November 5th there is a County Commission Race in District 6 covering Spring Arbor, Hanover, Concord, and Pulaski Townships. The incumbent is former State Representative, Earl Poleski. Greg O’Connor talked about the jail on AM Jackson.
“That’s nothing new we got a 70 year old jail I call it the best deal on Wesley Street.”
“Oh man okay it’s been called worse.”
“Well you get thick walls and a lot of blind spots it’s and it’s it’s worn out okay it’s lived in arcade it really is the design is obsolete that’s the main thing I sure we’ve attempted to maintain it as well as you can and to our credit I think we’ve done that but the design is not what a jail should be but we’ve been told Clearly Now twice we’re not going to have a new jail okay that’s that is just not going to happen we had a good chance of passing it in Augusta didn’t pass so now what’s on the ballot in November will be quarter mil just to supplement the the funding there to run the jail so that we can run it as we have been doing all along.”
“So how did we get to a point where we needed a millage for operations?”
“It’s a really good question because the jail is one of your most fundamental things okay why isn’t that covered by your normal operating and I think the answer to that is that when we built the chanter Road facility 20 some years ago and passed a millage to build it included in that millage was money to operate it which if you think back at the time you want to make sure you can operate a jail that you’re going to build so that was part of the millage that was in place and that that faded away a couple years ago that’s when that one expired and so the operating aspect of that millage expired all so.”
The challenger is Democratic newcomer Jennifer Shirk.
“Um so I actually just finished up a masters of social work with a focus on policy and political social work and through my degree program I one of my professors is a commissioner in Washtenaw County and I learned more about his experience and the ways that he’s been able to do a lot of good for the the residents of Washtenaw County and that got me inspired to look in more into our local government and I was astonished when I looked through the history and I saw that in any given year usually between four and maybe six or seven of our nine Commissioners run without any opposition oh yeah in the general election.”
Earl discussed the county’s tight budget.
“Tight budget.”
“Oh everybody is on a tight budget we have a curse we have a County Administrator who works for the Board of Commissioners yeah and who works with all of those elected officials every year to set the budget and there’s always a certain amount of arm wrestling that goes on that serves the public to make sure we’re getting the best value for our dollar while actually doing the service is that people expect us to do so and we have a good relationship I would say with our elected officials to share if the clerk the treasurer the drain commissioner and the anarch judges because that’s that’s the structure of County Government.”
Jennifer says young people are not necessarily represented on the commission.
“Help make life better for everyone so really the it’s it’s perfect timing because I’m done with my degree I’ve have had a lot of personal mentorship from people who are experienced in what it means to be a county commissioner and what it means to really put the People First and focus on how we can do a better job of taking care of our needs. Been to some of the meetings okay I’ve watched some of the recordings of past meetings even some from four years ago I’ve looked into the little bit of the the qualifications of each of the board members and so. Another reason that I’m running is because I’m you know very aware that the current composition of our board is very very skewed there is not there is not a single young woman on the board and there’s only one other there’s only one Millennial on the board we represent a really important Viewpoint that is not being represented at all right now. Yeah it’s a very strongly Republican board and what I like to remind voters is that if I’m elected that’s not going to change we’re still going to have that majority Republican they are going to be in the leads setting you know that Paving the way so it’s a really low risk to elect me because the and it’s a really high value right so the value of having a completely different perspective at the table is a way to lead us to more durable and Lasting Solutions. That I attend you know as many of the local meetings as I can but I’ve also knocked on over 700 doors at this point across all of those communities and I’ve had you know of those 700 doors I’ve had several hundred conversations with folks. Several of townships there are different concerns about Municipal systems Water waste sewer. Another issue that I think has been spanning the whole County or the flock camera systems.”