By DANIEL HERATY
Times-Herald Newspapers
HEIGHTS – Residents heading to the polls will have five candidates to choose for City Clerk. The primary will be held Aug. 2, and the election will be Nov. 8.
Janet Badalow — A 1988 graduate of Divine Child High School, Badalow, 40, earned a bachelor of science in Business Administration from Lawrence Technological University in 1995 and a master’s degree in Business Administration from Wayne State University in 2000.
Badalow, in addition to serving on City Council for 10 years, is a member of Dearborn Heights Goodfellows, and is currently a member of Dearborn Heights Democratic Club, where she is a former secretary. She is also a member of the Community Emergency Response Team, which teaches residents how to react in the event of an emergency, and trains them in basic disaster response skills. Badalow is also a member of the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments Environment Policy Action Council and Budget and Finance Committee.
A 32-year resident of of the city, Badalow has been married to John Cavanaugh Kellett, a senior auditor for the Wayne County Commission Office of Legislative Auditor General, since 2004.
Robert Constan — Currently serving as a state representative (D-Dearborn Heights), Constan is finishing his third and final term in that capacity. He is a life-long resident of the city and has been married for 21 years; he and his wife, Kerry, have three children.
Constan, who has been licensed to practice law in Michigan for 25 years, holds a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor and a juris doctorate, a professional degree that is required in order to be admitted to the American Bar Association, from the University of Detroit-Mercy School of Law.
Constan is also a former member of the City Council, where he served for six years. He left the position in 2006, when he began his career at the state House of Representatives.
Constan is the vice president of Dearborn Heights Goodfellows, a commissioner on the Dearborn Heights Watershed Steward’s Commission and chairman of the Dearborn Heights Ecorse Creek Cleanup.
Michelle Doumont — Doumont is a 1989 graduate of Crestwood High School who also served in the military as a member of the U.S. Air Force for 10 years, where she was assigned clerical duties such as scheduling, file management and research.
“Scheduling is a big part of what the clerk does,” she said.
She moved back to the city in 2005 where she served as a scheduler for the Dearborn Heights Baseball League for four years. She now serves as a voluntary teacher, chairwoman for the education commission and member of the parish council at St. Sabina Church, 25605 Ann Arbor Trail. She also serves on the Crestwood School District’s Crisis Management team.
Walter Prusiewicz — Prusiewicz has lived in the city along with his wife, Karen, for 21 years. He is the current City Clerk, having taken over for Judy Dudzinski following her retirement in March.
Prusiewicz also served for 30 years with Wayne County in different capacities, including as a laborer for the Wayne County Road Commission. At Wayne State University, he earned a bachelor’s degree in Accounting and a master of business administration in Finance.
He has also been a member of The Church of the Divine Child, 1055 N. Silvery Lane, for 10 years, where he helped out with fundraisers and served with his wife on the theater club. He is also a member of the Sons of the American Legion.
Prusiewicz said that much of his community involvement involves churches and the Dearborn Heights Civic Theatre. He also helped organize a tee ball league with churches in the area for children.
Deborah Ann Tutro — A 31-year resident of the city, Tutro attended Rosary High School in Detroit, Henry Ford Community College and the University of Michigan-Dearborn. She spent 25 years working for the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where she served in various clerical positions.
“Clerking is what I know,” she said.
Tutro’s first job was working at her family’s VFW Post 4644 in Detroit when she was 7 years old. She also served for 18 years in the Detroit Election Commission. Afterward, she worked as a poll worker from home, until she had to step aside when her son, Trevor Tutro-Anderson, ran for mayor as a write-in candidate in 2004. Recently, she volunteered to help with the Detroit Catholic Central Rummage sale in October 2010.
(Daniel Heraty can be reached at [email protected])