Filing Deadline In All 3 Upland Municipal Races Extended

The candidate filing deadlines for all three positions up for grabs in this year’s Upland municipal elections have been extended past today’s earlier presumed noon hour to 5 p.m. on Wednesday August 17.
Due to stand for reelection in the City of Gracious Living this year were mayor Ray Musser, councilman Glenn Bozar and treasurer Dan Morgan. Each of those three, however, has opted out of vying to be reelected to his current position.
Musser, who was first elected to the council in 1998 and was reelected as a councilman in 2002, 2006 and 2010, vied unsuccessfully for the mayoralty in 2004 and again in 2008, both times against the incumbent, John Pomierski. In 2011, Musser was selected by his colleagues in a 3-2 vote to succeed Pomierski after the latter’s resignation just prior to his federal indictment on bribery charges. Musser was then elected mayor in 2012, turning back challenges by council members Debbie Stone and Gino Filippi.
Musser, 80, announced his decision not to see reelection at the end of the August 8 council meeting.
“It has been a very high honor to serve as your mayor for the greatest city on planet Earth,” Musser said. “However, I have decided not to seek another term as mayor of Upland and to spend more time with our family. May God bless you and my successor.”
Musser told the Sentinel that his wife and all of his children were heavily lobbying him against running once more. He said he believed he could have successfully run again. Last year he weathered a recall attempt which was leveled at him just three weeks after he underwent heart bypass surgery in early September. He said he feels he has bounced back strongly from both of those challenges and that at this point, he believes he has the energy to stay at the top of the political game. But he senses he is slowing down somewhat, he acknowledged, and he said he was not certain he would have the stamina to complete another four-year term.
He credited his wife, Fern, with having shouldered over the last year the lion’s share of the work at his insurance business, which is headquartered in an office building just across Second Avenue from City Hall.
Because the incumbent in the mayoral race is not running, the filing period was extended five days beyond today’s deadline.
As of this morning, there was one certain and two potential candidates to replace Musser. Debbie Stone, who was elected by the city voters to succeed Musser as councilman in 2011 in a special election after he succeeded Pomierski and who lost to Musser the following year when she challenged him for mayor, took out papers and obtained the requisite signatures of certified registered voters in Upland endorsing her candidacy, so that she is now qualified as an official candidate for mayor. Bozar, who elected to not seek reelection as a councilman, has taken out papers to run for the mayor’s post. So did Hephzibah Dollar. As of 12 noon today, neither Bozar nor Dollar had returned those papers to the city clerk’s office. Another candidate who pulled papers for mayor, Mike Nava, informed the city clerk’s office that because of health considerations he is not going to run. Nava had also pulled papers to run for council. He said he would not seek that office after all, either.
Bozar’s exodus from the council race has left the filing window for that position open until April 17 as well.
Janice Elliott, a retired teacher, and Sid Robinson, currently a member of the planning commission, have pulled and returned papers for the single council seat at stake in the election this year. Those signatures have been verified and both are now qualified as bonafide candidates. Bill Velto, who is also on the planning commission and who has previously run unsuccessfully for council, has pulled papers as has Hephizibah Dollar, who must make a decision as to whether to run for council or mayor, since one individual cannot run for both positions at once. Also pulling papers were incumbent city treasurer Dan Morgan, previous council candidate Rod McAuliffe and Ricardo Felix, a political newcomer in Upland. Velto, Dollar, Morgan, McAuliffe and Felix had not returned those papers at press time.
With Morgan out of the running to be reelected treasurer, the deadline for filing in that contest is likewise pushed over until the upcoming Wednesday. Two city residents, Stephen Dunn and Larry Kinley have pulled papers to run for city treasurer. Dunn is the city’s former finance director and city manager who ran unsuccessfully for city council in 2014. Kinley is a retired banking professional with 30 years experience in investigating and either redressing or terminating problem loans. Dunn and Kinley had not filed the papers they had taken out by noon today.

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