By Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


One Livingston County commissioner will now be representing all of Green Oak Township following the latest redrawing of the county’s commission districts.

The Livingston County Apportionment Commission is tasked with re-drawing boundary lines for the county’s nine commission districts based on the most current population data received every ten years from the U.S. Census. It approved a map proposed by County Clerk Betsy Hundley on a 4-1 vote earlier this month.

The Commission had sought an extension like many other counties across the state but had not heard back from the Michigan Court of Appeals at that time and decided to just proceed.

The selected map will serve as the County Commission map for the next ten years. As a result, Commissioners Brenda Plank and Jay Gross, both of Green Oak Township, will now be in the same district. Thus, the new representative will need to be decided in an upcoming election. The entire township will also now be represented by one commissioner – which was not the case for the past decade.

Green Oak Township Clerk Michael Sedlak delivered a report during Wednesday night’s board meeting and said he viewed the changes as positive.

Sedlak told WHMI they’re pleased the township is represented as a whole. In the previous apportionment, he noted that Precinct 8 was within the Hamburg Township commissioner. Sedlak says now Green Oak is enjoined all 36 miles and they actually picked up a portion of Hamburg so they’re very pleased because they’ll now have one person with one voice speaking for Green Oak Township.

Meanwhile, the Court of Appeals did ultimately end up granting the County Apportionment Commission’s request and extended the deadline to November 15th but it’s not expected that there will be any changes from the maps that have already been approved. No upcoming meetings are scheduled. The extension request was made because of a discrepancy in exactly when a 60-day timeframe to complete the plan began.

A link to the new maps is provided.