Deadline to file for election nears

By Charles Sercombe
Hamtramck’s election year will feature only one local race for voters to decide on:
There will be three seats on city council for re-consideration, and now three city charter proposals will have to wait until November for a thumbs up or down.
Councilmembers Nayeem Choudhury, Mohammed Alsomiri and Mohammed Hassan are facing re-election.
They will likely face challengers which will also likely mean a primary election run-off in August.
Those who survive the primary challenge will face-off in the November General Election.
However, if there are no challengers, which is highly unlikely, the three councilmembers will then run unopposed in the November election, and obviously be elected for another four-year term.
Would-be candidates better decide fast whether they want to enter the election. The deadline to file for office is April 25 – which is next Tuesday.
This election sets a new election rule in motion: starting this year, those elected will now be limited to no more than three terms.
With the recent resignation of Councilmember Amanda Jaczkowski, the current council is all male. That has prompted some discussion on social media sites about a call for women to step up and represent the city.
It’s not immediately known when the last time the Hamtramck council did not have a woman as a member.
There is no election for the Hamtramck School Board this year.
In other election news, the city had initially planned for voters to decide on three city charter amendments for the primary election, but the state rejected the ballot language.
City Manager Max Garbarino said the changes are minor, but the revised ballots won’t be ready in time for the primary election in August.
The council wants voters to approve these changes to the charter:
Councilmembers are seeking a pay raise from $3,249 a year to $9,749.
The mayor pro tem’s increase would go from $4,874 to $11,374 a year. Councilmember Mohammed Hassan is the current mayor pro tem, whose duty is to chair council meetings when the mayor is absent, as well as fill in for the mayor as needed.
And for the mayor, the current salary of $6,499 a year would go up to $12,998.
The total increase for the council and mayor is $45,500 for the year.
The yearly salaries are based on a percentage of the governor’s salary. For council, it’s currently 2 percent, for the mayor pro tem it’s 3 percent and the mayor’s is 4 percent.
The amendment, if approved would change that to 6, 7, and 8 percent respectively.
Another change in the charter would remove the restriction of making councilmembers and the mayor to wait at least two years before being appointed as city manager here.
And the third would-be charter change would strike down the requirement for a councilmember who wants to run for mayor to first resign from council no later than 60 days prior to the filing deadline to run for mayor.
The same would apply to a mayor who wants to run for council while still in office.
In both instances, no resignation is needed if they are in the last year of their term.
Posted April 21, 2023