Mark Smith for Knox Mayor. That was news a couple of weeks ago when Mark Smith, local funeral home operator, signed to run in the Democrat Primary against Rick Chambers.
Yesterday WKVI got a chance to talk with Smith about why he was running.
“I’ve had an interest in the Mayor’s office in Knox for the past two or three elections,” stated Smith. “Two elections ago I had committed to the Democrat Central Committee that if Oscar Cowen were elected as Sheriff, that would vacate two years worth of his seat on the County Council and I committed to that seat and I did not want to go back on my word.”
He decided not to run in the last Mayoral election because he didn’t want to run in a three man race.
Smith also talked about the rumor that he was running for Mayor as a stepping stone to the State Representative’s position after Nancy Dembowski retires. Smith said he was actually asked at one time to run for that office when Dembowski was in the Senate.
“I will be completely honest with that one. Several years ago when Nancy Dembowski was our representative in the Senate, I was contacted by the Central Committee in Indianapolis and they asked if I would consider looking at the State Representative’s position at that time. I gave it serious consideration, went down there on several occasions, and met with the powers-that-be at the time about what time commitment would it involve and what would I have to do. I really felt at that time, and my feeling hasn’t changed to this day, my business and my family are the two most important things in the world to me and obviously to commit to spend three-fourths of the year in Indianapolis to do the State Representative’s job properly, I didn’t feel like, for the sake of my business or my young family, that I could commit myself to be that far from home for that length of time.”
Smith did say that he would not rule out running for a state office at some time.
