While this was just Round One for selecting who will serve next year on the Dearborn City Council, the makeup of the top seven finishers in Tuesday’s primary suggests Dearborn residents — at least the 18.4 percent of registered voters who took the time to cast a ballot — only want a little bit of change.

Five of the top seven vote getters were city council incumbents, including Thomas Tafelski who finished as the top voter getter with 5,629 votes. Nancy Hubbard, amazingly or maybe not so, depending on your perspective, finished second with 4,457 votes.

Perhaps the most interesting primary election news were the two new names to break into the top seven, Sharon Dulmage and Brian O’Donnell. Dulmage had the good fortune of serving more than 20 years on the Dearborn School Board, so she is a familiar name with a track record. Some people we spoke to after voting said they cast a vote for that “incumbent Sharon”. Whatever the reason, Dulmage was the sixth top voter getter with 3,533. She was followed by newcomer O’Donnell, a newbie on the Dearborn political scene. He finished seventh.

The other seven candidates who will round out the 14 council candidates on the November ballot include incumbent Doug Thomas, a part-time Dearborn resident; incumbent Robert Abraham; David Bazzy, a former Dearborn Charter commissioner; George Hart (proof positive that the right name really can get you elected); Patrick Kiernan, owner of Kiernan’s Steak House; Patrick D’Ambrosio and Ali Sayed, who is very active in Dearborn recreation events for children.

Still, it is too early to read too much into these results. The heavy campaigning starts now and the council incumbents will have the upper hand. Throw out the order of how the top 14 candidates finished in Tuesday’s primary. This is an all new race and it begins Wednesday.

The results, in order of finish, are below. Those names in bold will appear on the November ballot:

1. Thomas Patrick Tafelski. . . . . . 5,629
2. Nancy A. Hubbard . . . . . . . . 4,457
3. George T. Darany . . . . . . . . 4,140
4. Suzanne Sareini . . . . . . . . 4,051
5. Mark C. Shooshanian . . . . . . . 3,931
6. Sharon Dulmage. . . . . . . . . 3,533
7. Brian C. O’Donnell . . . . . . . 3,417
8. Doug Thomas. . . . . . . . . . 3,284
9. Robert A. Abraham. . . . . . . . 3,232
10. David W. Bazzy. . . . . . . . . 2,759
11. George Hart. . . . . . . . . . 2,372
12. Patrick M. Kiernan . . . . . . . 2,267
13. Patrick D’Ambrosio . . . . . . . 2,170
14. Ali Sayed . . . . . . . . . . 2,004
15. Adrenne Wygonik . . . . . . . . 1,958
16. Nancy Siwik. . . . . . . . . . 1,644
17. Stephen S. Dobkowski, Jr. . . . . . 1,497
18. Rabih Hammoud . . . . . . . . . 1,432
19. Terry Burke. . . . . . . . . . 1,182
20. Scott J. Marquette . . . . . . . 1,031
21. Khalil Dakhlallah. . . . . . . . 989
22. Mark J. Dawdy . . . . . . . . . 884
23. Hussein Sobh . . . . . . . . . 880
24. Molly Sharp. . . . . . . . . . 630
25. Joseph Agius . . . . . . . . . 446
26. WRITE-IN. . . . . . . . . . . 94

Today Dearborn is holding a Primary Election to determine candidates for the November General Election.  The key item on the ballot are the 25 candidates running for City Council.

The unfortunate part with these summer elections is they generally have very low turnout.  The selection of the people who will go on to the general election will directly impact our everyday life in Dearborn.

So please make sure you vote today. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Those of you unsure of your polling location can click HERE to find that and see a sample ballot.