Hoefling Brothers Announce Candidacy

Christopher Hoefling Announces Candidacy for Clare County Road Commission

My name is Christopher Hoefling and I am running to be your Clare County Road Commissioner. I would like to tell you a bit about myself. I graduated from Harrison High School in 2015. After that, I went on to graduate from Alma College in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in Finance and International Business Administration.

While I was away at college, Clare County was not far from my mind. Every summer I would come home and work in our community to help my fellow citizens. Over the course of my college career I worked for MSU Extension, Hayes Township and the City of Harrison, helping out in the office and preparing for the Clare County Fair 4-H and Street Fair. During the school year, I was learning and growing as a manager so that I could put my new skills to use in my community.

One of the many opportunities that allowed me to gain much needed experience was my time as the general manager of a non-profit coffee company at the college. While at Highland Java, I was in charge of managing the employees as well as the budget. This required me to make many tough decisions to ensure profitability. As your road commissioner, I will be able to take what I have learned in the past few years and make the tough, but necessary, decisions.

I know that right now many of us are concerned with how things are being handled locally, at the state, and even at the national level. When it comes to my view on how government should be run, it is all about the people it serves. Those in public office are first and foremost, employees of their community. They have a duty and a responsibility to be open, honest, and available to the public they serve. The people in our community should be able to reach out to their elected officials when they have a problem and see it resolved in a manner that doesn’t make them wait for months on end hoping that somehow the situation will be handled. I would be able to make sure that everything that is brought before the board is handled in a quick, efficient and transparent manner.

Given recent events, I feel that the biggest problem at the Clare County Road Commission is the lack of transparency toward the public. The people deserve the truth. They pay the salaries of all those involved, as well as the funding for the road projects, and they should be able to trust that their money is not being wasted. With my background in finance, this will be easy for me to handle for you. When elected, I will make every effort to attend township meetings in order to update the public on exactly what is going on with the roads, as well as the reasoning behind the decisions that were made. It is very important to me personally that my fellow citizens are aware of what is going on at the road commission because knowledge is power, and transparency fights corruption.

Simply put, I want to be your Clare County Road Commissioner because I believe, much like in business, that the customer is always right. Our community deserves to have public officials who are willing to work for them, and with your help, I aim to do just that. Please support me in Aug. 4 Republican Primary so that I may make this possible for you.

(David) Hoefling Running for Re-Election

My name is David Hoefling and I have been your 6^th District County Commissioner for a year-and-a-half now. One major change in my life is that I have finished my bachelor’s degree and graduated from Alma College while serving as your county commissioner. During this time, I have worked hard for our community and made sure that my constituents always had someone they could come to when they needed assistance. As you know, I have always believed that first and foremost, our government exists to serve the people that elected it.

During my time on the board I have found many mistakes that had been made in the past and done my best to fix them. As a fiscal conservative who believes in not spending more money than I have, the biggest issue that I see right now still looming over the county is the general fund balance. This last year-and-a-half has allowed me a single opportunity to start work on repairing the damage to the county’s general fund and I took it. I pushed for and passed a budget that was not only balanced but had a slight surplus. We have made slight progress this year, and despite the setbacks of COVID-19, we will still end the year better than we did last year. As I look ahead towards next year’s fiscal year, I will continue to fight for putting money back in the fund balance where it belongs instead of spending it unnecessarily just because it’s there. While I am not against necessary spending, I understand that there is only so much that we as a community can actually afford.

As a community this year, we have seen what it looks like to be unprepared for a disaster, a mistake that I do not intend to allow to harm the future of the community I love. I will be working with our department heads to develop a robust plan to handle future disasters that is both fiscally responsible and fair to the county.

During my time on the board, I have been faced with many different problems that required fixing. While I understand why someone might be quick to cut anything and anyone to try and score some political points, it is my belief that cutting heads is never a viable long-term solution to budgetary crises. If we don’t look at the details of how proposed cuts are actually being funded, we might lose more money than we gain from the decision. Such a mistake would not only hurt our fund balance, but our community as well.

Going forward, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to make our county’s future a brighter one. That is why I am announcing today my candidacy for 6^th District County Commissioner. I am asking that you help me in my re-election campaign by considering voting for me in Aug. 4 Republican Primary. Your vote will ensure my ability to continue to support you at the county level. To connect with my re-election campaign, you can reach us on Facebook @ReElectDavidAHoefling or email us at davidahoefling@yahoo.com. Together we can, and will, make our community a better place to live!