First candidate declares for 2023 Cameron City Council election

The race for two spots on the Cameron City Council got underway last week with the filing of the first candidate for the April 2023 election. 

Former interim Cameron City Councilwoman Gina Reed announced her campaign for one of two city council seats currently occupied by Mayor Roy Estes and Councilman Dennis Clark. 

“I considered it for a long, long time because of my health, but my health improved so much because of my hip replacement. I think I can do it. I am walking around, and I’m able to get around to every place I need to go in the town, so I can do a good job of meeting with people. I have a lot of ideas that I would like to see happen, including improving our downtown and also improving streets, but not necessarily making them wider or creating new ones, just making them smoother,” Reed said. 

Reed’s first term on the Cameron City Council began after the resignation of former Cameron City Councilman Jon Ingram, who left Cameron after accepting a job in Bowling Green, Kentucky last November. She served until April of this year, when Councilman Alexander Williams defeated Economic Development of Cameron Chairman Mark Gargas in a head-to-head race.

“It’s a lot different than you think. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of reading. It’s a lot of thinking and a lot of researching. Whenever there was a thing on the agenda that I didn’t know about, I would get on the internet and look it up - what other towns were doing that are a similar size,” Reed said. 

Clark has decades of experience serving on the Cameron City Council, at one point replacing then Mayor Darlene Breckenridge in 2020. His assendence to mayor came after Roy Estes ran unopposed for a city council seat previously occupied by former Cameron Police Department Chief Cory Sloan, who chose not to run for reelection. Estes was the deciding vote to unseat Breckenridge and became mayor himself after Clark chose to step aside last April. 

“It takes some time, and you have to be dedicated and flexible to get to special meetings and so on and so forth, but I’m at a time in my life where I feel like I can do this. I’m hoping other people can have that time in their life and step up,” Reed said.