Stephanie Crider
McCORDSVILLE – Stephanie Crider didn’t have to go far to take on her new position.
The new McCordsville clerk-treasurer had been the town’s utility department supervisor for about the past three and a half years. She won a Republican caucus this week to succeed former clerk-treasurer Staci Starcher, who announced her resignation late last year.
“I was looking for more of a challenge,” Crider said of her motivation for pursuing the role of the town’s fiscal officer and record-keeper. “I wanted to do something a little different. I’m already familiar with the things going on in town, and so I was ready for it.”
Crider is the daughter-in-law of McCordsville Public Works Commissioner Ron Crider. Along with town utilities, she also brings six years of experience as the general manager of a restaurant.
“I’m not too concerned about anything with the job,” she said of the clerk-treasurer position. “I’m sure there’s going to be a learning curve, but I’m welcoming the challenge.”
Hancock County Republican Party precinct committeemen representing McCordsville voted in the caucus. Janice Silvey, who chairs the county GOP, said Megan Brewer also sought the town clerk-treasurer position and that Crider won four votes to two.
Crider was selected to complete the rest of Starcher’s term, which finishes at the end of the year. The position will be on the 2023 primary and general election ballots, and Crider said she plans to run.
A state law passed by the Indiana General Assembly last year says candidates can only run in a primary as a Republican or Democrat if they voted in that same party’s primary in the last two primaries in which they voted. Crider does not meet that requirement.
“Until I started working in local government, it wasn’t ever really on my radar, and I’ve only started living in Indiana not too long ago,” said Crider, a New Jersey native who studied at Purdue University and has lived throughout the Midwest, including Chicago and Ohio.
Silvey said she’d have to challenge Crider’s candidacy based on the new law if she files as a Republican.
“I about have to,” Silvey said. “I can’t set that precedent that I will let her go through just because the precinct committeemen put her in, and then the next person I say, ‘No, you can’t go.’ So I decided – me and my officers – to stick to the rule.”
The county’s Republican Party challenged several candidates last year based on the new law, but withdrew many of those challenges after the Hancock County Election Board voted to uphold one of the candidacies. The party was successful with one challenge, however, before the Indiana Election Commission.
