Bell, mayor since 2001, received 131 of those votes, bringing his total to 9,378, about 81 percent of the vote.  Williams, a pastor at Assembly at Durham Christian Center, received 19 provisional votes, bumping to his vote total to 889.  Bowser received 19 provisional votes and a total of 867 votes. Ralph McKinney received six provisional votes and a total of 471 votes.

Two members of the Board of Elections and Williams' wife and daughter Barbara and Adande Williams were the only visitors present as the board's interim director, Michael Perry, fed the approved votes into the ballot tabulator.

“In it to win it,” Barbara and Adande Williams repeated as they left the Board of Elections. 

City Council candidate John Tarantino (right) said this afternoon that he's endorsing County Commissioner Joe Bowser for mayor in Tuesday's primary election.

"I'm aligned with Bowser and encouraging my friends to vote for Bowser," he said.

Bowser (below), who has more than a year left on his commissioner's term, is challenging incumbent Mayor Bill Bell. Retired salesman Ralph McKinney and minister Sylvester Williams are also in the race.

Tarantino is one of seven candidates for three at-large Council seats. Tuesday's voting will eliminate one, as well as two mayoral candidates, leaving the survivors to face off in the Nov. 8 general election.

Tarantino said he decided to come out for Bowser after Williams's campaign began passing out sample ballots encouraging votes for three black City Council candidates: Solomon Burnette, Donald Hughes and Victoria Peterson.

"The worst thing that can happen is nothing," he said.

Tarantino said he was miffed because he had given Williams support, including financial support, in a past campaign for City Council.

Bowser is also black, as is Bell; Tarantino is white, and said Williams, Burnette, Hughes and Peterson appeared to have formed a bloc after the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, one of Durham's major political organizations, decided against making endorsements for the primary.

Williams, Hughes and Peterson have said the Durham Committee's political subcommittee recommended them for endorsement, but the full Committee did not accept the recommendation. Peterson said the political subcommittee also favored Burnette, but Burnette declined to comment.

"The candidates scrambled and formed an alliance," Tarantino said.

The People's Alliance, another major Durham PAC, has endorsed Bell along with council incumbents Eugene Brown and Diane Catotti and former School Board member Steve Schewel. An Alliance campaign mailer promotes the four as a team in the elections.

Brown, Catotti and Schewel are white.
 

From correspondent Virginia Bridges

Durham County commissioners appointed Pam Karriker to fill Becky Heron’s vacated seat tonight.

After a 3-1 vote, Karriker, 57, a community volunteer, past City Council candidate, and former mortgage broker could be sworn in as soon as Monday to fill the seat that Heron left Aug. 1 for health reasons. She beat eight other applicants seeking the position.

Commissioners Michael Page, Joe Bowser and Brenda Howerton voted to appoint Karriker, breaking a previous 2-2 deadlock among commissioners.   

On Sept. 12, Bowser and Commissioner Ellen Reckhow voted for environmentalist and former planning commissioner Wendy Jacobs, whom Heron had endorsed. Page and Howerton supported Karriker. 

Bowser said he decided to change his mind to “bring some kind of working relationship to this board,” which has been publicly feuding over the past two months.

Reckhow continued to support Jacobs tonight.

Look for more from tonight's meeting, including the commissioners' vote on the 751 South developers' request for sewer service in tomorrow's News & Observer.

From correspondent Virginia Bridges

County Commissioner Joe Bowser says he will break the deadlock over filling Becky Heron’s seat on the county board by supporting Pamela Karriker.

“After many days of careful consideration concerning the selection of a replacement for former County Commissioner Becky Heron, I have decided that we must act in the best interest of the people of this county,” Bowser wrote in an email. “With that being said, I will join Commissioners (Michael) Page and (Brenda) Howerton in their support of Pam Karriker.”

If Page and Howerton continue to support Karriker, she would have the three votes at Monday’s meeting to be appointed to the seat, which Heron vacated Aug. 1 for health reasons.

“(Bowser) can make it happen if he so chooses,” Page said. “I think that every commissioner has a right to help build consensus here, and this is what I am hoping that we are going to get to.”

Look for more on this story coming tomorrow in The Durham News.
 

From correspondent Virginia Bridges

A shakeup in the Department of Social Services has split the Durham County Board of Commissioners, with the chairman accusing a colleague of dishonesty and another calling the chairman a liar.

Chairman Michael Page says Commissioner Ellen Reckhow was dishonest about her knowledge about the new DSS interim director.

