Upcoming City Council Elections

I have been focusing on City Council lately in part because there is a round of elections coming up this fall and several Ann Arbor wards will be contested. Primaries will be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of August and general elections on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November. There is still time for candidates to file petitions to run as independents.

Wards with primaries:
First Ward:

• Sabra Briere - Democrat
• John Roberts - Democrat
• Richard Wickboldt - Democrat

Second Ward:

• Stephen Rapundalo - Democrat Incumbent

Third Ward:

• Leigh Greden - Democrat Incumbent
• LuAnne Bullington - Democrat
  

Fourth Ward:

• Marcia Higgins - Democrat Incumbent

Fifth Ward:

• Wendy Woods - Democrat Incumbent
• Mike Anglin - Democrat

Currently there are no independents or non-Democrats running and Wards Two and Four have no challengers.

I have been hard on the City Council in the past and I stand behind everything that I have written. However, I do believe that things could be much worse. We have a council that does not oppose dog parks and this has not always been the case in the past. Further, every member has at some point or another stated that she or he supports the Parks system and dog runs specifically.

Thus, I strongly urge you to investigate all of the candidates in your ward and not to vote a pure anti-incumbent ticket unless the challengers appear to be genuinely better candidates. I do not plan to endorse any candidate in any ward but I hope to follow up this post with more details on the individual candidates' positions. It would be wonderful to get some members on Council who will aggressively and actively support our needs, but there have been far worse Councils than the one we have now.

Also, I strongly urge any Ann Arbor resident who is interested in public service to consider running as an Independent. Particularly in the Second and Fourth Wards where there are currently no challengers. If you are interested in making Ann Arbor a more friendly community for dog owners, I think you could garner an awful lot of support and these local elections are often decided by small margins with low turnout.

If you wish to run as an independent, you must gather 100 signatures from within your ward on forms that you can obtain from the City Clerk's office. Filing deadline for Independents is August 8 so get started today.

More information on City elections can be found here. Contact information for the candidates who have filed so far can be found here. A map of Ward boundaries can be found here.