By KEVIN CHIRI
Tammany West news
COVINGTON – While the runoff for the sheriff’s job in St. Tammany Parish has certainly garnered the majority of interest going into this Saturday’s Nov. 21 election, there is another top public office in the parish that also faces a runoff election.
A new clerk of court in St. Tammany will be elected this Saturday as Matt Faust and Melissa Henry led the balloting among three candidates in the October primary. Voters will decide between those two for the job vacated by 20-year Clerk of Court Malise Prieto, who decided not to seek re-election.
Two Parish Council races also will go to a runoff this Saturday as the District 14 position will pit incumbent T.J. Smith against Jimmy Strickland, while the District 7 position representing most of Lacombe will see incumbent Jake Groby facing challenger Jacki Schneider.
In the clerk of court’s race, Faust and Henry both decided to run after incumbent Prieto changed her mind from her initial announcement to seek re-election.
In the primary, the pair ran dead even, both getting 39 percent of the vote with Henry barely edging out Faust with 22,309 votes to 21,969 for Faust, among three candidates on the ballot.
Henry has never run for political office before, but has worked in the clerk’s office the last four years as a deputy clerk under Prieto and claims she has the experience in the office to take over.
Faust is a former Covington city councilman who has been working in the St. Tammany Assessor’s Office before deciding to throw his hat into the ring for the clerk’s job.
Groby had a strong showing in the primary against four challengers for his District 7 Parish Council seat, finishing with 42 percent of the vote. With 1,671 votes he wasn’t far from getting over 50 percent to win in the primary.
However, Schneider had a solid second place showing with 27 percent of the vote to beat out three other challengers and make the runoff.
Tassin also came close to winning the Ward 8 JP seat with 46 percent in the primary, while Brown had 28 percent to edge out third place finisher Charlette Hayes with 26 percent.