Page says he also heard Commissioner Joe Bowser sought to oust former DSS director Gerri Robinson because she wouldn't hire one of his friends. He would not name who told him and said he could not prove it. “But I have to go by that when people bring me information,” he says.

Bowser calls Page a “liar.”

“It takes an ignorant person to make comments that are not true,” Bowser says. Although he introduced a potential job candidate to Robinson, he says it was a “recommendation only.”

Page’s concerns start with a June 27 county commissioners meeting where Bowser, Reckhow and Becky Heron voted to put Gail Perry on the DSS board.

Page and Brenda Howerton, the fifth commissioner, voted for Gloria Green, whose first term on the board had just expired. Page had served on the board with Green, a former DSS employee, and said the county had no reason to end her tenure.

Heron and Reckhow said Bowser, the commissioners’ liaison to the DSS board, contacted them before the vote, saying Robinson’s leadership had been divisive. She says she consulted County Manager Mike Ruffin, who indicated a change needed to occur, “which carried a lot of weight with me.”

Ruffin woould not comment.

Look for more on this developing story in tomorrow's N&O and in Wednesday's Durham News. If you'd like to speak with the reporter working on it please call Virginia Bridges at 919-564-9330 or email virginiabridges@gmail.com 

Durham County Commissioner Joe Bowser is running for mayor.

Bowser, who has more than a year left on his current county term, filed this morning to challenge incumbent Mayor Bill Bell. Bowser followed Sylvester Williams, an East Durham pastor, who filed earlier today.

Filing for the 2011 municipal election closed at noon with four candidates for mayor and eight for three at-large seats on the City Council. Ralph McKinney Jr., who ran unsuccessfuly for Council in 2001, entered the race for mayor on Thursday.

Bell is seeking a sixth consecutive two-year term.

Donald Hughes, a previous, but unsuccessful, candidate for City Council and School Board, also filed this morning. He completed the Council field, joining private citizens Alice Bailey, Solomon Burnette, Victoria Peterson, Steve Schewel and John Tarantino.

Two-term incumbent Council members Eugene Brown and Diane Catotti are also in the race.

Durham holds a primary election Oct. 11. The general election is Nov. 8.

From correspondent Virginia Bridges

The Durham County commissioners agreed Monday night to put two sales tax referendums on the November ballot and accepted the resignation of longtime Commissioner Becky Heron. 

The commissioners also approved a $499.4 million county budget for fiscal the year that starts Friday. It includes a raise for county employees, maintains the current property tax rate, and supports a new city-county position to coordinate the implementation of gang assessment and to improve efficiency on initiatives that serve at risk youth.
 
The board unanimously approved asking voters this fall to support a quarter-cent sales-tax increase to help support public schools, pre-kindergarten programs, and scholarships at Durham Technical Community College.  If voters approve the increase, collection could begin in April. County Manager Mike Ruffin estimates the quarter-cent tax would produce $2.7 million in the last three months of the 2011-12 fiscal year, and $9.2 million in a full year of collection. Revenue would be split four ways with the majority going to help Durham Public Schools.

The board also unanimously approved giving voters the option to decide whether they support a half-cent tax to improve public transportation.

The county commissioners' meeting got right testy Monday night, with commissioners exchanging sharp words about "statements  and accusations" after Commissioner Becky Heron called for her colleagues to fess up about any "commissioners receiving gifts,  this that and the other from the developers" of 751 South, Southern Durham Development Inc.

As the discussion went along, Commissioner Joe Bowser said he had been misrepresented in the press.

"They have tried to claim me individually as one who has taken money from the developers. I didn’t even know the developers  when I was running for this office. Didn’t even know who they were. They have never given me a dollar. Go look on my  campaign finance reports. You’ll see it, not one dollar."

Since he made the suggestion, Bull's Eye went to look and found that, indeed, Bowser's finance reports show no contributions  from Alex Mitchell or Tyler Morris, principals in Southern Durham Development Inc.

However, they do show that, in his unsuccessful 2004 campaign for re-election to the Board of Commissioners, Bowser  received $2,000 from Neal Hunter, who sold the 751 South site to Southern Durham and now owns a minority share in the  company.

OK, that doesn't make Hunter one of the developers, but you'd think he's at least an interested party.

(As Southern Durham President Alex Mitchell explained the arrangement with Hunter, he and Morris paid $18 million for the  land: $8 million up front to Hunter, who agreed to finance the rest for interest and a partial, non-voting share in the company.

("Neal Hunter is not the developer," Mitchell said. "Tyler and I are the only people on the bank loan.")