Bowling Green voters to select a new commission and mayor

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – If you cast a vote over the past few weeks, you’ll recall that local candidates and two Kentucky constitutional amendments are on your ballots in their corresponding city or county.

During Election Day, people often focus on the presidential election. But local elections are also extremely important.

In Bowling Green, the city commission and mayoral seats are up for grabs.

You may not know much about what city commissioners or the mayor do.

First of all, the mayor holds a seat as one of the five city commissioners in Bowling Green.

This year, 10 people are running for those four city commission spots, six have held a seat before and four of those are incumbents.

The current Bowling Green Mayor Bruce Wilkerson, who is not running for reelection, explained that commissioners set policy for the city. The city manager manages the day-to-day operation of the city.

“A lot of people think the city commission is just another governmental entity to take care of managing society. I always chose to look at it like municipal government was here to manage government so that we can provide those services as effectively as efficiently as possible,” said Wilkerson.

For mayor, there is only one person on the ballot, but two other men are running as write-in candidates.

This year, campaigning was different because of the pandemic and social distancing.

“What we have in 2020 is probably the most unusual election that I can remember in my lifetime where people don’t get to campaign in the normal fashion,” said Wilkerson.

On the back of your ballot you may have noticed two Kentucky constitutional amendments.

Constitutional amendment 1, also called Marsy’s Law, would create a new section of the Constitution of Kentucky relating to crime victims rights.

Naysayers believe it is unnecessary because the state already has laws that cover victims rights, but supporters want to see the amendment pass according to Warren County Commonwealth’s Attorney Chris Cohron.

“This was a very well-funded political push from a tech billionaire out of California that has had a family member murdered and has taken this as basically his mission to ensure this constitutionally in all states in the United States,” said Cohron.

Amendment 2 would require district judges to have eight years of legal experience prior to becoming a judge. As of now they only have to have two years.

Currently, district judges serve four-year terms and Commonwealth’s Attorneys serve six-year terms but Amendment 2 would lengthen those terms to eight year terms.

If passed, the change for Commonwealth’s Attorneys wont go into effect until 2030.

The change for district judges would go into effect in 2022.