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ROYAL OAK — Royal Oak voters hit the polls Nov. 7 and reelected the city’s longtime mayor while also selecting some fresh faces for the City Commission.
On Election Day, Royal Oak saw residents give a vote of confidence to two incumbents in office while electing two others to serve for the first time.
Incumbent Mayor Michael Fournier was reelected over Trish Oliver, with the mayor receiving 9,065 votes and Oliver getting 6,477.
Fournier was elected to his fourth term as mayor, where he’ll serve for two years. Prior to his first term, he was appointed mayor for one year while he was on the City Commission.
“It’s really humbling to have such an overwhelming support from my fellow community members. It’s a resounding message from our voters that we like the progress and trajectory the city is on,” he said of his reelection. “I couldn’t have been more proud to run with a slate of candidates that share the values of the community and are experienced, compassionate and will bring a tremendous amount of wisdom to the dais as we move forward as a good commission.”
The commissioners’ race saw six residents running for three open seats. Incumbent Monica Hunt and newcomers Amanda Herzog and Rebecca Cheezum won election, receiving 8,590, 8,593 and 8,275 votes, respectively. They will serve four-year terms.
Wade Sutton, Peter Ferenczy and Kathie A. Grant fell short of obtaining a seat on the commission, receiving 5,432, 5,339 and 5,263 votes, respectively.
Hunt has served on the commission since her appointment in 2020, and she was elected to a partial term in 2021. This will be her first full term.
“I’m excited. I am glad to know that the residents are happy with the work that we’re doing, the progress that we’re making in the city, and that they voted in favor of their future and the future of Royal Oak,” said Hunt.
Both Cheezum and Herzog have never served on the commission before. Both shared their excitement to get started.
“I’m just really grateful to the Royal Oak residents for electing me and putting their trust in me for the next four years,” Cheezum said. “This has been something I have been thinking about for a long time. I’ve been involved with the community for several years, and I’m just really excited to get started.”
“I am definitely thrilled that voters have the same positive vision for the city and hopefully we’ll be able to do some more sustainable practices in Royal Oak,” Herzog said.
Fournier stated that, for him, public safety is the city’s No. 1 priority and that they should “pull no punches” when it comes to doing what the city has to do to keep the community safe.
“We’ll continue to keep Royal Oak one of the safest places in America to live,” he said. “On top of that, we’ve been clear that we’re going to continue to focus on aging in place, making sure that Royal Oak is accessible to people of all socioeconomic backgrounds, which means that we have to look at housing in different ways, (and) then, of course, making sure that we’re dealing with the climate crisis in the way that we’re best suited to. And so those will continue to be our priorities, among all the other things that we do to keep the city functioning.”
Hunt believes Royal Oak should focus on environmental sustainability and putting their attention on development, creating infrastructure and using sustainable materials while keeping climate change in mind.
“When we have these 100-year storms every year, we’re making sure that we’re able to keep those stormwaters outside of people’s basements. … So making sure that we’re focusing on our environment and the sustainability of it,” she said.
Cheezum said two of the biggest challenges facing Royal Oak are the increasing number of older adults and climate change.
“We are actually really fortunate in Royal Oak that we’ve already put a lot of time and we’ve had a lot of residents’ input into creating two plans. We have an aging-in-place plan that was approved last December, and we also have the SCAP, the sustainability and climate action plan. So I really want to be part of championing those plans and making sure they get put into place.
“I’m a public health professor and I’ve been working in public health for 20-some years. So I’m really excited to bring that public health perspective to the commission and just make sure that our residents have access to services and resources and we have the infrastructure so that everybody can live the healthiest life they can and to thrive,” she continued.
Herzog ran on a platform of environmental sustainability and said she is focused on water quality and stormwater management.
“I would like to see the sustainability and climate action plan that Royal Oak has implemented,” she said. “They just hired a full-time sustainability manager in the city. So I think that there’ll be a strong direction for the city to lead in this area and implement new projects. And we also have a grants manager who will be able to find the funding to implement these projects. So I’m really excited about working on that.”
The city’s residents also approved, with close margins, two charter proposals that were on the ballot.
Charter Proposal A was approved with 8,014 residents voting yes and 7,817 voting no, a 197 vote difference
The charter amendment will raise the city’s road millage to 2.5 mills from 2.3, as it had decreased due to Headlee rollbacks. The millage is for 10 years.
The city estimates it will generate about $8 million a year from the millage. Along with the $2.5 million that comes from a city gas tax, Royal Oak’s annual road budget would be $10.5 million.
Residents approved Charter Proposal B with 7,930 voting yes and 7,765 voting no, a 165 vote difference.
The charter amendment favors a new voting system for elections called ranked-choice voting.
The ballot language reads, “A proposed Royal Oak city charter amendment, to provide that the Mayor and City Commissioners are to be elected by a Ranked Choice Voting method when a RCV election process is allowed by law. Shall this proposal be adopted?”
The amendment was proposed by Rank MI Vote which stated, according to its website, “In Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), voters rank as many candidates as they want in order of preference. This improved voting method gives voters more freedom, more expression, and more power. Instead of picking just one candidate, a voter has the option to rank their candidates in order of preference — 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on.”
