Griffith, Swenson file for Havre City Council

Sarah Griffith announced in a Facebook post Monday that she has filed with the Hill County Clerk and Recorder Office to run for Havre City Council in Ward 4 in November’s city elections.

“Someone just filed to City Council ward 4, it just might be me.” she said in a post on her Facebook Wall.

Griffith, who said she will change her last name back to McKinney, her maiden name, confirmed in a Facebook instant message conversation Monday evening that she filed to run for the seat held by Matthew Boucher.

As of this morning Griffith, is the only candidate to file to run for the seat.

Incumbent council member Karen Swenson is the only other council candidate in any of the other wards to file so far.

Swenson was appointed to the council last year to fill the vacancy created when council member Janet Trethewey resigned. Swenson is now running for a full four-year term.

Havre Mayor Tim Solomon and City Judge Virginia Seigel are the only other people who have filed for city office as of this morning.

Havre City Clerk/Finance Director Doug Kaercher said this morning that no people have applied so far to fill the other Ward 2 seat vacated by Brian Barrows when he resigned from the council last month.

Griffith, who volunteers as a Chamber Ambassador and is a member of the Bullhook Community Health Center Board of Directors, has never before run for office, though she said that she has mulled a run for the council for some time.

“I’m fairly civic minded,” she said. “This is a good fit for me and it’s alternate to my Bullhook meetings, so it seems like it’s meant to be.”

Council meetings take place on the first and third Mondays each month, and her Bullhook meetings take place on the second Monday.

Griffith said she is running to create a positive environment in Havre where neighbors take care of each other.

Griffith is a divorced mother of two teenage sons and an independent representative with Spartan Promotional Group, a St. Paul-based marketing company with representatives across the U.S. She said her father, who died in 2012, established the company’s Montana branch.

Griffith is a 1996 graduate of Havre High. She has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Montana State University-Northern and a master’s degree in public relations from Montana State University-Billings.