Gonser Wins Supervisor, and More Primary Results in Oakland Township

The votes are in Tuesday's primary, and Terry Gonser outpaced Joan Fogler to win the supervisor seat.

Gonser received 1,784 votes to Fogler's 1,237, with eight out of eight precincts reporting and absentee ballots in, according to unofficial results from Oakland County Clerk's office Tuesday night.

In other races:

Jeanne M. Langlois won for Oakland Township treasurer over Marc H. Edwards, 1,877 to 930.

Karen Reilly won for township clerk, with 1,162 votes. She was ahead of James Foulkrod (610 votes) and Judy Workings (944 votes).

The race for Oakland Township trustee was close, with Michael Bailey (1,792 votes), Maureen Thalmann (1,534 votes), Judy Keyes (1,566 votes), and Sharon McKay (1,485 votes) taking seats. Robin Buxar (1,175) and Kathy Thomas (1,147) were a few hundred votes behind.

Earlier in the day in an interview, Gonser said he was neither anxious nor nervous.

“I’m kind of an unemotional sort of guy,” he said. “It’s been long race, we’ve had a good time, met a lot of wonderful people and the voters will speak.”

Gonser said that regardless of how the election would turn out, he would be holding a “victory party.”

“We’ll have a victory party tonight, we’re calling it a victory party, but even if we lose it’s a victory,” he said. “We had a lot of fun on the campaign and met a lot of great people so that’s a victory in itself.”

But Gonser, who ran on a campaign on greater transparency in government, can also celebrate winning tonight.

In an interview with Michael Bailey earlier in the day, Bailey, who was first elected in 2008, said he ran on a platform of maintaining Oakland Township as a rural town without commercial development. 

“I think my record is pretty in clear in terms of supporting the citizens,” he said, I’m thankful that all the campaigning is over and were about to find out what the results are.”

Bailey politicked outside of the first precinct voting station today and said that he shook a lot of hands— “200 to 300 at least,” he said — but added that milder weather would’ve been appreciated.

“I wish it was a little cooler today, but thankfully it’s not raining like gangbusters like it could’ve been,” he said.