Hotel rooms are moving at fast clip; don’t delay, register today for 2025 Annual Conference
Hotel rooms are filling fast for the 2025 Annual Conference at the Grand Traverse Resort, with more than 70 percent of the original MAC block already sold.
To guarantee you get the best room rate for the 2025 gathering, Sept. 30-Oct. 2, you should complete your conference and hotel registration today!
The 2025 Michigan Counties Annual Conference will feature:
- Plenary Session keynotes from James Olson, former CIA chief of counterintelligence, and Paul Mellor, author of Finding the Keys and an expert on memory enhancement.
- The 2025 President’s Banquet, featuring the installation of Macomb County’s Antoinette Wallace as MAC’s 117th president.
- A Welcome Reception and strolling dinner in the Exhibitor Hall with more than 30 firms providing goods and services of importance to county government.
- MAC’s Annual Business Meeting, which will review and approve MAC’s policy platforms for the coming year.
- Membership elections will be held for seven seats on the MAC Board of Directors.
- Ten policy workshops ranging from the use of AI to build local economies to challenges to mental health services.
The conference also will include plenty of time for members to network and enjoy the facilities of the resort and the surrounding Grand Traverse community.
Important numbers:
- Conference registration deadline: Sept. 19, 2025
- Hotel registration deadline (for special MAC rate): Aug. 29, 2025
- Member registration full conference rate: $415
- Spouse/Guest meal package rate: $225
- Hotel room rate*: $225 (hotel guestroom) or $275 (tower guestroom)
*Rates do not include resort fee ($20.95 per room/per night) or applicable taxes
For more details, visit MAC’s digital conference site.
MAC creates materials to help counties celebrate International Overdose Awareness Day and National Recovery Month
August and September highlight a time to recognize the lives lost to drug overdose and celebrate recovery from substance use disorders.
Overdose Awareness Day is recognized internationally on Aug. 31 annually to raise awareness of drug overdoses, stigma associated with overdose deaths and acknowledge grief experienced by families and friends remembering those lost and injured as a result of drug overdose. To find out more information, you can visit https://www.overdoseday.com/.
Recovery Month is recognized nationally throughout the month of September to promote new evidence-based treatment and recovery practices, the strength and resilience of the recovery community and highlight the providers and communities that support recovery from substance use disorders. To find out more information, click here.
MAC has created a proclamation template for both overdose awareness day and recovery month proclamation which counties can customize to highlight their commitment to addressing stigma and overdose, honoring the lives lost, celebrating those in recovery, and sharing that recovery is possible.
For more information on MAC’s opioid settlement services, contact Amy Dolinky at dolinky@micounties.org.
There’s still time to register for CCA webinar on Open Meetings Act and FOIA
A webinar offered on Aug. 19 from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. will provide commissioners a full credit toward their 2025 certificate in MAC’s County Commissioner Academy.
Matt Nordfjord, a managing shareholder with the firm of Cohl, Stoker & Toskey, P.C. in Lansing, will present on the Michigan Open Meetings Act (OMA) and the practical interplay with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) related to commissioner communications. The topics covered will include the purpose of the OMA, rights of the public, legal requirements and best practices for public comment, notice requirements for regular and special meetings, the permitted basis to enter closed sessions (identifying their purpose) and when and how to formalize a decision after a closed session.
Other items to be discussed will be the application of FOIA, definition of “public record” and a brief overview of FOIA exemptions and the appeal process to the “head of the public body” (i.e. the county board of commissioners). Matt will also provide an update on recent case law impacting the OMA related to delegation to committees.
Bring your questions on specific issues.
For questions about County Commissioner Academy, contact Derek Melot at melot@micounties.org.
Crawford County featured in NACo report on ‘extreme’ sports and tourism
Photo credit: Jeff Caverly/Grayling Visitors Bureau
Crawford County was featured in a recent article in the National Association of Counties’ County News about “extreme sports and tourism.” See an excerpt below:
Rowing a canoe for 120 miles, through the dead of night, is tough enough. Watching the teams compete for the nearly 80-year-old race is another story.
The AuSable River Canoe Marathon has attracted two-person teams to Crawford County, Mich. since 1947 for a race from Grayling to Oscoda. The competition has grown from a local-heavy event in the 1950s to an international draw in late July. The $55,000 prize purse doesn’t hurt.
