The City of Brighton has new mayor-elect. At 24, Brandon Dean is one of the youngest in Alabama and the nation. He won without a runoff in a race with five candidates.
Dean is one of four millennials elected Tuesday in the city of 3,000 people that has wrestled with paying its bill and keeping its police cars rolling. In addition to Dean, three of the city’s new council members are 31 or younger. Dean says they will work together to help make Brighton better.
“We’ve obviously faced some serious budgetary issues that will have to be worked out,” Dean says. The simple fix to that is now we have leadership that creates a profile for our city that we have never had.”
Dean plans to increase the marketing of Brighton so that it can attract more industry, retail, and jobs.
A graduate of the prestigious Howard University in Washington, D.C., Dean says he had opportunities other than returning to Brighton but chose to come back.
“No matter where I was in life or what I saw or experienced, whenever life got difficult, whenever things were hard, whenever I got knocked down and needed a way to get back up, it always somehow involved me returning to this place that I call home,” he says.
Dean says he plans to start next week working with a transition team.
However, there still may be other unresolved issues in the Brighton election.
A complaint has been filed over absentee voting in Brighton. The Alabama secretary of state’s office confirmed the complaint to AL.com but did not release any details.
Last week, a Jefferson County district attorney said he was investigating potential voter fraud in Brighton over absentee ballots. He says 80 absentee ballot applications listed the same address, which was a candidate’s home.