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Pete is a long time Ypsilanti resident who resides at 504 North River St with his wife Grace Sweeney. He arrived in Ypsilanti in the late 60's and worked in the auto plants and at Ypsilanti State Hospital while attending Eastern Michigan University . Pete eventually graduated from EMU in 1996 with a BA degree in political science. Pete was born and raised in the multi-racial Roxbury section of Boston , Massachusetts . He attended public schools. His parents were depression and post WWII era union and civil rights activists and those values were passed on to Pete. Working with his church, he helped organize and participate in the March on Washington for Jobs and Equality in August of 1963 where Rev. Martin Luther King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Pete was involved in the Ypsilanti community from the start helping to form the Ypsilanti Food Coop and working with the Ypsilanti Tenants Union and SOS. While at EMU he was active organizing against the Vietnam War. Later while working at Motor Wheel Pete was active in the UAW serving as the local's Safety steward. After purchasing the house on River Street he and his wife helped create the Eastside Neighborhood Association and organized around issues to improve the neighborhood such as down-zoning, historic preservation, reducing the over-concentration of group homes in the neighborhood and improving police and other city services on the eastside. He also was an early member of the Depot Town Association working to revitalize the adjacent Depot Town commercial area. In 1978, Pete was elected to the first of three consecutive terms on City Council. He was appointed Mayor Pro-Tem by his Council colleagues in 1982. He became Mayor in December 1982 upon the resignation of the then Mayor George Goodman and went on to be elected Mayor in 1983, 1985. and 1987. Pete was defeated for Mayor in 1989 but later served one more term on City Council. Following his service on City Council, Pete worked in the non-profit recycling sector, first with the Ypsilanti Recycling Project where he developed Ypsilanti's curbside recycling program and expanded the recycling drop-off station. Later he worked for Recycle Ann Arbor—an award winning recycling non-profit—where he managed Washtenaw County's drop-off station at Ellsworth and Platt. He retired in 2005 MORE ON PETE (from Theresa Maddix) In the summer of 2006, during the run up to the last City Council election, Pete Murdock and Grace Sweeney were far away. They took a 4-month summer road trip up through the U.P., across Canada, through the Canadian Rockies and into Alaska. While Ward 3 positioned itself to vote in Brian Robb, a relative newcomer on the political scene, Pete and Grace were roughing it in pristine country with their truck and a two-person LL Bean tent. In a recent interview, their memories of the Alaskan journey remain vivid. They recall the roads on the Alaskan Highway and particularly the Dempster Highway and the portion made of hard slate and a night spent after two flat tires on the rugged roads with a small town's one mechanic patching their tire. They draw out a wilderness journey where they lived side by side with black bears, bald eagles and fauna. A place where celery is sold by the stalk and milk by the glass, where water is supplied not from the ground but in huge cisterns on stilts outside the buildings and where rugged individualism is still the norm rather than the exception. |