County Commissioner elections may be the most important local contests on the ballot. Their hands are often tied by state and federal mandates, but the Commissioners nevertheless have a significant impact on the role of county government. They are the officials who set the property tax rate.

Three of the five seats on the Board of Commissioners are up for election every two years. The two top vote getters are elected to four-year terms; the third-place finisher wins a two-year term.

Incumbent Republican Commissioners Steve Johnson, Godfrey Williams, and Marvin Norman are seeking re-election this year. They are opposed by Democrats Charles “Chuck” Gallyon, Wayne Kahl, and Victor Crosby.

Gallyon, the retired Iredell County Fire Marshal, is well-known around the county. Some observers believe he represents the best chance for the Democrats to win a seat on the board.

Kahl was elected to a single term in the N.C. House in 1990. He later ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the Iredell-Statesville Board of Education. Crosby is a perennial candidate, having run unsuccessfully for a number of offices.

Commissioners Johnson, Williams, and Norman have pursued a moderate-to-conservative course. They have overseen several expansions of county facilities without raising the tax rate. (The increase in the tax bills mailed out in August is the amount needed to pay the debt service on school bonds the voters passed last year in a referendum).

The current commissioners, resisting pressure from certain special interests, decided against using county tax dollars to fund commuter rail service to southern Iredell County. Participation in the rail project would have cost local taxpayers tens of millions of dollars and necessitated a significant property tax increase, while doing little or nothing to alleviate traffic congestion.

A major challenge for local government is coping with rapid residential growth, particularly in the southern end of the county. The recent formation of a citizens group concerned with traffic congestion and other growth-related issues on the Brawley School Road peninsula has focused attention on this area.

One frustration for the Commissioners is that they have no control over growth inside the Mooresville, Statesville, and Troutman planning jurisdictions, where much of the high-density residential development is taking place. But it is the county, not the municipalities, who must pay for school buildings to house the new students that are moving in.

Regardless of who is elected, the Iredell Board of Commissioners will have a full plate dealing with these issues.