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2015 Election: Carruthers wins Traverse City mayor seat

Jim Carruthers is Traverse City’s new mayor. Carruthers won the seat in yesterday’s election, defeating Ian Winklemann and city commissioner Jeanine Easterday.

Carruthers says he became involved in city issues shortly after moving to Traverse City in 1989.

“I got involved mainly because I don’t own a TV," he says. "And I went down to city commission meetings and sat in the audience and watched and listened and made public comment because I was raised to be involved and care about my community and I was.”

Carruthers says affordable housing and repairing aging infrastructure will be his top priorities as mayor.

Carruthers congratulated the candidates on a clean campaign.

"We talked issues," he says. "It wasn’t personality. It wasn’t drama. So I really congratulate everybody who ran because it was more about issues.”

Traverse City voters also selected Amy Shamroe, Brian Haas and Richard Lewis to serve on the city commission.

A city ballot initiative to set aside parkland along Silver Drive passed overwhelmingly.

School bonds

In other election news, the Suttons Bay School District will have $7 million to pay for new technology, school buses and security upgrades. Voters there approved a school bond by a nearly two-to-one margin.

In the Kalkaska School District, however, voters rejected a school bond that would’ve spent $1.75 million on new technology.

Another school bond proposal in Antrim County passed. It will pay for improvements to Ellsworth Community School.