Voters in Southfield will decide between a longtime incumbent for mayor and a former city council president in the nonpartisan race for the city’s next mayor.
Challenger Sylvia Jordan is now a daycare owner who says she wants to make Southfield a place that makes business owners and young people want to stay.
"When you look at Southfield now, we're almost at a standstill,” she said. “And that comes from the right leadership not seeing what needs to be done to move Southfield forward."
The population in the Detroit suburb has remained near 75,000 people for decades.
Jordan said residents are concerned that they can't see their property tax dollars at work around them.
Kenson Siver has been Southfield's mayor since 2015. He said he's spent the last decade trying to improve the city in ways that would impact the lives of residents.
He pointed to the development of new pathways, the rehabilitation of old roads, and a major redevelopment plan for the long-shuttered Northland Mall as some of his most notable accomplishments.
"We are aggressively working on finding adaptive reuses for spaces we know were built for one purpose, and that purpose no longer is needed,” he said.
Siver said he tries to respond to every call or email he gets from constituents. “I can't solve every problem,” he said. “But I do need to listen, and I do need to respond, and I do need to help you. And that's what I'm about every single day.”
