Last night, the new Oxford Village Council was sworn in and it consists of three old faces and two new ones as a result of the Nov. 4 general election.
Incumbents Sue Bossardet, Bryan Cloutier and Maureen Helmuth were all re-elected to four-year terms with 557, 509 and 380 votes, respectively.
Retired village Clerk Rose Bejma was elected to a two-year seat with 529 votes.
With 70 votes, write-in candidate Tom Kennis was appointed by council to the fifth seat, which also carries a two-year term.
That’s not a misprint or a mistake.
Even though he received the highest number of votes among the five write-in candidates, Kennis was appointed by council Tuesday night.
That’s because all the write-in candidates filed for four-year seats. None filed for two-year seats.
As it was explained by representatives of the Oakland County Elections Division to both village attorney Bob Davis and Oxford Township Clerk Curtis Wright, since there was no candidate other than Bejma certified for the pair of two-year seats, council must appoint someone to the other position.
‘We need to fill a vacancy under the way the county is looking at it,? Davis said. ‘They view it as if only one person ran for the two two-year terms.?
But Davis doesn’t view it that way.
In a Sept. 29 opinion, he stated, based on the village charter, the three highest vote-getters in the council race should be elected to the four-year seats, while the fourth and fifth highest vote-getters should win the two-year seats.
In this situation, the fifth highest vote-getter is the top vote-getter among the write-in candidates and that’s Kennis.
The other four write-in candidates received the following vote totals ? Bonnie Staley, 63; Denise Kabalka-Chesney, 49; Dave Bailey, 48; and Tanya Heuser, 31.
But those totals, including Kennis? 70 votes, only consist of votes cast under the four-year portion of the ballot. They don’t reflect the whole picture because another 99 votes were cast for write-in candidates under the two-year portion of the ballot.
But, according to Davis, he was told by the county Elections Division, those 99 votes will not be counted because none of the write-in candidates filed for the two-year seats.
Given all this, council voted to appoint Kennis since he was the top vote-getter based on the votes that were counted.
Joe Rozell, director of Oakland County elections, did not return phone calls seeking comment.