Six candidates are contending for the five seats on the Durham County Board of Commissioners in this fall’s general election. Five Democrats – incumbents Brenda Howerton, Michael Page and Ellen Reckhow, along with Fred Foster and Wendy Jacobs – and independent Omar Beasley.

Today, The Durham News concludes its profile series on the candidates with Page and Reckhow.

Michael D. Page (incumbent)

Page is currently the county board’s chairman, a position he has held since December 2008. He was elected to the board in 2004, having previously served on the Durham Public Schools board, with a term as its chairman.

On the school board, Page was seen as a unifying force within a body often sharply divided along racial lines. He finished fifth among 14 candidates in the May Democratic primary, with support from the Durham’s Partnership for Progress “Super PAC” funded by Southern Durham Development Inc.

Website: bit.ly/Vtoi0i

Education: Bachelor’s degree, political science/public administration, N.C. Central University; Master of Divinity, Shaw University Divinity School; Doctor of Ministry, United Theological Seminary.

Career/community involvement: Pastor of Antioch Baptist Church, Durham; director of United Christian Campus Ministries, NCCU; member of Durham school board, 2000-04; member of Durham County Board of Commissioners, 2004-12 (chairman, 2008-12).

Endorsed by: Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, Friends of Durham

Campaign finance (through second-quarter reports): Total receipts: $4,640; total disbursements: $4,236; largest donors: N.C. Realtors PAC, $1,000; Home Builders Association, $500; John L. Atkins III, Durham, $250; Robert Ter, Durham, $250.

Durham News: If Orange County does not approve its transit tax ... would you consider levying the tax in Durham County and using the revenue to improve public transportation in Durham County alone?

Page: I would definitely consider it. Our options are going to be limited if they do not pass it. I think that we really will have to look at doing something to enhance what the voters respectfully submitted they wanted.

Durham News: If you are reelected and something comes before the county commissioners involving Southern Durham Development, maybe the 751 South project or something else, how would you assure voters that you will look at it objectively and not be influenced by past support your campaign has been given by Southern Durham Development?

Page: I am always and will continue to look at projects objectively and not be influenced by any type of persuasion. ... When a project in my opinion is acceptable, when a project is organized and providing the kind of support for the community that that particular project or any project comes along with, I’m going to always be supportive of it. Because it’s for the future growth of Durham and it’s not my agenda, it’s something that is positive for this community.

Durham News: Back to the tax question. I expect that county finances are going to continue to be tight for some years to come. How would you either eliminate or reduce services or shift spending to avoid raising property taxes? Or do you think property taxes would have to be raised if other revenue doesn’t increase?

Page: The (county) manager has already told us we’re going to see a slight increase in property tax (revenue). ... But the thing of it is, I think we know this is going to happen and we’ve really got to figure out how to address it. The one we deal with every year is always the schools. We want to support these schools so they have the resources they need to provide a quality education for these children, so we might see a tax increase during the course of next year.

Ellen Reckhow (incumbent)

Reckhow was first elected to the county board in 1988 and served as its chairwoman from 2000 through 2008. Since then, she has been elected vice-chairwoman each year and currently holds that position.

Earlier in her career, Reckhow was a city planner in Newton, Mass. and redevelopment director and planner for Lansing, Mich. In the May Democratic primary, she finished first in a field of 14 candidates.

Website: bit.ly/I9GlUA

Education: Bachelor’s degree, economics, Boston University; master’s, city planning, Harvard University.

Career/community involvement: Recipient of more than 15 awards and recognitions: including the Goodmon Award for Exemplary Regional Leadership by an Elected Official, the North Carolina Planning Association Elected Official of the Year, the Dorothy B. Graham Child Care Services Award, along with one national leadership award for her work creating the Encore After School Program.

Endorsed by: Durham Peoples Alliance, Friends of Durham

Campaign finance (through second-quarter reports): Total receipts: $15,740; total disbursements: $14,450.45; largest donors: Carolyn Aaronson, Durham, $600; Charles Wilson, Durham, $300.

Durham News: Given that the economic times are probably going to continue to be tight, where would you consider cutting county services or shifting county funding to avoid increasing the property-tax rate? Or is a tax increase inevitable?

Reckhow: We do face additional debt in the next few years, related to the new courthouse and the new Health and Human Services Building, so we’ve been warned that we may face a property-tax rate increase. But we’re doing everything we can to buffer that and try to avoid it as much as possible. We’ve been very judicious with our spending and we’ve been able to build up our fund balance to the degree that, my hope is that, we can soften out a possible increase – which is what we did this year, to appropriate some of our fund balance (and) had a slight tax rate decrease.

The good news is that we are seeing a rebound in sales tax collections. We levied the quarter-cent tax for education effective April 1. We got the first report recently as to how much it generated for the last three months of the fiscal year, and it was higher than we had expected by about a half a million dollars. ... To see that kind of a bump is fairly significant. We are seeing our sales tax bouncing back. It appears as though the economy is rebounding and people are buying things again eating out in restaurants et cetera, and that is a real help to us.

Durham News: Last year, Durham County approved the half-cent tax for transit. If Orange County does not approve its transit tax next month, would you be in favor of going ahead and levying the tax in Durham County and using the money to enhance public transportation in Durham County alone?

Reckhow: We’d need to have a conversation about what we do and we would also need to amend the bus and rail investment plan. We have to spend money consistent with that plan and that plan calls for light rail connecting Durham and Chapel Hill. So if Orange County is not a partner, then a significant component of that plan goes away and we would need to reassess what we should do. So the first step would be to have meetings, I would want to have public meetings where the public can comment to discuss what we should do. Clearly, there are opportunities to enhance bus service, which we were planning to do in the plan.

The plan has three components: bus service expansion, the light rail from Durham to Chapel Hill and commuter rail that connects Durham and Wake County. If Orange does approve the referendum, we feel we can proceed with the first two components and wait and see what Wake does with the third, as far as whether we do the commuter rail. But if we don’t have a partner with Orange, then the only component left in our current bus and rail plan would be to enhance bus. So we need to have a conversation: Do we proceed with that?

We also could, I guess, look at whether we do any rail service that culminated in Durham County. There just would be various things we could look at, but it would require a lot of careful review and discussion about what our next steps would be. The other option, of course, we have also, is the option to levy a $7 vehicle registration fee, so that could be an option to enhance bus service. Anyway, there would have to be a serious discussion about options. ... I do want to emphasize that if Orange County does pass the referendum, I do hope we would proceed forward and levy the tax and begin work on the bus enhancement and the light rail.