By By Robert Blankenship, Special to The Advance
It was Christmas in July for Democratic tax collector candidate Joy Wiggins who will most likely run unopposed for the office after Republican candidate John Powell announced last week that he will drop out of the race.
Powell said he decided to drop out of the race for several reasons. One of those reasons was that he felt Wiggins, who is employed in the tax collector's office, was a strong and capable candidate.
"Had she (Wiggins) not won the primary, I would probably still be in the race," he said. "She does her job very well and I'm sure she will do a good job as the county's tax collector."
He also said his plan to combine the tax collector and tax assessor offices into a single county revenue department would be difficult to implement.
"I wasn't running just for the sake of running. I was running with a purpose. I wanted to combine the tax collector and assessor offices, but due to changes in recent years that would have been especially hard to carry out," he said.
With Powell dropping out, the Republican party will have until August 1 to replace him with another candidate. If another candidate does not qualify, Wiggins will run unopposed in the November general election.