DETROIT – When the new Detroit City Council convenes in January, a majority of the nine-member body will be new as voters ousted another incumbent in Tuesday’s elections, but voters decisively re-elected Mayor Dave Bing.

Voters also approved changing the election of the council to districts from the current at-large, elected a charter commission to rewrite the city’s basic governing document and passed a $500 million school bond that had the strong support of Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb.

The council newcomers include former television reporter Charles Pugh, who overcame controversy about his financial troubles to win the council presidency, making him the first openly gay elected official in Detroit history.

Former Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown, who gained fame for suing former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick after Kilpatrick fired him while Brown investigated the Kilpatrick administration for wrongdoing, won a spot. Brown’s lawsuit led to the trial in which Kilpatrick perjured himself, leading to his ouster.

The other first-termers are Saunteel Jenkins, who once worked on the late Council President Maryann Mahaffey’s staff; the Reverend Andre Spivey; and James Tate, who was the spokesperson for the police department under Police Chiefs Ella Bully-Cummings and James Barren.

Longtime Councilmember Alberta Tinsley-Talabi, a 16-year veteran of the council, failed to finish in the top nine, finishing 11th.

Tinsley-Talabi’s defeat makes her the fifth council member who will not serve another term. Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers was convicted of bribery charges and fell in the primary. Councilmember Martha Reeves lost in the primary. And Councilmembers Sheila Cockrel and Barbara-Rose Collins declined to seek re-election.

But four incumbents survived. Council President Ken Cockrel Jr. won, but failed to finish first and will no longer be council president. Councilmembers Brenda Jones, Kwame Kenyatta and JoAnn Watson won although Watson narrowly prevailed in getting the ninth slot.

Beyond the much-anticipated council race, Detroit voters also overwhelmingly approved a major change in how the council is elected by switching to a district system after decades of electing members on a citywide basis. They also elected a new charter commission and approved a major bond issue to fund repairs of the city’s troubled public schools.

Presuming the charter commission retains the council-by-district plan, the 2013 council elections will see most members chosen from districts.

Bing’s victory was virtually sealed with his tighter win in the May special election to fill the remaining months in former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s term. The filing deadline for Tuesday’s election for a full four-year term was just a week after the special election, and there was little appetite in the city among its top politicians to take on the just victorious Bing.

Barrow is best known for his losses to the late Mayor Coleman Young in 1985 and 1989, but he barely beat the unknown Jerroll Sanders in the August primary, which Mr. Bing won by a huge 60-point margin.

Tuesday’s race was tighter, but Bing still won by a healthy 58 percent to 42 percent margin.

The council has long been the butt of jokes, but the past four years took the city’s legislative body to a new low. Conyers could hardly go a week without an embarrassing outburst and would admit to taking a bribe in exchange for her support of a $1.2 billion sewage sludge disposal contract. She will be sentenced later this year.

Reeves became the first incumbent in memory to fail to make the top 18 in the primary after a term when the Motown legend struggled to understand the basics of her job and even referred to the $81,000 a year post as her “second job” to her singing career.

Watson saw her political support hemorrhage after the Detroit Free Press disclosed that she was paying less than $100 in property taxes on her home, which the assessor’s office was taxing as though it were a vacant lot. Her drop to ninth is a major fall from her third-place finish in 2005.

Collins, who decided not to seek re-election, burst into a rendition of “Onward Christian Soldiers” during a meeting on the proposed transfer of Cobo Center from the city to a regional authority.

This story was provided by Gongwer News Service. To subscribe, click on Gongwer.Com

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