A month after the election in August, the smoke has almost cleared in Ypsilanti.

Following the general election in November, there will be at least two new members of city council. Ypsilanti will have a new mayor and a new representative from Ward 3 on Nov. 8. There will be a city council meeting that evening because of the general election on Nov. 7.

In Ward 3, Brian Robb won the seat for city council by a close count; a 12 vote, or two percent margin. Rod Johnson, Robb's opposing candidate, has filed for a re-count.

Derrick Jackson, the director of elections for Washtenaw County, said results of the re-count should be in by next week.

Incumbent Bill Nickels, D-Ward 2, defeated challenger John Bailey. Nickels will square off against Libertarian candidate Tom Bagwell in November.

Trudy Swanson, D-Ward 1, was the incumbent in a three-way race in the Ward 1. She beat out challengers Juanita House and David Kircher.

Ypsilanti's New Mayor
Barring a write-in upset, Ypsilanti's new mayor will be Paul Schreiber. A resident of 21 years, Schreiber started his community inovlement coaching his children's soccer team.

Schreiber has a son and a daughter, both Ypsilanti High School graduates. His son, 25, went on to graduate from the University of Georgia. His daughter, 21, graduated from the University of Michigan. Both attended Ypsilanti Public Schools from kindergarten, both were chamber singers.

A graduate of Oakland University, Schreiber took his first job in 1977, with Sycor in Ann Arbor. He said the company was into "intelligent communications." The company made disk drives that weighed 50lbs and held 800 megabytes of information. Schreiber now works for Visteon.

Schreiber and his involvement in the community helped him win the election. Schreiber has been on the housing commission for 11 years, was involved with the Friends of the Freighthouse, and served on commissions at EMU.

At 11PM on Aug. 8, the night of the election, Schreiber learned of his win. He was at his election party at the Corner Brewery.

"I would have been surprised no matter what happened," Schreiber said.

Schreiber's opponents for the race were Steve Pierce, a local business owner, and Councilmember Lois Richardson, D-Ward 1.

He still says he plans to stay involved in the community. Pierce said he will also be spending more time with his companies.

"I sort of ignored HDL in the last three to six months," Pierce said.

Richardson said she still plans to stay active on city council.

"I'm not going anywhere," Richardson said.

Schreiber's Plans
"We have to be fiscally responsible," Schreiber said after the election.

Downtown development is a focus of Schreiber. He spoke of a "new urbanism."

Schreiber described new urbanism as, "higher density residents living closer to an urban environment."

"We need to move Water Street forward," Schreiber said. " I think it will help some businesses."

Schreiber said the mixture of housing in the project will create more people living downtown.

"I think the stage is being set," Schreiber said. "We've got good, affordable retail space here."

During his campaign, Schreiber conceived the Ypsilanti 2020 Task Force. In a press release, Schreiber said the committee will develop five "innovative, yet practical" ideas to promote economic development within his first 100 days as mayor.

"It's still being fleshed out," Schreiber said.

He said it will be a mixture of different stake-holders of Ypsilanti. Schreiber said residents working in Ypsilanti, residents working in other communities, and people living in other communities that work in Ypsilanti will be on the committee. He also said there will be representatives from the city's gateway community.

Schreiber said, "They will stand back and take stock of what we've done in the past ten years."

"I don't know how many [people] it will take," Schreiber said. "There will be one group divided into sub-committees."

One of the sub-committees Schreiber said, will "go to Lansing and look for ways to change tax laws."

The city is facing large cuts in the coming years, and Schreiber said he wants to reduce those.

"We may need to consider an income tax," Schreiber said. "I'm hoping if we do have an income tax then we'll be able to alleviate some of those cuts.

"It's not something that we should take lightly. It should be a last resort, if everything else fails."

The Election
Cheri Lawson, Ypsilanti's former city clerk, said the election went well, with the exception of the city's new Accuvote machines.

The Accuvote optical scan tabulators replaced the city's Optec III-T Eagle. Lawson said she misses the old tabulators.

"It was great," Lawson said. "That was a work-horse machine."

Two of the new machines malfunctioned, according to Lawson. A machine in Ward 1, at the Senior Center, had to be replaced. In Ward 2, at Estabrook Elementary School, the machine malfunctioned twice and had to be replaced.

Lawson said the turn-out was low, about 22 percent. However, compared to other primary elections, she said the average was about the same.

"It was my last one," Lawson said. "I just wish Amanda well for the November election."