The Michigan Court of Appeals late Thursday reversed a Macomb County judge's ruling that the names of four longtime Warren City Council members are to be removed from the ballot in a term limit lawsuit that was filed by another council candidate.

"We disagree with the decision. We think the dissenting judge got it right," said Jim Kelly, attorney for Conner Berdy, the candidate who filed the lawsuit May 10 against Warren City Clerk Sonja Buffa, the Warren City Election Commission and Macomb County Clerk Fred Miller.

"The majority decision ignores the plain language of the charter and precedent from the Michigan Court of Appeals; and we are evaluating our next steps and whether we have enough time to appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court," Kelly said.

The Court of Appeals ruling was 2-1 in favor of reversing a Macomb County Circuit Court judge's ruling from Friday.

Circuit Court Judge James Maceroni declared that Council President Cecil St. Pierre and Councilmen Scott Stevens, Steven Warner and Robert Boccomino "are ineligible to be candidates for the Warren City Council," and that the defendants are to remove their names from the list of eligible names to run in the August primary.

Rob Huth, who is representing Buffa and the city election commission, filed the appeal and asked for it to be expedited because ballots need to be printed this Friday.

“This is a terrific result. The Michigan Court of Appeals confirmed that the citizens of Warren have the right to choose who should serve on City Council,” Huth said in an email to the Free Press.

St. Pierre told the Free Press: "I'm happy to be back on the ballot. I want to continue to work with my colleagues and the mayor. I'm grateful for it and look forward to hopefully representing the citizens of Warren for four more years."

Boccomino told the Free Press "now we have a fair choice — at least the constituents have a choice today." He said he didn't stop campaigning and that a lot of people were upset that they were losing their right to choose. He said that he believes constituents will be happy, and while some may vote against him, and others for him "either way, they will get that choice."

Neither Stevens nor Warner could be immediately reached for comment Thursday night.

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The four council members are a majority of the seven-member city council.

Berdy and St. Pierre were running for at-large council seats, while the other three council members were running in three different district council races.

This is the second time the term limit question has been litigated in both the circuit and appellate courts.

In 2015, a different council candidate challenged how the city interpreted its term limits. The question hinged on how long council members may serve in office.

Warren voters set term limits for the city's elected officials in 1998 of three terms or 12 years. In 2010, voters approved two changes to the city charter that cut the council from nine to seven members and created five district and two at-large council seats.

In December 2014, former Warren City Attorney David Griem opined that council is a bicameral legislative body, consisting of district and at-large seats, and that a member who has been term-limited in a district seat (three terms or 12 years) can then run for an at-large seat and vice versa.

St. Pierre has served six terms while the other three councilmen have served three terms.

Kelly said that all of the judges who have looked at the case determined Griem's opinion that the council is a bicameral body "was wrong."

Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @challreporter.