TRAVERSE CITY- A new era for the Traverse City Commission began today with the swearing in of three new members.
Kenneth Funk, Lance Boehmer, and Laura Ness all took the oath of office in front of the community and their families.
Ness said the mood in the room was energizing
“I’m super excited to work with Mayor Amy Shamroe and the newly elected city commissioners, as well as city staff, in moving this city forward,” Ness said.
Ness won the most votes out of the five candidates running for the commission. She said her campaign was based on listening.
“What I heard was some pretty specific goals from our community,” Ness said. “One is to implement the strategic plan. First and foremost, and I think that needs to happen collaboratively with our community and with the city Commission.”
Ness was also elected mayor pro-term.
“I’m honored by the confidence that Mayor Shamroe has expressed in me,” Ness said.
Mayor Amy Shamroe was also recently re-elected and took the oath alongside the new commissioners. said she’s eager to work with this new group of people, because new people bring new ideas.
“So I’m very excited to work with everybody on the commission,” Shamroe said. “Both the previous serving commissioners and the newly elected, to work us through the next couple of years, especially focusing on the strategic plan that the community took part in last year.”
The mayor also took time during the meeting to address critics who think the commission has become more divisive and closed off to the public.
She said it’s a personal goal of hers to increase city transparency and win back the trust of the doubters.
“We need to let people understand how a policy comes to us,” Shamroe said. “How a proposed, you know, new street or anything like that. We need to explain it better, because I think it can seem like things just come out of the ether at someone’s pet project. And really, there’s a whole process for determining how we get to where we get to and what comes before us.”