Detroit Mayor Bing after re-election: 'I can't do this alone'

Pugh to lead Detroit City Council; proposal on council districts passes

Christine MacDonald and Leonard N. Fleming / The Detroit News

Detroit -- Mayor Dave Bing easily won re-election tonight over challenger Tom Barrow.

With all precincts reporting, Bing garnered 56.2 percent (70,060 votes) to Barrow's 40.7 percent (50,757 votes).

"I've done some things that are unpopular," said Bing to cheers at his victory party at the Doubletree Fort-Shelby Hotel shortly before 11 p.m. that turned into "Bing Go, Bing Go!"

"But I know that it's the right thing," he said.

He warned that the city is about to go through some "very, very difficult times," and that he's called on supporters, faith-based leaders and the business people to help him turn around Detroit.

"I believe this is a defining moment in Detroit's history," Bing said.

"Let me say this: I can't do this alone."

For Bing, the former Detroit Pistons star and industrialist who moved into the city last year from Franklin, it was the second time Detroit voters elected him this year to run the city's government. He won a special election in May to complete the term of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

Although coming up short again, for Barrow, a two-time mayoral challenger to former Mayor Coleman Young, he said he went down fighting.

"I'm only sad that we will not be able to make the changes that I really wanted to make," Barrow said. "While it wasn't my time, and I accept it wasn't my time, I want my city of Detroit to know that I will continue to care."

He added: "I'm hopeful that our city will be able to grow and to prosper."

The Rev. Wendell Anthony, the NAACP president and force behind the Fannie Lou Hamer political action committee, announced to the crowdthat Bing was victorious with a basketball metaphor: "The playoff season is over!

"Now it's time to get down to the business of our city," Anthony said.

Despite the "naysayers," Anthony said, "we have a captain" who is going to lead Detroit to better times.

Former Mayor Dennis Archer said the city needs to come behind its mayor and help him turn Detroit around.

"We've got some real challenges out there, but they can be met," Archer said. "The image can change, but we're going to have to roll up our sleeves."

Police Chief Warren Evans, who ran against Bing in a special election in February to complete ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's term, said he's "elated."

"He needs it, and I think he deserves it," Evans said. "And I think four years will give him time to show that he has the business skills to manage through the crisis the city is in."

Bing, who took 74 percent of the vote in the August primary, refused to debate Barrow, saying his priority was running the city. Initially, Bing had the endorsements of the city's unions. But as the mayor pushed for concessions from the city's work force, the city's largest labor union, AFSCME, withdrew its support and backed Barrow with money and campaign workers.

Bing said the "culture" of City Hall needed to change and that his administration sought to implement tough ethics policies and seek counsel from the "region's best and brightest."

"We must come together and work to move our city forward," he said.

Kirk Lewis, who succeeded Bing as president of his company The Bing Group, said Bing is upbeat.

"The mayor has always said that he's going to be true to his word about dealing with the difficult situations not being very political," Lewis said. "And when you do that, 50 percent of the people are going to go against you and 50 percent are going to be with you. So it's going to be closer than we probably saw in the primary, but we feel real confident about the victory."

Barrow spokeswoman Colleen Robar said the Barrow campaign, which had warned that it would not tolerate voter fraud at the polls, seemed to believe that things went smoothly today.

Bing arrived with his wife, Yvette, seven minutes after the polls opened at 7 a.m. at St. John's Presbyterian Church on East Jefferson. It took the mayor only four minutes to finish his ballot and affix an "I voted" sticker to his brown leather jacket.

He acknowledged it has been a wearying eight months for Detroit voters, but said today's election was important because it set a slate of officials to help guide the city through what promises to be a tough stretch.

Bing spoke of the "cloud" that continues to hang over the city -- the almost weekly revelations about Kilpatrick, and the opposition he has encountered from unions that oppose his efforts to streamline city operations and handle Detroit's budget crisis.

"I think we have achieved a lot in a short time," Bing said. "The fact of the matter is we can't keep doing what we have been doing. We have to change. We have to move on."

cmacdonald@detnews.com (313) 222-2396