With so much attention on the national and state races, it’s easy to forget the 2018 election included a number of important local contests and proposals.
In the five-way race for four seats on the Oxford Board of Education, the winners were incumbent Korey Bailey and newcomers Erick Foster, Chad Griffith and Mary Hanser.
Based on the unofficial results from Oxford, Addison, Brandon, Metamora, Dryden and Hadley townships, Griffith received 6,028 votes, Hanser garnered 5,811 votes, Foster earned 5,690 votes and Bailey received 5,365 votes.
Candidate Kallie Roesner came in last with 3,696 votes.
Oxford voters failed a 15-year, 1-mill request to fund the township parks and recreation department’s operations. It was rejected 5,149 to 4,805, according to the unofficial results.
“It’s not the end of the world,” said Parks/Rec. Director Ron Davis on Tuesday night. “We’ll just pick up where we left off. We’ve got to get (a millage) passed next year because that is what we operate on. If we don’t get one passed next year, we don’t have a millage to run the department.”
The failed proposal represented a renewal of the current 0.8234-mill operating tax, plus an increase of 0.1766 mill, part of which was going to be used to staff, operate and maintain the new 3,126-square-foot senior center currently under construction in Seymour Lake Park.
The existing parks/rec. tax is set to expire with the December 2019 tax collection, so the department does have funding in place for the 2019 and 2020 fiscal years.
Davis said his team will “pull together as we always do” and try to get a millage passed next year “to keep the doors open and run the department.”
“We’ll just have to regroup with the (parks and rec.) commissioners and see what they want to do, but . . . we definitely have to get one passed next year,” he said.
It was the absentee voters that failed the parks/rec. millage proposal.
Voters who went to the polls on election day favored the millage request 3,438 to 3,337, but absentee voters rejected it 1,812 to 1,367.
In the uncontested race for three, four-year seats on the Oxford Village Council, the winners were newcomer Kate Logan, who received 825 votes, and incumbents Joe Frost and Maureen Helmuth, who received 793 and 723 votes, respectively.
Oxford Village voters also gave the municipality permission to sell, if it ever so chooses, a 0.589-acre parcel of vacant land located at the southwest corner of Dayton and Maple streets in the community’s northwest quadrant near the Polly Ann Trail.
They approved the land question 941 to 553.
In the race for the 46th District seat in the state House of Representatives, incumbent John Reilly (R-Oakland Twp.) beat Democratic challenger Mindy Denninger, of Oxford, 26,804 to 17,908.
Democrat Rosemary Bayer defeated Republican Mike McCready in a close race for the 12th District seat in the state Senate. Bayer garnered 59,297 votes, while McCready received 58,362 votes.
Incumbent 3rd District Oakland County Commissioner Mike Spisz (R-Oxford) defeated his Democratic challenger Michelle McClellan, of Oxford, 18,365 to 10,118.
Voter-turnout was high in both Oxford and Addison townships.
Of Oxford’s 15,920 registered voters, a total of 10,460 – or 65.7 percent – participated in the general election.
In Addison, a total of 3,439 of the township’s 4,891 registered voters participated. That’s a turnout rate of 70.31 percent.
Voters elect four to school board, fail parks millage added by CJ Carnacchio on
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Use your tower money to pay for it Ron. you just had to have it. and btw, the parking lot at the parks office for voting had to loose you 500 votes. come on dude.
What happened to the 2 million dollar bond you got from the taxpayers last year? Is it gone already? Seems like you really did not need that new electronic sign in front of Seymour lake park. What a waste of the taxpayers money. Now you want more?
I was not in favor of the increase to the millage for the parks. The citizens of the township did not want the cell tower that was installed at the park. The township wanted the revenue generated from the cell tower so it was passed. It was explained that these additional revenues would be used to run the parks. Many of the projects that were supposed to be completed with the money from the last millage were set aside to build the senior center, including the sled hill and consessions. At present, the sled hill is just a huge pile of dirt. Now, more money is required to run the senior center. Was this not budgeted when you pushed to start this project? Where is the cell tower revenue going? Complete the projects you started then I would be open to passing another millage. I agree. The parking lot was a mess on voting day. A halted construction site for one day and rain made that lot a swamp. There was parking for about 15 cars. I appreciated the fight to find a close spot, in the rain, carrying a child and sinking in mud. It was much more convenient to vote at the library.
The $2 million bond projects are still ongoing and was a separate debt millage to just fund parks improvements. There were many major improvements that needed to be completed at all of our parks that could not be done through a general roughly .85 operating millage. There were a lot of different projects associated with that bond and it will take some time to complete all of them. What was requested recently was a renewal of the current roughly .85 operating millage as well as an increase of .15 to help expand senior center offerings. The sledding hill and concessions are still in the works. The cell tower revenues currently go into the Parks and Recreation annual budget to help fund its operations. Please feel free to contact Ron Davis at the Parks and Rec. office and he can go over the budget and what is allocated line by line with both revenues and expenditures.