Westland voters will choose two candidates to vie for the office of mayor during the Aug. 8 primary election in the city. One of those candidates will be the first new mayor of the city in nearly two decades following the resignation of long-time Mayor William Wild who took a job in the private sector.
Voters will select two candidates from six who will appear on the ballot and those two will move on to the November general election.
Hoping to win voters' favor are Ali Awadi, Kevin Coleman, Jim Godbout, Anthony Jones, Mike Londeau and Ronald Sassak. Each hopes to win the nonpartisan four-year mayoral position which pays about $121,574 annually.
Awadi, 54, holds a doctoral degree in public administration and works as a consultant. He is a former police chief.
Coleman, 40, is serving his third term in Lansing as a state representative. He is a former Westland City Council member.
Godbout, 68, has served on the city council for 23 years and as president for 13 years. He works as vice president of Midwest Recycling.
Jones, 56, works as a truck driver. He also has a background in coaching and refereeing hockey games.
Londeau, 44, is currently serving as interim mayor and was appointed by city council in January. He is a former city councilman and chaired the downtown development authority.
Sassak had no social media pages for information.
Community Media/WLND extended an opportunity to the six mayoral candidates to speak to directly to Westland residents for up to eight minutes. Five candidates accepted and their speeches are available alphabetically on the community cable channel. Each candidate will also have their speeches aired separately on the WLND/City of Westland YouTube channel with closed captioning capability at: https://www.youtube.com/@wlndcityofwestlandmunicip.../videos
