Don Merricks is in his first re-election cycle but gets the free pass with no opposition. He’s deserving of our endorsement.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Don Merricks cruised to an easy win (64-36) over Andy Parker in his first election for the seat which was vacated by Robert Hurt’s election to the State Senate. Merricks had a fringe opponent earlier in the year but he withdrew from the race in mid-May. Even though Merricks would have easily won that race, he’s got the luxury of no opponent now. Merricks is a successful businessman, owning J.W. Squire Company, and is a past president of the Danville-Pittsylvania Chamber of Commerce. He also has a lot of experience in the banking field.<\/p>\n
Merricks knows the issues that small businesses face and is proposing a fund base similar to the Governor’s Opportunity Fund which would be exclusive to Virginia small businesses. He also has some good ideas in the healthcare field including having military corpsmen go straight to the registered nurses’ exam after leaving the military. Merricks’ first term has been non-eventful and that’s a good thing. We feel that he has great potential in the legislature and would not be surprised to see him run for Robert Hurt’s Senate seat if it is vacated in the next few years. <\/p>\n
SouthsideCentral believes that Don Merricks is an excellent representative for the 16th House District and we strongly encourage that our readers give him a courtesy vote in the November 3rd election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Don Merricks is in his first re-election cycle but gets the free pass with no opposition. He’s deserving of our endorsement.<\/p>\n
[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[60,22,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-endorsements","category-opinioncentral","category-politicscentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-1tq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8069,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2013\/10\/31\/endorsement-les-adams-for-16th-district-house-of-delegates\/","url_meta":{"origin":5668,"position":0},"title":"Endorsement: Les Adams for 16th District House of Delegates","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"October 31, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Les Adams has done everything that's needed to show us that he'll make a good Delegate in Virginia's General Assembly. When Don Merricks decided not to run for re-election, SouthsideVA lost a good man in the House of Delegates. Les Adams stepped up and won the Republican primary in a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Endorsements"","block_context":{"text":"Endorsements","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/politicscentral\/endorsements\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4067,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/06\/03\/happy-trails-shawn-palmers-candidacy\/","url_meta":{"origin":5668,"position":1},"title":"Happy Trails, Shawn Palmer’s candidacy!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"June 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"He's running against Don Merricks! No, he's not! Palmer withdraws from 16th District delegate race We had a Race Update thread over on HalifaxCentral but now we're not going to have any fun with this race. Damn. He had very little chance of winning, anyway. I guess we do need\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "NewsCentral"","block_context":{"text":"NewsCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/newscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7916,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2013\/09\/24\/16th-district-house-race-update-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":5668,"position":2},"title":"16th District House Race – Update #1","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"September 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"We're going to slide back into the election season as we take a look at a race that has no incumbent. Incumbent Don Merricks decided to not run for re-election because of the need for him to manage his own business. The Southside region will lose a good and influential\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Henry County"","block_context":{"text":"Henry County","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/henry-county\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5764,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/11\/02\/southsidecentrals-endorsement-recap\/","url_meta":{"origin":5668,"position":3},"title":"SouthsideCentral’s Endorsement Recap","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"November 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's the easiest way to look at all of SouthsideCentral's endorsements for Election Day. Get out & vote! Danville Treasurer: Lyn Barbour (unopposed) Danville Commissioner of Revenue: Jimmy Gillie (unopposed) 60th District Delegate: James Edmunds (unopposed) 16th District Delegate: Don Merricks (unopposed) 9th District Delegate: Charles Poindexter 14th District Delegate:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Endorsements"","block_context":{"text":"Endorsements","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/politicscentral\/endorsements\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12791,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/05\/20\/public-safetys-letter-to-danville-city-council\/","url_meta":{"origin":5668,"position":4},"title":"Public Safety’s Letter to Danville City Council","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"May 20, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"At Tuesday night's Danville City Council meeting. Fire Captain Daryl Turpin and Police Captain Tommy Merricks presented a letter on behalf of public safety employees to council. As a public service, SouthsideCentral is proud to publish the letter in its entirety for you to read. Here's the letter for you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/E6hPygg.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/E6hPygg.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/E6hPygg.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/E6hPygg.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6192,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/01\/17\/danville-city-council-race-update-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":5668,"position":5},"title":"Danville City Council Race – Update #1","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"January 17, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Four Danville City Council seats will be up for grabs on May 4th. Since the Register & Bee has started the ball rolling with an article about the race, let's start drilling down into some scenarios and play with some speculation. First, let's see who's up for re-election. Gary Miller\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}