Durant City Council elects new mayor

DURANT, Okla. (KXII) -Durant’s newly elected council members are official.

“I’m really excited to be here today, I think it’s been a long time coming,” said Mike Simulescu.

Simulescu was elected to the ward 4 seat, Lauran Fuller, ward 2, and Martin Tucker will serve as member at large.

“Obviously we have a lot of work to do but it’s not going to happen overnight,” Fuller said.

“I think we have a really great council now, the voters have spoken, they want a unified leadership team and I think we have that,” Tucker added.

Now that all three council members have been sworn in, their first task as city council is to select Durant’s new mayor.

“I think we were all on the same page from the get go and we knew what needed to be done,” Fuller said.

Simulescu nominated Tucker for mayor.

All council members voted in favor except acting mayor Danny Sherrer, “abstain.”

Sherrer took over for Oden Grube when she resigned earlier this year due to health reasons.

Next on the agenda was vice mayor, Fuller nominated Simulescu.

Which again everyone in favor, except, “councilmember Sherrer?” “abstain.”

Mayor and vice mayor is a two year term.

“Tucker will be a great mayor for us, he obviously has experience dealing with a lot of municipalities and the financial side of things and so we’re confident that he will be able to come in and really look at things with a fine tooth comb,” Fuller said.

Tucker said his goal as mayor is to work on the infrastructure and positively change how the public views council, “we really want people to be on the same page, we want to have a unified vision as we grow the city.”

“I think today is a day of celebration but the hard work begins,” Simulescu said.

To learn more about the three new councilmembers, click here.

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