County Results and early Paul Scott results.

Some results are in.

Howell will be making some changes.
Mayor:
Phil Campbell - 669
Geri Moen - Incumbent - 499

Council:
Al Schlittler - quasi incumbent - 749
Doug Heins - 716
Steve Manor - incumbent - 615
Victoria Hertich - 454
Daria Devantier - 420

I'm not surprised by this. Joe Hune isn't as popular in the City of Howell as he is in Fowlerville. He's rather disliked by many of the establishment there. Joe still defeated Paul Rogers in the City of Howell in the primary. That was an opening set for challengers to the city government. Streetscape and its tax increase were the big issues there.

With that, I think one strategy backfired severely. Right before the election, the old boys/girls club circled the wagons. They came out with a letter of four former mayors (including Paul Rogers) backing the incumbents on the council and their favored challenger (Devantier). I think that hurt them bad and reinforced the status quo, streetscapes, and the like. Schlittler led the council votes, but was viewed as a moderate as a recent appointee and was supported by folks on both sides. Heins was a challenger and ran strong. Manor was the long term incumbent who survived. Moen was caught offguard by a strong challenger. Campbell worked extremely hard on this campaign and won.

In Brighton, all the incumbents win, as expected.

The millages in Green Oak are passing easily, as I expect. 2-1 margin+ for both of them. I also think this is helping the MEA/BEA in the Brighton School Board races. Minert (unofficially endorsed) will win, and Trombley started to pull away when Green Oak started reporting. What was a near tie is now a 190 vote deficit with six precincts to go. That's a small lead, except that the Green Oak precincts in so far both had major leads for Trombley over Rassel. Fiani is in the pack and won't catch Trombley.

Paul Scott's recall can go either way. Currently he's up 171 votes with 86% in.
Yes to Recall - 10,851
No to MEA - 11,022

Five precincts to report. I hope it's not Mundy Township that has yet to report. That's the roughest part of Paul's district.

It's going to be a close one tonight.

Local Developments

Over in the City of Howell mayoral race, my State Senator Joe Hune (who represents the area in the senate) endorsed challenger Phil Campbell. A lot of times in down ticket races, people ask me "Who is the conservative?" Interestingly, they ask about the "conservative", not the "republican." (the incumbent is neither) I know Joe's been asked that question several times from residents, as I have. Hence, Joe's endorsement. Campbell is the conservative running.

Campbell would get my vote if I still lived there. His positions on issues are available on his site, and he's opposed to a lot of the streetscape projects (and the tax increase to pay for them) that have wasted taxpayer funds. He also goes into details about other issues and the attitudes elected officials should have towards the voters.

Here in Green Oak Township, we have another millage election. I get a bit dismayed when local officials don't get the message from the public the first time and try again next election. I'm not impressed. I'm voting no for that reason alone. I was actually quite on the fence for one of the proposals last time, but not at all this time. No way. Don't take pages out of the Charles Breiner Howell Schools playbook. If you lose, don't ask right away again.

For Brighton Schools, I support Greg Rassell for one position and am undecided on the other. Minert is MEA/Barry Goode. I need to find more information on Nick Fiani and Bill Trombley to make a decision. I have a gut feeling on that race, but that's not good enough for me to say anything publicly yet.

Howell Mayoral Race

It's an odd number year, but that does not mean there aren't elections. Many municipalities have November elections.

One race that is starting to heat up some is the Howell mayor race. Phillip Campbell is challenging incumbent Gerri Moen. Campbell has a blog up and it goes much more into detail than most political campaign websites. Campbell is a conservative, while Moen is a Planned Parenthood donor.

The biggest issue there by far is the streetscapes project. This is funded by a property tax increase. The major controversies are the traffic circles, narrow streets/parking reduction which affected balloonfest, and potential roundabouts at Grand River/Michigan Ave.

I don't live in Howell anymore, but Campbell would get my support if I still did. Local elections usually do not have a lot of turnout or a lot of hype. It takes more of an effort to find out where candidates, especially non-incumbents, stand on the issues in the local elections.

Most interaction of individuals with governments are on the local level, either County, Township, City, or School district. For all the hype with national elections, it is at the local level where we make the most impact.