VansOpinion - THE RACE IS ON FOR COUNTY BOARD, DISTRICT 3 SEAT

Since former Adjutant General Stanley Heng withdrew from the race, there may not be a Democrat in the race. Republicans Paul Zoz and Deb Schorr are tooling up to engage in a vigorous race, where Zoz my have recently gained the edge.

COUNTY BOARD RACE DEVOID OF DEMOCRAT - FOR NOW

The two filed Republican candidates for the Lancaster County Board of Commissioners, Paul Zoz and Deb Schorr, became the only likely candidates the District 3, seat being vacated by Republican Cathy Campbell. When retired Adjutant General Stanley Heng, the only filed Democrat, withdrew from the race for health reasons, the chances became very high that the contest will be settled in the forthcoming Primary Election.

Here's what will happen. Heng's will be the only name on the Democratic ballot for the office, so folks who pay little to no attention to the news and who vote straight party tickets will cast their votes for Heng. He will be elected and the Lancaster County Election Commissioner David Shively will certify Heng as having been elected as the candidate for the Democratic Party in the race and formally notify Heng of such. Thereafter, Heng will, if he still chooses, have to formally decline the election and notify Shively accordingly. Shively will then notify the Democratic Party of the matter and the party will have a short period of time, if it chooses, to select a replacement candidate and notify the election commissioner of their choice. That person will take Heng's place on the ballot.

If Heng really wanted to screw things up, he would simply ignore correspondence from Shively and allow his name to appear on the General Election ballot after he has publicly withdrawn from the race. Not likely to happen unless most of the marbles have fallen off of the general's Chinese-checker board. Heng is too detail oriented to let this one fall through the cracks, unless he is ticked off at all of the Democratic money donors who, for one reason or another, turned their backs on his candidacy. Heng has stated he will return all donations he has received, but reliable sources indicate he wouldn't have to buy many postage stamps to do so.

When Heng bowed out of the race, the Democrats began scrambling for a replacement and the one and only name which hit the streets was Bennet, Nebraska resident Stan Matzke. The Matzke name has been in Nebraska probably since pioneer days. Stan would have run a good race and would have very likely been well funded, but I'm told there is one problem (which I admittedly have not yet checked out), that he is, or at least was at the cut-off time, a registered Republican.

My sources are activated and will turn up the name of any eligible Democrat who might step up and take Heng's place. This will be the subject of future writings.

Republicans Deb Schorr and Paul Zoz are squaring off in what will likely be a hard fought and expensive primary contest. Sources reveal Mrs. Schorr, a well-known community volunteer and wife of attorney Mark Schorr has made and will air some pretty classy radio and television commercials. Professionally done TV advertisements are neither cheap to make nor cheap to run, but the Lincoln Country Club set who appears to be her primary financial backers, can afford it...and probably will afford it.

Paul Zoz, seasoned Lincoln businessman and co-owner of Bizco, Inc.( a very successful computer technology company) has or will likely accomplish financial parity with his opponent, but is predicted to be a good deal more frugal with campaign bucks. Paul has seasoned businesswomen Maggie Higgins as his campaign manager, and she has organized the "Zoz Team" into a tough hard working bunch. The Zoz Team has already shown that the members are capable of "FUN RAISING", as thirty-five of them visited nearly every place in town on St. Patrick's Day evening and, we're told put around 2,000 campaign stickers on potential voters. I might add, they were responsible and rented a bus, hence there was no question as to who the "Designated Driver" was.

I don't at present know the structure of Schorr's campaign team, as I was not in the "select privileged few" who were invited to her fund raiser. We do know that Lincoln attorney Reginald Kuhn, law partner is her treasurer and at one time, we were informed that real estate salesperson Darlene Starman was heading her campaign but that was before her name was removed from the list of resource persons for Governor Mike Johanns' re-election campaign. Others have indicated the Schorr campaign was being shepherded by Mary Johnson. We do know that Reginald Kuhn, law partner of John Lyon (J.L.) Spray is the Schorr Campaign Treasurer. J.L. is the Lancaster County Republican Party Chairman and has, in my opinion, most indiscretely and occasionally obnoxiously, been strong arming party members to switch from Zoz to Schorr.

Vansopinion.com is the place to look for and learn about developments in the political races, usually before the groping print and electronic media reporters are informed of the stories.