An incumbent is asking voters to keep him in office and a novice to politics is asking for a change in District 1.

Rev. Jim Payton said he learned a member of his congregation at Central Christian, Dennis Breeden, had decided to run for the District 3 commissioner seat and that sparked his interest.

“As I got to looking on that as an office,” Payton said, “I thought it was an interesting thing to do. It’s the executive and legal branch of county government and I think they need to be bipartisan.”

Currently all three commissioners are Republicans.

Getting a little encouragement from Breeden, as well as Payton’s own family, he decided to toss his hat in the ring.

Payton, a Democrat is from Rockville and said his family was involved in politics with an assessor and several sheriff’s in the mix, all Democrats elected in a Republican county.

Tony Wichman is seeking his third term representing District 1.

He said he wants to continue with the improvements in employment in Daviess County.

“We’ve got the lowest unemployment in the state this month,” Wichman said.

“I like to tell people I’m not a politician, I’m a community servant.” Wichman said he gets about 20 calls a week and while that takes of a lot of time, that’s part of the job.

Payton said he is interested in roads in the county.

“I’d like to work to establish priorities,” he said about road repair and paving. “We have 799 miles of road in the county and it would take 40 years to resurface (them all) doing at least 20 miles a year. It would be a daunting task and we may not have the money to do everything we need to do. We have to have priorities.”

Wichman said that 90 percent of his calls from constituents concern roads.

“I try to help them with the highway department,” Wichman said. “I act as a go-between sometimes. There are some things I can and some things I can’t do.”

While many people complain that their road isn’t paved, Wichman said that a well maintained gravel road system is equal to a poorly maintained paved road system.