Four candidates vie for vacant seat
ALPENA — The Alpena County Board of Commissioners will have four candidates to consider in filling the vacant District No. 3 seat after Camille Nerkowski resigned for health reasons.
The filing deadline for those interested passed Thursday at noon and there were three familiar names in Alpena politics and a newcomer as well.
Former Alpena Municipal Council member Dave Karschnick, a Republican, and former commissioner Kathy Thomas, a Democrat are the two with prior local government experience. Democrat Richard Neuman, also submitted a letter of interest, after being defeated by Nerkowski by a single vote during the November general election. Nick Modrzynski, a republican also filed at the county clerk’s office for appointment consideration.
Chairman Cam Habermehl said he has never went through the process of having to appoint a commissioner before, but he said he has a list of traits he will be looking for in the candidates during the meeting Thursday.
“First off it needs to be someone who will be able to handle the workload, because it is large,” Habermehl said. “The second thing is they need to have a good personality because they have to work with the public. The board will obviously have to feel comfortable with them as well.”
Habermehl said despite the fact there is a pair of candidates with a great deal of experience, he said will not be the deciding factor in who is appointed. He said it is only one piece of what the board will consider overall.
“Having common sense is the biggest thing, in my opinion,” Habermehl said. “I would like someone who can look at something logically and not vote for what is best for them, but what is best for the county and its citizens.”
The interview process will be at the beginning of the meeting and the appointment will be at the end, Habermehl said. He said it would be unfair to the new commissioner to be appointed early in the meeting and then have to vote on matters in which they may not be familiar with yet.
“I think it would just be better to give them until the meeting next month to get up to speed on issues,” Habermehl said.
No matter who is appointed, Habermehl said it is likely that he will have to review the current committee appointments. He said there will likely need to be tweaks made to them.
“I’ll take what their strong points are and what their expertise may be and put them where I feel they will be able to make the biggest impact,” he said. “So we may have to shuffle things around a bit.”
After being appointed, the new commissioner will complete the term of Nerkowski, which will expire at the end of 2019.
The board of commissioner’s meeting is scheduled to start at 1 p.m. Thursday in the Howard Male conference room in the county annex building. This meeting is open to the pubic and comment is welcome.
Steve Schulwitz can be reached via email at sschulwitz@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5689. Follow Steve on Twitter ss_alpenanews.