News Photo by Steve Schulwitz Alpena County Commissioner John Kozlowski settles into the chairman’s seat on the Alpena County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday. Kozlowski was elected chairman by his fellow commissioners for this year.

ALPENA — The Alpena County Board of Commissioners will be led by a new chairman this year, as commissioner John Kozlowski received the most votes to become chair at Wednesday’s organizational meeting.

Kozlowski, who has served on the board for seven years, beat out fellow commissioner Burt Francisco.

After commissioner Brenda Founier nominated Kozlowski and former chairman Bill Peterson nominated Francisco, each commissioner wrote the name of the person they voted for on a small, blank piece of paper. County Clerk Keri Bertrand tallied the votes and a 5-2 majority elected Kozloski to lead the board and captain the board meetings for this year.

After the meeting, Kozlowski praised his fellow commissioners and said during his time in office, this board could be the strongest yet. He said the new year will be challenging and commissioners will have to pull their weight to help dig out of a financial hole and make up for the loss of County Administrator Mary Catherine Hannah, who accepted a job to be the new administrator for Saginaw County, until they find her replacement.

Hannah’s last day working in her office is Jan. 18.

“The budget is our biggest concern moving forward, but I’ll be honest with you, in the time I’ve been here, this is the best board we had in terms of commissioners stepping up and questioning things and I’m excited about the possibilities this year,” Kozlowski said. “We are going to need people to step up until we find a replacement for Mary Catherine. We’ll have to do what we all can do. I think we have the commissioners that are willing to do what needs to be done.”

After Kozlowski took his new seat smack dab in the center of the board, Commissioner Bill LaHaie nominated Francisco to serve as the vice-chairman. There were no other nominations and Francisco received all eight votes to earn the position.

Kozlowski said his becoming chairman was somewhat unexpected and, as a result, he did not have any committee assignments ready to issue. He said the best path forward for the time being is to keep committee appointments the same until he has an opportunity to review current committee appointments and tweak them if he feels it is necessary.

Kozlowski, who was reelected several times, filed to run for his seat in 2021, but regulations with his job in the military forced him to withdraw and not run as a partisan candidate. However, military regulations did not forbid him from accepting an appointment to the board, which he was early in 2022.

“I enjoy being a commissioner and if I didn’t I wouldn’t have put the effort in that I did the last time,” he said. “After this year, I will have done this for eight years and I have enjoyed almost every minute of it.”