Bay City Mayor Charles Brunner ran his last city commission meeting Monday night. The state representative-elect turned in his letter of resignation to the commission and presided over the election of new commission officers before handling the regular business of the night.
“It wasn’t always fun. It was certainly challenging,” Brunner said of his three years in the mayor’s office.
During that time he dealt with several controversial issues including fallout over the January 2009 death of Marvin Schur. He was the 93-year-old who passed away after the city shut off power to his home for non-payment of bills. The story grabbed national headlines.
He also presided over commission meetings that were met with serious, and often heated debate regarding public safety and cuts to city staffing levels. Brunner said the decisions were hard, but he did his best.
“We’ve dealt with the challenging budgets. We didn’t always agree but in the end we (as elected officials) represented the citizens of Bay City.”
Brunner will be sworn-in to his Lansing job sometime in December. That is also when city commissioners will choose their next mayor. Newly-elected Commission President Kathy Newsham will now run the commission meetings and have some of the mayoral powers until that position is filled.
