A man elected to serve on the Warren County Commission has tendered his resignation before ever taking office.

Scottie Keel, who was the top vote-getter in the 2nd District in the Aug. 4 General Election, submitted his resignation to County Executive-Elect Terry Bell on Thursday.

“Regretfully I will not be accepting the position of district 2 commissioner,” wrote Keel in his letter. “I want to express that this decision was a difficult one to make. I appreciate all the voters and their confidence in me; however, I learned just before the election that being a commissioner was going to interfere with contracts that I had already accepted. Losing those contracts would not only affect my family, but it would also affect my employees through loss of work.”

Warren County Commission chair Blaine Wilcher has called a special County Commission meeting for Thursday, Sept. 1 at 6:30 p.m. Commissioners will be sworn in and then they are expected to vote to accept Keel’s decision not to accept the seat.

The move will allow the 2nd District seat to be placed on the Nov. 8 ballot along with other races that include Tennessee Governor, and three McMinnville alderman seats.

“Once it’s declared a vacancy, we can get it on the ballot if it’s done before Sept. 9,” said election administrator Susie Davenport. “The qualifying deadline will be Sept. 14 at noon so if they declare a vacancy on Sept. 1 people can begin picking up qualifying papers at our office on Sept. 2.”

Davenport said residents of the 2nd District can run for the seat, regardless of whether they sought election in August. The requirement of getting 25 signatures from registered voters in that district still remains.

Davenport has been with the Election Commission since 2004 and she says this is the first time she can remember an elected official declining to take office.

The 2nd District race had six candidates running for two seats in August. Keel and Cam Montgomery were both elected. Also in the field were Sommer Walker, Dana Mullican, Robert Hennessee and Dwight Bouldin.

“It will be interesting to see if any of them will run again because they were out campaigning three weeks ago,” said Davenport. “But it’s not just limited to them. It’s open to anyone in the 2nd District.”