HOWELL – Howell Township has elected John Leggio as mayor, joining the nation in leadership under the Republican party.
Leggio pulled a landslide win, taking in 19,281 votes – 67.73% of Howell voters – for the mayoral seat, according to the results website.
John Hughes, the Democrat candidate for Howell’s mayor, collected 9,115 votes. There were 71 write-in votes.
These results are unofficial because it takes a few weeks for the county to certify an election.
Mayor-elect Leggio was able to provide some comments to The Howell Times about the election and his upcoming status as mayor.
“I am extremely pleased with the election results. My campaign and I worked very hard from the very beginning and the hard work paid off,” he said. “I think it’s very important that we know where every dollar of our tax money is being spent, and that all department heads tighten their belts just like the good people of Howell have had to tighten their belts to manage their bills and lifestyles.”
Leggio said he has already requested five years of budgets, township salaries for the last five years and any and all expenditures for review.
He also explained plans on improving business in Howell Township, by moving forward through infrastructure and proper planning. He believes this will bring in more rateables to HD1 zones, among others.
Lastly, Leggio provided comment about one of Howell’s highest complaints from residents: quality of life in the suburban neighborhoods.
“For the past few years, quality of life issues have been a major concern in certain parts of town, especially with the LLCs renting out homes to multiple families. This is not fair or acceptable to the good people of Howell who pay their fair share and expect to keep well-managed neighborhoods. Our code enforcement and land use departments have already updated many ordinances to reflect these issues and moving forward with those ordinances is very important to me,” he said.
Hughes was also able to speak to The Howell Times.
“I think John Leggio ran a great race that appealed to the voters of Howell. We were aligned on a lot of issues because we both focused on only local issues, and those are pretty clear, but we had slightly different approaches to the solutions. The voters were clear that they preferred his approach,” Hughes said. “One thing I know is that if we continue down the path we’ve been headed towards, things will get worse, so I look forward to seeing how he shakes things up on the council.”
The mayor’s seat is a four-year term. He is succeeding former mayor Theresa Berger, who was unavailable for comment.
