L. Brooks Patterson elected to 7th term as Oakland County executive
(WJBK) - L. Brooks Patterson has been elected to his seventh term as executive of Michigan's second-largest county.
The Republican Patterson defeated Democrat Vicki Barnett in Tuesday's general election. He has been executive of the county north of Detroit since 1993.
Barnett is former mayor of Farmington Hills.
"People say, 'Brooks, this is your seventh term; when are you going to give it up?' And I say, 'Look, when I wake up on a Monday morning and I don't feel like going to work then I know it's time to give it up.' So far, that hasn't happened," he tells us.
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Patterson won with 54 percent of the vote.
Patterson has boasted Oakland County's low unemployment rate of about 3.5 percent and a per capita personal income of about $60,000.
In 2012, he was in a car wreck that put him in a coma for 17 days. He wasn't wearing a seatbelt in the crash and was fined.
Patterson has said he was "stupid" for not wearing a seat belt. His driver was made a quadriplegic from the crash.
The Associated Press contributed to this report