Incumbents keep seats in Southfield, Lathrup Village

SOUTHFIELD/LATHRUP VILLAGE — Voters in Southfield and Lathrup Village cast their ballots in the Nov. 4 election to decide a number of elected offices and proposals.

Kenson Siver will remain as Southfield mayor after winning his reelection over Sylvia Jordan. Siver has been mayor since 2015 and will continue in his position with another four-year term.

According to the unofficial results reported by the Oakland County website, Siver received 9,829 votes and more than 52% of the total while Jordan received 8,890 votes and more than 47%.

The race for Southfield City Council saw seven people run for four open seats. The top three vote-getters were elected to four-year terms while the fourth-highest vote total won a two-year term.

The top three were incumbents Yolanda C. Haynes and Daniel Brightwell and newcomer Ashanti Bland. They received 11,465 votes, 9,093 votes and 9,070 votes, respectively. Coming in fourth place and winning a two-year term was incumbent Michael Ari Mandelbaum, who received 9,048 votes.

These four beat out candidates Stacy Jackson, Catrina Butler and Gregory Keeler, who took in 8,807 votes, 8,266 votes and 4,860 votes, respectively.

Bland said she’s grateful that the Southfield community is giving her the chance to serve on council.

“They’ve allowed me to serve them as a trustee and the current president of the Board of Education here in Southfield for the last five years, and I’m very excited to now join a great group of people to service the city on the City Council,” she said. “Hopefully we can do some great things.”

The difference between a four-year term and a two-year term for Bland was 22 votes. She said the result was “definitely a shock.”

“As I stated, I am so grateful that our community holds me in high esteem, considering I believe Dan Brightwell has served for almost 10 years or so, and then Ari has been in service for about (10) years. So, it was definitely a shock to me, but I am so thankful that I was able to have the confidence of our community,” Bland said.

Mandelbaum, the current council president, said he’s happy to have been elected again by the residents. While he does wish it had been a four-year term, he’s happy he gets to “continue doing the good work to keep building a stronger, safer and more connected community.”

“I’m glad that the election is over and that we can get back to really serving the residents and continue moving Southfield forward,” he said. “I can tell you that when I was knocking doors, I’ve heard a lot of great ideas and some will say constructive feedback from residents, and I’m looking forward to working with my colleagues and fellow council members in taking those ideas and those critiques and finding ways to incorporate them into the city to, again, continue to make Southfield the best city that we can.”

For city clerk, Gabi Grossbard won the position with 8,620 votes. Two people, Wynett Ann Guy and City Councilwoman Coretta Houge, ran as write-in candidates. Oakland County’s election website showed 8,471 “unassigned write-ins” with no specificity yet as to how many votes each candidate received.

Irv. M. Lowenberg overwhelmingly was selected as treasurer for Southfield in his unopposed race. He received 14,780 votes.

In Lathrup Village’s contested race for City Council, Jalen C. Jennings, Bruce Kantor and John Sousanis were chosen to serve. They beat out Carlisa Mathis, who ran as a write-in candidate.

Jennings and Kantor, both incumbents, won four-year terms as the candidates with the two highest vote totals, while Sousanis will serve a two-year term. Jennings received 1,123 votes, Kantor received 1,115 votes and Sousanis received 771 votes, according to the unofficial results. There were 251 write-in votes.

This will be Sousanis’ first time serving on council.

“I’m really gratified to have been elected, and I’m really looking forward to working with the rest of council to take on the challenges that we have,” he said.

Lathrup Village also had two proposals on the ballot, one that was passed by voters and one that was rejected.

The village’s charter amendment proposal sought to match its laws with the current state election laws. It was approved by voters with over 74% of the vote, a total of 1,210 votes. A total of 417 voters opposed the proposal.

However, residents rejected a Headlee millage override proposal. Over 61% of voters chose not to approve the proposal, which would have reset two of Lathrup Village’s millages; one for its general operating expense from 17.3 mills back to its maximum of 20 mills; and one for sanitation from approximately 2.5 mills to 3 mills. The vote was 1,011 “no” votes and 626 “yes” votes.

City Administrator Mike Greene said the council’s next steps will be to hold a study session on Nov. 24 to discuss the Headlee results and what options Lathrup Village can pursue.

The city’s budget runs until June 30, and any decisions or cuts made will be applied to next year’s budget, which will start July 1, 2026.

“We do have a big gap that our council is going to get creative on and see how we can balance our budget, and these can include things such as canceling our library contract with the city of Southfield, canceling chipping services, we have a couple open positions in the Police Department, potentially not filling those, or numerous other things,” he said. “Over the next few months we’ll begin our budget process, finalize it and kind of see where the community wants us to go.”

“With the Headlee override failing, we’re going to have to look for some creative ways to balance not just infrastructure projects, but balance those with providing services and also maintaining things that help with the quality of life, things like parks,” Sousanis said. “I think that’s what I’m looking forward to.”

Lathrup Village also could pursue another ballot question for a Headless override in the May 5 election. Greene said it might be an option for council to consider, though since the voter response was a “resounding no,” he’s not sure what could change with the community over the next several months.

“I think we did a good job doing an education campaign,” he said. “I don’t know how much the opinion is going to change by May. So, I don’t necessarily see it potentially happening. I could see council exploring reducing services and doing some budget cuts, seeing how the public response is to that before going back out to the vote of the people. But then they could surprise me and we could be back in May.”