DEARBORN — Dearborn voters approved two ballot proposals Tuesday at the polls, clearing the way for City Council to attempt to sell the Dearborn Towers, and passing revisions to the city charter.

Voters also re-elected school board member Joseph Guido and chose 20-year resident Mary Petlichkoff to replace outgoing board member Mary Lane.

Past attempts to authorize sale of the towers in 1979 and 1986 were rejected.

The city bought the property in 1967 for $1 million. The 88-unit retirement facility in Clearwater, Fla. is now appraised at $8.3 million.

The city charter changes will allow city council to raise the city’s millage rate to up to 15 mills if deemed necessary.

Dearborn currently levies 13.687 mills.

The revisions changed language in 10 sections of the current charter, described by charter commission members as onerous and in need of adjustments.

Opponents, including union representatives, said it would make it easier for the city to privatize services.

The low-turnout election attracted a particularly low number of Arab American voters, based on turnout numbers by precinct.

Arab American resident Hussein Berry, who was endorsed for school board by the Arab American Political Action Committee (AAPAC), fell short of securing one of the two open seats with 3,564 votes. Guido received 7,402 votes and Petlichkoff received 5,520.

Arab American candidate Abd Elgouhri received 405 votes.

The charter proposal passed by a vote of 7,573 to 6,033. The towers proposal passed 8,139 to 5,725.

AAPAC leaders expressed intense disappointment at the low Arab American turnout. In the city’s east end, in all but one precinct, less than 14 percent of registered voters turned up at the polls. In the south end, turnout percentage was less than nine percent, compared to between 14 and 29 percent in the rest of the city.

“AAPAC has done everything it could do for the last 10 years,” said the group’s president Osama Siblani, who is also publisher of The Arab American News.

He said the group sent flyers to 8,500 households ahead of the election urging residents to vote. He said they did interviews on radio news programs, printed reminders in newspapers and implored attendees of AAPAC’s annual dinner last Friday to vote.

“We did everything we could do short of going out, grabbing them and putting them in their cars to go vote,” Siblani said. “I’m very frustrated, very angry… It’s an uphill battle.”

He said that AAPAC is now planning a summit of local organizations to address the problem.

“We have a lot of elderly people who can’t vote either because they can’t drive or are intimidated by the process, who should vote by absentee ballot.”

Siblani said that future efforts could push absentee voting and could ask for help from local mosques, churches and nonprofits, who could reach out and knock on doors to encourage voting, even if they can’t endorse any candidates or positions.

“They don’t have to say vote for that person or vote for this person.”

He said there were many in the community who didn’t even know there was an election Tuesday.

“We know more about what’s happening in Beirut than what’s happening in Dearborn. That’s very dangerous.”

South end community precincts, home to most of the city’s Yemeni Americans, were some of the only precincts to reject the new charter, despite the proposal being endorsed by the Yemeni American Political Action Committee. Some who were at the polls Tuesday said that people who didn’t take the time to vote were giving up one of their most precious liberties.

“When we give up our right to vote, we give up our right to complain,” said 16th precinct voter Sue Suchyta, 47.

Local student Nada Al-Hanooti, 16, herself not yet old enough to vote, stood outside of Woodworth Middle School in piercing cold for hours handing out flyers for Berry.

“Since 9-11 there’s been so much discrimination. It’s about time Arabs showed up a little more,” Al-Hanooti said. “We have to speak out a little more to be heard.”