AND THE CHALLENGER IS

Barnett Jones

Regardless of demographic changes, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard, currently the lone Republican in Oakland County hierarchy, maintains strong popularity – to the point that his last couple of elections, he received the most votes of anyone running for office, including former Executive L. Brooks Patterson, winning 59 percent of the county’s vote in 2016, while Patterson had 53 percent. But that doesn’t mean he runs unopposed – and he won’t in 2020, either, with the announcement that Democrat Barnett Jones, chief security and integrity officer for the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) , is running to take Bouchard on. Jones, a resident of Lake Orion, has 19 years in the sheriff’s department, retiring with the rank of captain, and served time as police chief in Ann Arbor and Sterling Heights.