Mount Airy officials are taking a wait-and-see approach concerning their re-election plans this year.

What’s certain is that the seats of three incumbent council members, including Mayor Jack Loftis and Commissioners David Beal and Jon Cawley, will be up for grabs in the 2009 elections in Mount Airy.

Not as certain is whether they officially will declare their intentions to seek new four-year terms when the candidates’ filing period opens later this year.

“I’m still undecided,” Loftis said Wednesday afternoon of his plans concerning the seeking of his third term as mayor. He added that he likely won’t make the decision until closer to June or July when the filing period begins.

Loftis said such factors as his health and his abilities to continue making a contribution to city government will “enter into the decision.”

“Right now, I’m kind of on the fence,” said Loftis, who was first elected in 2001.

Meanwhile, Beal also is unsure of his plans concerning another term representing Mount Airy’s South Ward. “I haven’t made up my mind yet,” said Beal, who joined the city Board of Commissioners in 1999 when he was appointed to fill the unexpired term of Commissioner Johnny Edwards.

Beal later was elected to two full terms, his latest in 2005.

As for his filing plans, Cawley said Wednesday, “I will unless there’s somebody that’s running that’s better.”

Cawley is the newest commissioner on the five-member city board and was chosen on Sept. 4 to fill the unexpired term of North Ward councilman Tom Bagnal, who resigned last summer. The remainder of Bagnal’s four years ends in December, meaning it is affected by the November 2009 election.

Before being selected from among 11 candidates for the vacant commissioner seat, Cawley said he intended to run for the office this year anyway.

But as of Wednesday, Cawley said, “I haven’t decided” on whether to seek a full four-year term. “I like serving better than running, but I’m not scared to run,” he said, adding that several factors will figure into his eventual decision.

“It will just be a matter of (voters) looking at the record, and if what I’m doing is pleasing them, I’ll keep doing it,” Cawley said. “If not, I’m not going to try to convince them to see it my way — I’ll let somebody else run for it.”

Before the filing period opened for the 2007 city election, two incumbent commissioners at that time, Mike King and Swanson Richards, opted not to seek new terms. That opened the door for Deborah Cochran and Dean Brown, who were elected in November of that year after spirited campaigns for at-large and North Ward positions on the board.

Cochran also was involved in a primary for her seat leading up to the general election, due to three candidates filing.

The only other incumbent in 2007, Commissioner Todd Harris of the South Ward, did run for re-election and staved off a challenge from Bill Clark, son of a former Mount Airy mayor.

Contact Tom Joyce at tjoyce@mtairynews.com, or at 719-1924.