Marine City Commissioner Brian Ross resigns his seat

Officials to address issue at meeting on Jan. 23

By Barb Pert Templeton

“Burnt-out.”

Those are the words Marine City Commissioner Brian Ross used to describe how 2025 is going for him so far. He then announced, during his commissioner privilege portion of the Jan. 9 meeting, his resignation from his seat at the commission table.

“I’m sorry Marine City High School, middle school, I put my heart and soul into trying to educate people on what a road diet might look like, trying to dispel disinformation and I failed you and I do apologize for that,” Ross said. “What’s clear to me is that discourse and discussion did not want to be had tonight, I worked very hard to prepare a lot of things.”

He went on to say he’d personally been putting his career and family on hold along with lots of other things to give his best to the commission.

An offer by MDOT to put a road diet in, at no cost to the city was something Ross thought would be a big plus for the city, but it was voted down by a majority of commissioners in a 5-2 vote at the recent meeting. Ross and Commissioner Sean O’Brien voted in favor of the road diet.

Ross’ formal statement on the matter:

In a formal resignation statement on Friday, Jan. 17, Ross stated the following: It is with much thought and consideration that I decided to resign from the City Commission of the City of Marine City. While in large part this was due to needing to return to work following a long period of remote work during and after the COVID Pandemic (eliminating my long

commute permitted me the significant amount of time necessary to properly dedicate myself to the commissions on which I sat and the business of the good people of Marine City.)

I would be remiss to say it was not in part due to what I feel was unequal treatment of commissioners, and not allowing the public to hear arguments that were not necessarily popular with others on the commission. For the public to hear and understand arguments surrounding issues and decisions before any democratic government is what makes it work. Hiding that from the public lacks both transparency and fairness. I had worked long and hard to prepare my arguments, and had done so in vain without being able to convey them to the citizens in a public forum.

I do wish the city all the best going forward, and hope that allowing arguments on both sides is permitted in any future proceedings.

I will be using the considerable amount of time saved to dedicate to my family, my career, my good friends and abundant hobbies.

Commissioners deny Ross chance to do presentation

During the Jan. 9 meeting Ross had the floor during the discussion portion of the road diet topic when Commissioner William Klaassen interjected that he felt nothing new was being shared and called for the vote.

A detailed report on the subject, prepared by Ross for the meeting, was then set aside and a majority of the officials voted to call for the vote immediately. Commissioner Sean O’Brien sided with Ross and voted against calling the question.

The matter was then settled by a 5 to 2 vote against having MDOT put in a road diet on Parker Street.

Later in the meeting, during his commissioner privilege, O’Brien said he came to the board to serve after he had concerns about disinformation being put online about things going on in the city. He said it’s still happening though and he’d like to see the commission setup a best practices policy to avoid the recent wave of claims and information being released on social media by some commissioners.

“I’m concerned with some of the sources and data that some fellow commissioners have put forward recently that would not fly in the classrooms that I teach in,” O’Brien said. “Social media posts of evidence and claims and things, well we just can’t operate this way, it’s not good for the public and not good for our business.”

Ross concurred with O’Brien’s comments and then made a statement of his own during commissioner privilege.

“What’s clear is that it’s not working out, so as of the adjournment of this meeting I’ll be resigning my post with this commission and the historical commission,” Ross said. “I wish Marine City the best of 2025, lot of exciting things coming, the water project is certainly a good thing but there will be two more posts now to fill, I apologize for that.”

Mayor Pro Tem Lisa Hendrick tried to encourage Ross to reconsider his decision to resign.

“I’m sorry to hear Brian that you’re going to go out,” Hendrick said. “I’ve been on this for 14- years, I’ve been in a lot of different positions here and I know it’s difficult – more ways than I can tell you I know how difficult things are – but I wish you would reconsider and stay on the board.”

“It is tough when you’re doing these things but you still make an impact on the public, you can’t always get everything that you want and I know that from being on the board years and years and years and being an odd person out, but you still make a difference,” Hendrick added.

Mayor Jennifer Vandenbossche echoed Hendrick’s comments and asked Ross to reconsider his resignation from the commission.

“I wish that you would take some time to reconsider, you do make a difference and we do appreciate you on this board,” Vandenbossche said. “So, if you would just take some time instead and reconsider.”

Ross’ resignation is expected to be on the agenda at the upcoming Jan. 23 meeting of the city commission.