LAWTON – Twelve candidates filed for the three City Council seats on the ballot this year.
The nonpartisan primary municipal election is scheduled for Aug. 27. A general election, if required, will be held on Nov. 5.
Each of the winners will serve a three-year term, which will begin on Jan. 13, 2025. The City Charter limits Lawton city councilors to a maximum of three terms. The mayor is paid $15,000 per year, and each of the eight council members receives $5,000 per year, the charter provides.
• In Ward 1, incumbent Mary Ann Hankins, who has served two terms on the council, filed for one last term. She was engaged in social work for two decades, directed a Great Plains Technology Center welfare-to-work program, and has been active in community development in Lawton.
She is opposed by Larry Walls, an Army retiree who was employed in the corrections field and who previously ran for the Ward 1 seat in 2015.
• In Ward 2, five candidates filed to replace Councilman Kelly Harris, who is stepping down after one term. The contenders are R.L. Smith, Justin Harrill, David Reeves, Shelli Fox, and Jervis Jackson.
Fox is a retired Lawton Police Department dispatcher and was among four contenders who lost to Harris in the Ward 2 City Council race three years ago.
Smith is a Realtor. He is a veteran who served in the U.S. military for five years and came to Lawton in 1977. After serving as a military policeman, Smith was employed with the Lawton Police Department in 1984-2005. He coordinated Neighborhood Watch programs, Shop with a Cop, and participated in community engagement events.
Harrill is a cement truck driver and an electrician.
Jackson said he works with the Housing Authority as director of the Section 8 program and is executive director of the Veterans Resource Center, whose mission is to eliminate homelessness among military veterans in southwest Oklahoma. “And,” Jackson quipped, “in my spare time I’m a pastor.”
Reeves described himself as a freelance project manager and outreach consultant who specializes in marketing automation, B2B marketing, social media messaging, content generation, and risk analysis.
“I hope to promote greater civic engagement among the local electorate, increased transparency in the dayto- day operation of our municipal government, and a higher standard of due diligence in longterm city planning,” Reeves said.
• In his bid for a third and final term, Mayor Stan Booker, a commercial real estate investor/ manager, drew four challengers: Cindy Lee Edgar, Ronald Ballew, Jacobi Crowley, and Matina Michelle Davis, who refers to herself on Facebook as Matina Davis-Abney.
Crowley manages the Boys & Girls Club of Lawton for The Salvation Army. He lost to John Michael Montgomery in the 2018 general election race for the District 32 state Senate seat, and Crowley’s candidacy for the Ward 6 City Council seat last year was disallowed by the Comanche County Election Board on the grounds that he had not lived in the ward for six months, as required by the City Charter.
Ballew posted on the social media platform Facebook that he is retired from the U.S.
Air Force and from Civil Service.
Lawton residents “are already paying too much in taxes and fees,” Ballew contends. “Many are on fixed incomes and cannot pay more.
The City needs to be put on a fixed income too. We need to get rid of the idea that the City can buy anything it can dream of, because it can always raise taxes.”
If elected, Ballew said he would ask the City Council to vote on the following proposition: Do not spend more than $1 million on any item or project “without a vote of the people.” Also, “Define where unbudgeted money is coming from. How is this going to be paid for?”
Lawton’s city budget for Fiscal Year 2024-25 is approximately $373 million.
Edgar wrote on Facebook that she has lived in Lawton for six years, has an associate business degree “and a successful small business performing weddings for our community and surrounding areas.” She also claims to be a “paganism high priestess.”
“If you guys are tired of seeing things not being done for the citizen that don't get that right to have their opinions heard, then it's time to get the old out and bring somebody new in,” she wrote. “I will work very hard if I'm voted in to get those changes that need to be done.”
“Enough is enough!
This corrupt government is harming our citizens,” Davis-Abney posted June 20 on Facebook. “The lack of diversity, the blatant misappropriation of funds, and the silencing of dissent are all hallmarks of a failing system… It's time to put the people first, not the special interests.”
Davis filed a complaint with the Lawton Police Department in January 2023, accusing former Ward 7 Councilwoman Onreka Johnson of harassment and intimidation. However, Davis was convicted by a jury May 8 on a misdemeanor charge of falsely reporting a crime.
Punishment was set at a $250 fine plus court costs, including $700 in fees for six jurors and an alternate over a two-day period.
Davis subsequently was named in a misdemeanor slander charge filed in Comanche County District Court last December. She is accused of posting on Facebook that Lawton City Prosecutor Alan Rosenbaum was indicted by a grand jury, a claim “which is false,” according to an affidavit a Lawton police detective filed to secure a warrant for Davis’ arrest.
A trial in that case is scheduled for June 26 before Special District Judge Christine Galbraith.