Former Leelanau County Administrator, Traverse City Engineer Vie For Drain Commissioner Seat

Two familiar local faces will vie for the seat of Leelanau County drain commissioner at a special meeting scheduled for 2pm tomorrow (Tuesday). The position was left vacant by the recent resignation of Timothy O’Non, who won a four-year term in the November 2024 election. His potential replacements include Chet Janik, formerly the Leelanau County administrator; and Tim Lodge, a longtime city engineer for the City of Traverse City.

O’Non submitted his letter of resignation earlier this month, noting that his land surveying business had gotten busier lately and was requiring more of his time, creating an untenable financial situation where he “cannot afford to continue” in the drain commissioner role. The Leelanau County Board of Commissioners voted to accept O’Non’s resignation at their regular March meeting last Thursday, and his last day with the county will be this coming Friday, March 27.

In compliance with Michigan Compiled Laws, the responsibility for replacing an elected county drain commissioner falls to a special three-member panel comprised of the county clerk, the county prosecutor, and the county’s senior presiding or probate judge. In Leelanau County, those three roles are occupied, respectively, by Michelle Crocker, Joseph Hubbell, and Steven Paciorka. That trio came together for a brief special meeting on Friday to discuss the task for the first time.

Crocker noted at the meeting that, because the timing of O’Non’s resignation came “more than seven days prior to the filing deadline” for this year’s cycle of elections, drain commissioner will be back up for grabs come November. The drain commissioner Crocker, Hubbell, and Paciorka appoint will be a temporary replacement, only serving “until the November election is certified.”

“So, if people want to run for [drain commissioner], they can file in my office to run for the August and November ballot, because it is a partisan office,” Crocker explained. “They can also run without party affiliation with some different deadlines. In the rare event that there would be no candidates that run for this, then we would be back here in November going through the same process.”

While Leelanau County has not formally posted a call for drain commissioner applications, Crocker said Friday the vacancy “is getting around by word of mouth.” Both Janik and Lodge, she added, called her office to ask whether they could submit their resumes for consideration.

Janik is a well-known commodity in Leelanau County. He served as county administrator for over a decade, from March 2012 through the end of 2022, when he retired. Leelanau County has had three administrators since Janik’s retirement alone: Deb Allen, who succeeded him at the start of 2023; Richard Lewis, who occupied the role on an interim basis for a full year, from April 2024 to April 2025; and Jim Dyer, who will celebrate his one-year anniversary with the county next week.

More recently, Janik served as a consultant for the county, guiding the Board of Administrators through two administrator searches – the first aborted at the last minute, the second culminating in the hire of Dyer. His resume also includes stints as superintendent for two northern Michigan school districts: Buckley, from 2004 to 2007; and Charlevoix, from 2007 to 2012.

Lodge, meanwhile, came aboard as Traverse City’s city engineer in 2003 and spent 20 years in the role. During his tenure, Lodge guided Traverse City through myriad major road, bridge, sewer, and other infrastructure improvements, culminating in 2021 when the city spent $32 million on capital projects. Lodge retired in 2023.

Crocker, Hubbell, and Paciorka will conduct brief interviews with both candidates tomorrow afternoon, with Lodge’s interview scheduled for 2:15pm and Janik’s to follow at 2:30pm. The trio considered scheduling lengthier interviews, but decided to keep things short and focus on just a few big-picture questions for each candidate.

“I would just want to know about their experience, about their knowledge of what the drain commissioner does, and the extent to which they’ve had interactions with Mr. O’Non or prior drain commissioners here in the county,” Paciorka said. “Off the top of my head, those are my questions.”

Keeping the interviews short, Hubbell added, would also allow the panel to be flexible in scheduling additional interviews for Tuesday, were more applications or resumes for the drain commissioner seat to come through over the weekend.

Regardless of who the panel chooses to take over for O’Non, the drain commissioner role is unlikely to see any significant changes, despite recent discussion among county commissioners about addressing flaws in the structure of the position.

Commissioner Alan Campbell said earlier this month that he would “like to know our options before we simply select a new drain commissioner,” adding that “the position was failing” because escalating development in Leelanau County in recent years had drastically expanded the workload. “The position pays $21,000 a year,” he said, “To really expect someone to do the job of managing those drains for that amount of money, I think is unrealistic. We’re just setting that person up for failure.”

Campbell raised the issue again last week. “I wanted to convey to the committee that will be in charge of interviewing and selecting the next drain commissioner that we recognize that there may need to be changes in the scope of that position for it to succeed,” he said at Thursday's meeting.

According to Dyer, though, the county is limited in how much it can reshape the drain commissioner office in the middle of an elected term. Any big-picture changes, he said, would need to happen in conjunction with a new drain commissioner election cycle.

“It’s possible you could increase the salary, for example, if you chose to do that,” Dyer said. “But you couldn’t change the terms [of the office].”

Pictured: Janik (left) and Lodge (right)