Former state House candidate wins race for partial term on Saginaw City Council

SAGINAW, MI – Former state House candidate Carly Rose Hammond won the race for one of six open seats on the Saginaw City Council, defeating opponent and Saginaw City Council member Reggie Williams II with 88.49% of the total votes cast in the Nov. 5 general election.

Williams entered the race for a partial two-year term seat on the council as a write-in candidate, but Hammond filed to run in time to have her name included on ballots.

In August, Williams admitted that running as a write-in candidate wouldn't be their easiest path to reelection.

Related: Saginaw councilman changes mind, will campaign as write-in candidate

"This is obviously not an easy way to get back onto council, so I'm just prayerful and hopeful that people will remember to fill that bubble and write my name," Williams said.

Hammond will succeed council member Bill Ostash who was appointed to the council to fill the vacancy left by Autumn Scherzer who resigned shortly after winning the seat in 2022.

Ostash won a seat on the council Tuesday in the 11-person race for five four-year term council seats with 9.93% of the total vote.

Williams began serving on the council in March of 2020 after being appointed to fill a vacancy left by former council member Clint Bryant who ran for a state House seat in the 2020 general election. He continued to serve on the council after winning a bid for the seat in November of 2020.

Prior to serving on the council, Williams was Buena Vista Township's police chief, a role he took over in 2017 after spending more than 20 years with the Saginaw Police Department.

Initially, Williams chose not to seek reelection, citing the recent death of his father, but he said he changed his mind after having some time to grieve and after discovering that Hammond was the only candidate running for the council's two-year term seat.

"That raised concerns simply because of how she had presented herself in public," Williams said.

In June of 2020, shortly after George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, Hammond helped coordinate a protest that attracted hundreds of residents who marched through the city together to call for justice for Floyd and an end to police brutality.

Hammond defended her role in the protest, explaining that while she wants to hold law enforcement officers accountable, she also believes Saginaw needs more officers than it currently has.

"What people are asking for is more local, community-invested police, and I support that like I support city employees and unions, and making sure our city and communities are protected by people who are from here," she said.

In 2021, Hammond helped organize another protest, this time in opposition to the decision of city of officials to end a moratorium on water utility shutoffs meant to ease the financial strain many residents experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. The moratorium was eventually reinstated.

"There was this gap (in time) that was a very big issue, and because of the immediacy of the issue, direct action was what was needed in order to stop the harm from being done," Hammond said. "It looked like we were about to turn people's water off in a pandemic in the summer, when we have relief funding coming that wasn't here yet."

Williams has expressed concerns regarding Hammond's activism in the community.

"I don't know her personally, but with her opposition against police and how passionate (she was) about how city government was being run — in her eyes — and how she presented those feelings and sentiments; that was concerning to me," he said.

Below are the unofficial results of the race for the council's two and four-year term seats. The names of winners are listed in bold.

Saginaw City Council (nonpartisan): partial two-year term

Carly Rose Hammond: 10,637

Reggie Williams (write-in): 1,383

Saginaw City Council (nonpartisan): four-year term

Charles Allen: 4,125

Annie Boensch: 4,249

Eric D. Braddock Sr.: 5,171

George Copeland Jr.: 4,009

Monique Lamar-Silvia: 5,440

Bill Ostash: 5,172

Jacinta JJ Seals: 5,476