Trenton Mayor Kyle Stack dies of heart attack weeks after reelection

Trenton Mayor Kyle Stack has suffered a fatal heart attack.

Stack died around 11 p.m. Friday, said Trenton police Lt. Don Ward. She was 62.

Stack was reelected three weeks ago to a third four-year term to head the Downriver city of about 18,000 residents.

“Her heart was Trenton, through and through,” said Jim Wagner, the city’s former administrator, who worked closely with Stack and knew her for four decades.

“She was almost a social worker. When people had trouble paying their bills, they came to Kyle Stack. She wasn’t a politician; she was a public servant,” Wagner said.

Stack had been with the city for 43 years, according to campaign publicity about her. She’s the former longtime Trenton city clerk.

As mayor, she was part time, as are most mayors in metro Detroit outside of Detroit itself.

Trenton is run day-to-day by full-time city administrator Scott Church — a position that most communities call “city manager.”

 Still, Stack was to many the face of Trenton, officiating at countless events since first being elected mayor in 2011.

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Under the city charter, the mayor pro tem will take over her duties until the City Council decides how to fill the post, likely by appointment at least in the short term.

Trenton was recently cited in the Free Press as the location of environmental issues during the demolition of the sprawling, defunct McClouth Steel plant by its current owners — companies connected to Moroun family, owners of the Ambassador Bridge.

Bill Jasman, Stack's husband, said she suffered a heart attack Friday afternoon, was taken to Beaumont Hospital-Trenton and died there.

Jasman was a political fundraiser and Stack was Trenton’s elected city clerk when the two met in 1997.

“I helped her defend that (clerk) seat twice, and then she defeated the incumbent mayor with 63% (of votes cast),” Jasman said.

“She was a key player in getting something going at McClouth Steel,” he added. The old steel mill had sat vacant for 23 years before Stack pushed for redevelopment, and “now about 80% of it’s demolished,” her husband said.

The couple through the years had hosted many foreign exchange students, “and now I’m just going to travel around the world and visit all of them” in her memory, he said.

She is survived by Jasman, her husband of 18 years; her mother, Shar Stack; her brother, Craig Stack; half sister Lisa Andrews, and several nieces and nephews.

Services for the mayor were announced late Saturday:

•  Visitation is scheduled for 3:30 p.m.-8 p.m. Wednesday at Trenton City Hall, 2800 Third St., Trenton.
• The mayor will lie in state, 9 a.m.-10 a.m. Thursday at St. Joseph Catholic Church-Trenton, 2623 Third St., Trenton.
• The funeral is scheduled to follow, at 10 a.m. Thursday, at the church.

Memorial contributions may be made in her memory to the Jack Castignola Scholarship Fund (Trenton Rotary) and/or Goodfellows.