lot of people talking about the things they would like to see us do as we come out of this global pandemic. There are more ideas and more enthusiasm about getting out in the community and making things happen — whether it’s small businesses, whether it’s events, whether it’s just taking advantage of what we already have here. We need to leverage all that energy and the resources we’ve created and push to make Rockingham the best it can possibly be as we come out of this pandemic.”

Morris was surprised by Hutchinson’s announcement, since Hutchinson had been in favor of many of the things the city has done in recent years. Hutchinson told the Daily Journal while filling out his paperwork that he had informed Morris of his intent to run, though it’s unclear if there was a miscommunication between the two on this. Other than write-in candidates, Morris hasn’t faced a challenger since 2013 when David Browder ran against him, according to the state’s election records.

“Usually there’s a reason that people are dissatisfied to change things in government and I just assumed he was pretty much in favor of what had been going on since he voted to do those things,” Morris said in an interview Thursday. “We’ll run a hard campaign, we’ll work hard at it. I’ve enjoyed being mayor, I think I’ve done a good job, I think people are pleased with where the city is [in light of] where we’ve come from.”

Asked how he would approach the upcoming campaign last week, Morris said that he campaigns for himself every day by talking to local residents. After Hutchinson’s filing, he said that his strategy won’t change.

“When I’m out in the community and I see people, I talk to them and ask what their thoughts are, what they would like to see the city do,” Morris said at the time.

Both Hutchinson and Morris said they are hopeful that the recent agreement with the county regarding the sales tax distribution, and the quarterly meetings that are expected to accompany it, will pay dividends for the city and the county as a whole.

“I’m optimistic by nature, I think [cooperation between the county and municipalities] is the kind of thing that should have been going on for years and years,” Hutchinson said. “We’re best when we all work together, you’ve got these artificial lines between [each municipality and the county government] but we’re all in this together in this community. So getting together and meeting can do nothing but help.”

Morris said it would likely take working on small projects in cooperation with the county to rebuild trust — which took a hit when the could changed to an ad valorem distribution method with no prior notice to the municipalities — before taking on something bigger. He compared this ordeal and the resulting legal battle, which has since come to a ceasefire, to a “divorce in the family.”

“Not the first thing [that we would work on with the county] but a long term goal would be to work together on recreation,” Morris said, lamenting the failed attempt about 30 years ago to bring a YMCA to the space where Browder Park sits and the more recent failed attempt to pass a referendum to fund a sports complex by increasing sales tax.

During the two men’s tenure, the city has added Discovery Place Kids to downtown and sold vacant properties to local business owners who have been able to keep their doors open, and added the new campus for Richmond Community College, which promises to bring even more opportunity to the area.

“I think we’ve just made some good financial decisions, improved the appearance of downtown, we’ve created jobs, created a tax base,” Morris said of the city’s successes he’s proud to have played a role in in recent years. “[The City Council] all works together, we’ve disagreed on some stuff but we finally found something workable on all these projects.”

If elected mayor, Hutchinson said he would build on improvements the city has made to recreational attractions like Hitchcock Creek and Hinson Lake, and attempt to replicate the success of DPK which came to fruition by partnering with the Foundation for the Carolinas and the Cole Foundation — but he said funding for future projects doesn’t have to be limited to just those multi-million dollar organizations. As a historian and member of the Richmond County Historical Society, Hutchinson added that there are some historical preservation issues that he considers “low-hanging fruit” for the city to address.

“That’s definitely something I want to bring to the role [of mayor],” Hutchinson said. “One thing that you see, and it’s been seen forever — this is nothing new — it’s the negativity sometimes in the community. And I think a lot of that comes from a lack of understanding about who we are as a community … But I think if you create a sense of place you begin to give people something to latch on to and understand about where they live and maybe feel better about it.”

Important dates

The filing period for candidates for the 2021 municipal elections runs until noon Friday, July 16. For information about how to file, call the Richmond County Board of Elections at 910-997-8253 or visit the Board of Elections at 221 S. Hancock St. in Rockingham.

The voter registration deadline for the Ellerbe, Hamlet, Hoffman and Rockingham elections is Oct. 8, 2021, and Election Day will be held on Nov. 2, 2021. The voter registration deadline for the Dobbins Heights election is Sept. 10, 2021 and Election Day will be Oct. 5, 2021 with a possible runoff election on Nov. 2, 2021.

The mayors of each municipality except for the Town of Dobbins Heights are up for reelection. For city or town council, there are two seats up for reelection in Dobbins Heights, three seats and one expired term in Ellerbe, two seats in Hamlet, five seats in Hoffman and three seats in Rockingham. Norman’s representatives are not up for reelection until 2023.