Belleville misstep sends council election into all write-in

Last October, the Belleville City Council passed a resolution to change its council odd-year elections to even-year election so it doesn’t have to pay for a stand-alone election.
The city was sent a sample ballot for the Nov. 4 election and was surprised to see the council election on this year’s ballot.
“We did not follow the proper procedure,” explained mayor Ken Voigt at the Sept. 2 council meeting. “We acted in good faith,” he said, noting it was with advice from the former city attorney.
“We were supposed to have a public hearing and then a roll-call vote and then file it with the secretary of state and that didn’t happen,” he said.
The new city attorney, Nancy Olind, told the council that its action was void and if the council took the proper steps now, it wouldn’t go into effect until 2026.
Olind said two candidates are up for reelection and they did not file because they didn’t know the election would be this year.
Mayor Voigt said last October, “We passed a resolution to go with even years and we discovered the problem ourselves.
“Any that want to run have to run as write-ins,” he said.
Mayor Voigt said if you want to know who is to blame, “Just do the math.”
According to the Oct. 10, 2024 Independent editorial, this is what happened: “City Manager Jason Smith said at the Michigan Municipal League conference Mayor Voigt spoke to Mayor Colestock of Eaton Rapids about odd-year elections. Mayor Colestock said they had changed their election years by resolution rather than by a ballot question. She sent information to Belleville and they adapted it for our city.
“Smith said the city attorney looked it over and said Belleville could make this change in a similar fashion and the attorney general said she preferred votes of the people, but a resolution would work. The council voted unanimously to change the terms of councilpersons Beebe and Kissel from expiring in 2025 to expiring in 2026. The terms of Mayor Voigt, Mayor Pro Tem Bates, and councilman Priest, which expired in 2027, will now expire in 2028.
“City clerk/treasurer Briana Hootman said this change will save the city $5,000 in costs for the odd-year city election which has nothing else on the ballot and brings only about a 5% turnout. Mayor Voigt said this should have been done years ago.”
At the end of the Sept. 2 meeting, under council comments, councilwoman Julie Kissel said she would run as a write-in for her seat. She said the other councilperson whose term was expiring was Jeremiah Beebe and she didn’t know his intentions. He was absent from the meeting.
In other business at the Sept. 2 meeting, the council:
• Presented a proclamation naming Sept. 2 as Chief Kristin Faull Day in the city of Belleville in recognition of her 25 years of police service. She was hired on July 25, 2000, served many years as a school resource officer, became a sergeant in 2022, and was named police chief in 2023;
• Heard Chief Faull explain a new, seven-page personal-appearance policy for police officers and reserves. She said, “It used to be whatever the chief said you could do,” but she reached out to Van Buren Township police to review its policy and put together a policy for the city. She said officers have been asking about beards and tattoos. She said the former chief, Dave Robinson, was anti-facial hair and tattoos. She said the attorney approved the policy;
• Approved spending of not to exceed $7,900 to get 20 fully assembled, red, metal lockers for the fire department from Fire Store, which was not the lowest of three quotes, but was the one recommened by Chief Faull as having a history of being exceptional to work with. The sales tax of $720.92 will be removed so the price will actually be that much lower. The current lockers at the fire station are wooden and they have become moldy and rundown. The fire consultants advised in their findings that these lockers needed to be replaced;
• Approved accounts payable of $900,501.10, which included $205,075 to Davenport Brothers Construction for construction work at 330 Charles St., the location of the new city hall;
• Tabled a proposal to make current bi-monthly water/trash billing a monthly billing. Mayor Voigt said the city went to bi-monthly during COVID, but he thinks monthly is better for those having tight budgets. Mayor-pro-tem Kelly Bates wanted information on how much more it would cost to send the bills monthly and that information was not available;
• Tabled a proposal to raise trash collection rates because the mayor wanted figures which were not available;
• Heard Chief Faull report that Jeff Gueli, who has served as an ordinance officer as well as a police officer, is going to retire on Sept. 23. She said he has issued multiple citations that he is working to clear out before he leaves. “We’ll find someone to take up the slack,” Chief Faull said;
• Heard interim city manager Steve Jones report that a fence was up and now down at Horizon Park and the geese came back. He said they have moved to the dock which has had to be cleaned up. He said the geese are more prevalent this year and it might be because someone is feeding them. He also reported that the paving of the rest of High Street is scheduled for the week of Sept. 15 and it will take two days to complete;
• Heard councilman Randy Priest say there is no safe way for walkers to get to Village Park. He also said he is not looking forward to winter because residents do not keep the ice and snow off their sidewalks. He said he has been working on the safety of sidewalks for 10 years. He gave the addresses of several dead trees hanging over the sidewalks and some water holes that remain in the walkways long after rains pass because of poor drainage;
• Heard councilwoman Kissel say she is waiting on the budget updates and all the cabinets upstairs have been emptied in preparation for the move of city hall. She said old files with the names of residents and what they paid have been preserved as historical documents;
• Heard mayor Voigt say he and others had a meeting with EGLE (Michigan Dept. of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy) about the landfill and he urged everyone to attend the Sept. 18 public hearing with EGLE at Wayne County Community College. He also reported he will attend the Michigan Municipal League conference in Grand Rapids and that the Council of Western Wayne (CWW) will hold its Sept. 5, 2026 meeting in the new city hall; and
• Heard the mayor ask for prayers for Alex Donley, son of community activist Chris Donley. Alex was in a serious accident on Aug. 29 and is in a hospital in Detroit. He is in serious condition. He is in intensive care and another surgery was set for Sept. 4. Chris is living at the hospital, Voigt said.