By Michael Cain
It’s two days past the mid-term elections as I write this, and all is calm in Boyne City. Even without having any municipal items on the ballot, we still had about 58% of our registered voters cast their ballots. Not bad for an “off year” election.
Just under half the ballots cast here were absentee ballots. All of those numbers are bigger than usual for this type of election. Until recent changes, we never saw absentee numbers or even total numbers in that range. Our clerk and their team pulled off the election with nary a hiccup, as I’m sure most of yours did too. Like many functions that take place in our levels of government, our jobs are to take the complex and make it appear as simple, natural, and commonplace as possible. Name a function your organization does—police, water, roads, parks, or one of a dozen others, and if it’s being done right the vast majority of the time your citizens don’t even have to think about it and can, hopefully, just take it for granted.
As managers, we are experts at that. No matter what is thrown at us our job is to well, manage. It’s our second nature. If there is an issue or difficulty, we work our way through it, to manage the problem or the “opportunity” and, hopefully, get our communities where it wants to go, or help them figure out where they want to go. Like our association tagline, we are “Ready for Anything” and work to help ensure that our communities are as well.
This job was never an easy one or one to get rich. Many of us were, and are, motivated first and foremost by public service—by giving back to our communities, by making a positive difference. Even before COVID this job was difficult. In many respects it seems like those difficulties have only grown. Some people are testier and the old filters that helped maintain a more civil discourse seems to have weakened, or in some cases disappeared completely. We see it at some of our public meetings or at least hear about them in the media. All too often this can lead to intimidation or to violence. There were fears that these just-past elections would cause a further fraying of the fabric of our society. But those fears did not, in any large measure, play out. Like I said at the beginning, all is and was calm here in Boyne City, and probably in your community too.
And that is in large part due to the work that you, your peers, and all your teammates do in each of your organizations to make sure that they are “Ready for Anything.” Recently, I was fortunate enough to be able to attend both the ICMA Conference in Columbus and the MML Convention in Muskegon. It was great to be among my peers to hear, learn, and interact with them about their challenges and opportunities. As we so often find out, the issues and opportunities that others face are not all that different than the ones we do. It is comforting and important for me to be reminded that I am not the only one out there going through, more often than not, the same things. Those type of opportunities help inspire me and give me that needed recharge to keep me reaching beyond the day-to-day challenges we all encounter.
In this newsletter you will find articles about Patriarche Distinguished Service Award winner Al Vanderberg, about our expanded senior advisor program, and a reminder of our upcoming Winter Institute. Al’s service, and his acceptance speech inspired me. If you didn’t know from interacting with your peers in this profession, you are never alone, and especially with our senior advisor program ready to serve you. Don’t hesitate to take advantage of this resource. And our Winter Institute in Grand Rapids, with great programs and interactions with our peers, should help rekindle and stoke up your professional management flames and help you continue to reach for those brass rings that are just beyond our grasp.
I look forward to seeing you then, and giving you updates on many of the other things that are going on with your association.
Until then.
Yours in service,
Mike
Michael Cain
President, Michigan Municipal Executives
City Manager, Boyne City
Michael Cain has served as city manager of Boyne City since 2002 and has more than 38 years of municipal management experience having previously worked for Grand Traverse County, Traverse City, Fenton, Wolverine Lake, Troy, and St. Johns. Cain is a member of the ICMA and has been active with MME for many years serving as a member of its board and several committees. He’s also been very active with the Michigan Municipal League serving on several committees and is a past member of its Board of Trustees. He is currently on the board of Networks Northwest and served as the chairperson of the Charlevoix, Cheboygan, and Emmet County 911 Authority for several years. Mike is a native Michigander, born in Dearborn, then transplanted to Traverse City in 7th grade where he met his wife, Katherine. Together they have four daughters and a cat. You may reach him at mcain@boynecity.com.