A Year in Review From Gladwin County Board of Commissioners

2022 was a very busy and productive year for Gladwin County and the Board of Commissioners. As the county emerged from the COVID restricted times of 2020 and 2021, the genesis of many impactful things took root in 2022.

Gladwin County received an appropriation from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of $4.9MM to be used on post-COVID rebuilding projects such as public health, negative economic impacts due to the public health emergency, replacing lost public sector revenue, providing premium pay for essential workers, or infrastructure investments. To this end, the county put out a call for projects to the entire community in order to find out what needs we had due to the pandemic. A steering committee that represented a cross-section of local business leaders, educators, and government officials was assembled to go through each project to evaluate them for qualifications to the criteria of the Treasury Department’s regulations, and then pass them on to the County Board of Commissioners for further review/consideration. Of the 35 projects that were submitted for consideration, 24 of them were selected for funding at some level. Once it was determined that a project fit the Treasury’s criteria and was thus eligible to be funded, the Board of Commissioners evaluated the project for maximum impact to the entire county as well as economic development potential. Some of the projects that were approved for funding and that will be taking root in the county in the coming years were:

- Construction of an athletic park in the city of Beaverton

- Expansion of the “Trail of Two Cities” between the cities of Gladwin and Beaverton

- Broadband mapping for Gladwin County

- Equipment investment for Gladwin County Recreation Area

- Water Well for Gladwin County Sports Complex

- Emergency vehicle housing for Billings/Bentley townships

- New roof for Gladwin County Historical Society building

- Improvements to the Beaverton hydro dam and spillway

It was also a very active year in moving to get our lakes restored after the catastrophic events of May, 2020. The delegated authority for both Gladwin and Midland counties, Four Lakes Task Force, led the county through many complex engineering and funding activities to ultimately secure the funding needed to rebuild our broken dams and ultimately restore our lakes. Work has already begun on the Secord and Smallwood dams, with lake restoration anticipate in the spring of 2024. The dams and spillways in Edenville and Sanford have already undergone much stabilization work, and actual construction will begin in 2023, with Sanford Lake returning in 2025 and Wixom Lake restoration anticipated in 2026.

In addition to these two major projects, the Gladwin County Drain Commissioner was able to work through all of the proper state channels to secure a one-time appropriation from the state of Michigan of $2MM in order to manifest some long-needed repairs to county drains without putting an undue tax burden on the county residents. The county was also awarded a total sum from a nationwide settlement in excess of $600M to combat the opioid crisis that surrounds us.

Beyond influxes of funding coming into the county, there were several other things of interest to the citizens of our community. We lost one of our long-term Circuit Court Judges, the Honorable Thomas R. Evans due to illness. After a long hiatus where visiting judges aided the Honorable Roy Mienk in presiding over our Circuit courtrooms, Governor Whitmer appointed local attorney Tara S. Hovey to fill the vacancy. The county also experienced a change in the Prosecutor’s office as Norman Gage became the county’s new Prosecutor, moving up from the Assistant Prosecutor position and was backfilled by Mark Toaz as the county’s new Assistant Prosecutor.

The aging infrastructure of the Gladwin County jail reared its head in 2022, forcing closure of the jail due to collapsed underground plumbing and necessitated the outsourcing of county inmates to neighboring jails for 2 months. The plumbing was repaired back to a serviceable level and the jail is now once again functioning.

The county is being proactive in the recruiting and hiring of new law enforcement officers due to the national shortage. The county Board of Commissioners approved a resolution to the state to request more funding for law enforcement be funneled to county and local departments, and also approved an unprecedented plan to give Gladwin County a leg up on neighboring departments to help pave the way for new recruits to enter the profession.

Gladwin County’s Emergency Management department significantly upgraded their communication capabilities to use in case of county emergencies with the state-funded purchase of hi-tech radios and ham equipment. The County Clerk, Register of Deeds, and County Treasurer all made significant advancements in automating all public-facing systems for easier use. The county leadership development program continued to churn out new graduates from both the student and adult programs in 2022, investing in the future leadership of the county and its businesses.

All in all, it was a very busy and productive year for the County of Gladwin!