Lightner sends Thalheimer ‘Clean Campaign’ challenge for District 1 race

Sherri Lightner announced on Tuesday, Sept. 23, that she has challenged opponent Phil Thalheimer to join her in pledging to keep dirty politics out of the District 1 City Council race.

“I believe voters want to hear about issues and how we are going to make our neighborhoods better, not attacks on each other that offer no information to help them determine their vote,” said Lightner.

Lightner sent Thalheimer a letter by e-mail today and challenged him to sign it and return it within 48 hours. In the letter, Lightner writes, “before the press and the voters, let’s sign a pledge together promising the public that we will never engage in negative messaging, never send out even one negative mailer and never grossly mislead the voters by taking one another’s priorities out of context. I believe that this is true leadership.”

Both Lightner and Thalheimer signed the “Code of Fair Campaign Practices,” which attempts to focus candidates “on issue rather than untruths or distortions.”

Lightner says she wanted to remind both herself and her opponent of the pledges they made in that document.

“We are now getting into the period when campaigns develop their mail programs for voters,” she said. “this is the time to remind ourselves of this pledge before we spend thousands of dollars on mailers that may not meet the spirit of our promise.”

Lightner has posted both her signed “Code of Fair Campaign Practices” and her letter to Thalheimer on her Web site at

Thalheimer’s Web site is