It’s one on a calendar full of summertime feats of strength that capitalize on counties’ unique geographies, drawing adventure-seekers and spectators alike to try their hand at a challenge, marvel at the contestants mastering niche skills and endurance. It’s a wide world of wild sports.
“Canoe racing is popular, and we’ve got about 20,000 spectators following the teams down the river,” said Michelle Millikin, a race co-chair. “It’s super fun to watch, to see their pit crew chasing their team all night to replenish their liquids and give them food and supplements.”
Early in its 77 years, the race was planned as a post-Labor Day tourist attraction down the AuSable River nearly to Lake Huron, but the longer days of sunlight in July were too hard to resist. The race begins at 9 p.m. with a quarter-mile run to the river, with roughly 100 teams of two carrying their canoes. During the duration of the race, which takes 14-19 hours, teams must carry their boats around six hydroelectric dams. That’s the only time they leave their boats, so in addition to the conditioning that participants must undertake to prepare to row their canoes, they need to be ready for that much time in their seats.
Millikin has been involved in the race for 12 years, ever since she and her daughters watched the race and picked a Canadian team to support. From there, her participation escalated.
“Planning is a year-round effort,” she said. “We rely on a strong working relationship with Crawford County to make the event work and ensure that participants are safe.”
The race’s documentary series “AuSable – The River, The Race, The Legend” won the 2024 Michigan Emmy for Outstanding Sports Documentary. For more than 50 years, the race has also spawned the AuSable River Festival the weekend prior, capitalizing on the “marathon fever” for another week.
“There’s a lot that draws people to the race, but I think the sense of history, that we’ve been doing this for almost 80 years, helps us hold a special place in their hearts,” Millikin said. …
Click here to read the full article.
EGLE issues update on Materials Management Program
The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) has provided additional guidance on the next phase of the Materials Management Planning (MMP) Grant Program, aimed at supporting counties as they continue to develop and implement their required MMPs under Part 115.
Under Section 11587, counties making progress on their current MMP grant agreements will remain eligible for additional funding, subject to future legislative appropriations. Rather than issuing new grants, EGLE will amend existing grant agreements to reflect updated scopes of work, deliverables, budgets, and timelines. The timeline for these amendments is still being finalized.
To help counties manage costs, advance payment requests may be submitted to the State’s Office of Financial Management. While not guaranteed, EGLE encourages counties needing support to begin that process early. In addition, counties can request amendments to their contracts — including changes to budgets and deliverables — pending EGLE approval.
Grant amounts are based on a formula that includes a base amount ($60,000–$70,000) plus a per capita allocation, with a cap of $300,000. Counties such as Kent, Oakland, Macomb and Wayne are eligible for the maximum award of $360,000.
A full list of allowable MMP grant amounts by county can be seen here. Counties are encouraged to begin identifying their priorities and reach out to EGLE planning staff with any questions.
If you have any questions or want to learn more, contact Jimmy Johnson at johnson@micounties.org.
Four weeks remain to file for MAC Board elections at 2025 Annual Conference
County commissioners interested in serving on the MAC Board of Directors have until Aug. 30, 2025, to file for elections to fill a whopping seven seats on the 16-member Board at the 2025 Michigan Counties Annual Conference.
The elections will be held on Oct. 1 at the conference at the Grand Traverse Resort. To be an official candidate, commissioners must file an official notice of their intent to run. Per MAC By-laws, applications are due by 4 p.m. on Aug. 30, 2025.
Six of the available seats represent regions, so they will be decided by a caucus in that specific region. The at-large seat is determined by votes from all six MAC regions.
To download an application form, click here.
“As far as we can tell, this will constitute the largest election slate for the MAC Board in decades,” said Executive Director Stephan Currie. “Combined with our annual approval of policy platforms for the coming year, these elections will make the 2025 conference one of the most impactful in many years.”
The MAC Board of Directors is the key body in guiding the legislative and organizational strategies of MAC. Board terms are three years in length and individuals may serve up to three terms.
The following seats will be filled at the 2025 Annual Conference …
Staff picks
- Paper-based payments are gone for good: What state and local governments need to know (American City and County)
- Hospital leaders skeptical about last-minute $50B rural health program (Governing)
- 2024 Michigan Annual Economic Analysis Report (Michigan Center for Data and Analytics)
- Ground squirrels are taking over a North Dakota city and officials are not amused (Associated Press)