Craig Covey | |
|---|---|
| Mayor of Ferndale, Michigan | |
| In office January 2008 –January 2011 | |
| Preceded by | Robert Porter |
| Succeeded by | David Coulter |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Columbus,Ohio |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Residence | Ferndale,Michigan |
| Alma mater | Ohio State University [1] |
Craig Covey (born 1957) is an American politician who served as Mayor of Ferndale,Michigan from 2008 to 2011. He was the second openly gay mayor elected in the state of Michigan. [2] A Democrat,he resigned the office in 2010 to take a seat on the Oakland County Commission,where he served one term.
Born in Columbus,Ohio,Covey was an activist,and executive director of Stonewall Union (now Stonewall Columbus) in the 1980s. He lived in Michigan since moving to the state to become executive director of the Michigan Organization for Human Rights in 1985 [3] and lived in Ferndale from 1989 [4] until 2017. [5]
Covey moved to Michigan from Ohio to head the Michigan Organization for Human Rights (now Equality Michigan) in 1985. [6] He is credited with organizing Detroit's first Gay and Lesbian pride march,an event later known as Motor City Pride. [7] He founded the Midwest AIDS Prevention Project. [8] In 2001,he founded La Comunidad,a support group for gay Latino men in the metro Detroit area. [9]
Covey was also CEO of the Midwest AIDS Prevention Project and Chief Operating Officer of the Michigan AIDS Coalition,the organization resulting from the merging of MAPP and the Michigan AIDS Fund in 2009. [10] He left the Michigan AIDS Coalition the following year. [11] He co-founded Ferndale Pride in 2011 when Motor City Pride moved from Ferndale to Detroit. [12]
Covey lost his first race for Ferndale City Council in 1995 by a wide margin,but was elected on his second try and served from 1999 to 2008. He was Ferndale's first gay city councilor. [13] As a city council member,Covey introduced Ferndale's human rights ordinance in 2006,which was approved by voters in November of that year. [14] [6]
Ferndale's first gay mayor,he was elected on November 6,2007 for a two-year term,succeeding three-term mayor Robert Porter,by defeating Tom Gagne 54% - 46%. [8] He was re-elected unopposed in November 2009. In 2010,he ran for the Oakland County Commission,winning a three-way Democratic primary on August 3,2010 and besting a Republican in the November general election. [4] It would prove to be his last electoral victory.
After Republican redistricting,Covey faced fellow Democratic incumbent Commissioner Helaine Zack (D-Huntington Woods) in a primary election,which he lost on August 7,2012 by 54% to 46%. [15] In early 2013,he began working as a special assistant to Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner Jim Nash. [16]
He ran again for mayor of Ferndale,Michigan on November 5,2013,challenging incumbent David Coulter,but was defeated. [17] Covey unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard in 2016. [18] In 2020 he ran for Stark County (Ohio) Treasurer,but lost.
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Ferndale is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. An inner-ring suburb of Detroit on the Woodward Corridor, Ferndale borders Detroit to the north, roughly 10 miles (16.1 km) northwest of downtown Detroit. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 19,190.
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Equality Michigan is an American civil rights, advocacy and anti-violence organization serving Michigan's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) community. Equality Michigan serves Michigan's LGBT community through victims services, lobbying on behalf of the LGBT community, public education on LGBT issues, and organizing Michigan's largest LGBT events such as Motor City Pride. The organization is a founding member of the Equality Federation.
Motor City Pride is an annual LGBT pride street festival, held in Hart Plaza in Detroit, Michigan the second Saturday and Sunday of June. Previously held in Ferndale, Michigan, the festival moved to Detroit in 2011. It is the largest LGBT event held in Michigan.
The Michigan Organization for Human Rights was a Michigan-based civil rights and anti-discrimination organization. It was founded in 1977 and disbanded in 1994, with most of its assets transferring to the University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library, Affirmations LGBT community center of Ferndale, and the Triangle Foundation—which replaced MOHR as the state's LGBTQ civil rights organization.
David W. Coulter is an American politician serving as the County Executive of Oakland County, Michigan since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, Coulter previously served as the mayor of Ferndale, Michigan from 2011 to 2019, and as a member of the Oakland County Board of Commissioners from 2002 to 2010.
As of the census of 2010, there were 5,196,250 people, 1,682,111 households, and 1,110,454 families residing within the Detroit–Warren–Ann Arbor Combined Statistical Area. Within the Detroit–Warren–Dearborn Metropolitan Statistical Area, there were 4,296,250 people residing. The census reported 70.1% White, 22.8% African-American, 0.3% Native American, 3.3% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 1.2% from other races, and 2.2% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6.2% of the population. Arab Americans were at least 4.7% of the region's population.
The LGBT community in Metro Detroit is centered in Ferndale, Michigan, as of 2007. As of 1997, many LGBT people live in Ferndale, Pleasant Ridge, and Royal Oak. Model D stated in 2007 that there are populations of gays and lesbians in some Detroit neighborhoods such as East English Village, Indian Village, Lafayette Park, and Woodbridge and that the concentration of gay bars in Detroit is "decentralized".
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The 2022 United States House of Representatives elections in Michigan were held on November 8, 2022, to elect representatives for the thirteen seats in Michigan. The deadline for candidates to file for the August 2 primary was April 19. The congressional makeup prior to the election was seven Democrats and seven Republicans. However, after the 2020 census, Michigan lost one congressional seat. Democrats won a majority of seats in the state for the first time since 2008. This can be partly attributed to the decrease in the number of districts, which resulted in two Republican incumbents – Bill Huizenga and Fred Upton – in the new 4th district. Redistricting also played a part in shifting partisan lean of the districts which favored the Democrats overall, including in the 3rd district, which Democrats were able to flip with a margin of victory of 13 points. That was made possible by a non-partisan citizens' commission drawing the new political boundaries instead of the Michigan legislature after a 2018 ballot proposal was approved.
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