UP FRONT ENCORE
Service for Citizens
District office provides a link to Lansing and more RUSSELL HALL
Brian Powers
by
For 32 years, area residents have had an unusual pipeline to their
state representatives, but may not even have known it. The 60th District Service Office, located at 315 N. Burdick St., provides a way for the citizens of Michigan’s 60th State House District to interact directly with their elected officials on a nonpartisan basis. Founded in 1973 by then-State Rep. Howard Wolpe, the 60th DSO is a nonprofit endeavor with a mission of connecting the constituents of the state’s 60th District with the services that they need. That core mission has remained the same since its inception, according to Mary Brown, who served as the 60th District representative for 18 years, from 1976 to 1994. The 60th District includes Kalamazoo and a small portion of Portage, and the District Service Office is a “go-to place for individuals seeking to connect with state services,” Brown says. 10 | ENCORE NOVEMBER 2015
Edie Trent, left, and State Rep. Jon Hoadley, right, talk with constituent Curtis Putman at the 60th District Service Office in downtown Kalamazoo.
In-district service offices are rare in Michigan. Each state representative gets two legislative assistants paid for by the Legislature, and most choose to keep both in Lansing. But State Rep. Jon Hoadley, who currently represents the 60th District, has opted, like his predecessors, to keep one assistant in Lansing and assign the other to the service office in Kalamazoo. The 60th DSO is the only one of its kind in Southwest Michigan. “The concept of a nonpartisan, nonpolitical office that you can go to and access your government services right where you live, that’s a concept that a lot of places don’t have,” Hoadley says. Hoadley holds office hours at the DSO every Monday afternoon, but the office’s day-to-day affairs are managed by Edie Trent,