Get Out of Jail Free

David Martin: This is the good government show.

Don Brown: I care about my community. I care about my constituents. Their problem is my problem. I don’t care if it’s a big problem or a small problem. I want it to ground for them. And in doing that for such a long period of time, I built a lot of friends, friendly relationships, and people know that they call me. They’re going to get attention to be able to solve it, because some issues, I just can’t solve it.

But we try to work to help them get to where they want to be.

Government’s on your side. Government is there to make your life easier, to improve the quality of your life, to make the life of you and your children a better place so you can, you know, have a productive, healthy life yourself. Government shouldn’t get in the way of what you’re doing, but they are there to assist if you need something.

Government not to be your nanny, but to support what you’re trying to do.

David Martin: Welcome to the Good Government Show. I’m your host, Dave Martin. On this episode, we’re going to hear about one county’s efforts to reduce the jail population, something most cities and counties are dealing with, and probably yours, right where you’re listening now, they’re probably dealing with it, too, but leading the charge him to come County, Michigan. And that’s just north of Detroit is Don Brown.

He’s a county commissioner and the board chair of the commission. Government has slowly been realizing that simply throwing people in jail isn’t a solution. You can find studies that show, in some cases, half of all the people arrested have some type of mental health issues. Half and jail isn’t the solution. As Commissioner Brown will explain, in Macomb County, they recently allocated for a new jail, but with a large diversion center.

This, he says, will provide assessments to get people help and keep them out of jail, which is overall simply good government. You’re going to hear about that, and Don must know what he’s talking about. He’s been a county commissioner for over 35 years. He says he’s been doing it so long with one goal to help the people where he lives.

I’m running my GPS, he says. As many of our guests have said here on the Good Government show, county government is most directly linked to the people. And you’ll hear Don explain why. So listen to him. After 35 years, he must know something. So coming up with Cobb County Commissioner Chair Don Brown. And that’s right after this.

The Good Government Show is sponsored by our Co. That means our community, our Co has found a way to make government more effective. Our Co provides the o u r platform. And this is an app that blends in-person and digital interactions to connect people with their government, their county, their town, their state. The our Co app transforms meaningful conversations into reliable data.

They can turn results into projects and programs. The community has essentially already approved. It’s sort of like a flash poll by phone, but without the call. And in real time and wherever community members are, maybe they’re at their house or their office or, whether out just talking about local issues. maybe the choice is between putting in more local busses or expanding the bike lanes.

Our code can get you an answer immediately with O you are. You can engage your citizens or any group, learn what they want, and build programs and policies that advance your county, your job creators, your constituents. So visit our co.com. That’s o u r co.com and learn how they do it. And while you’re there book a demonstration.

Don Brown: I’m Don Brown I’m chairman of the Macomb County Board of Commissioners. Macomb County is the county north of the city of Detroit. In Michigan, our budget is about a billion and a quarter dollars. And, we have a population of 890,000 people.

David Martin: What’s going on in Macomb County? Tell me about just describe the counties.

Don Brown: You mean home counties, the center of industrial. We’re the manufacturing center of the nation. We have more manufacturing and advanced manufacturing operations in our county than any place in the country, home of the auto industry, as well as advanced aerospace and defense manufacturing. So it’s quite a job.

David Martin: What, our cars made there.

Don Brown: We make cars there. We make parts for auto and defense industry. We have the supply depot for the U.S. Army. We we supply the U.S. Army was 60% of their needs.

David Martin: All in Macomb County.

Don Brown: All in Macomb County.

David Martin: And, how long have you been a county commissioner?

Don Brown: 34 years.

David Martin: Well, obviously, you’re doing a good job because you get reelected.

Don Brown: Exactly. For sure. I have people punch my card because I’m earning my keep every two years. And so I’m grateful for that.

David Martin: How have you managed to stay on this job for 34 years?

Don Brown: Well, part of my plan, most of my career was spent working for members of Congress, being a director of outreach for two members of Congress to much of that time, being the eyes and ears for the member of Congress, keeping up to date on what local issues going that they need to know about to represent their constituents, and along with that, I was a county commissioner, so both things kind of dovetailed together.

So I’ve stayed along and use my experience working with members of Congress to benefit my county and my constituents.

David Martin: Was it hard to juggle both jobs?

Don Brown: It was it was initially. And there’s always a challenge because you got to make sure that congressional member of Congress is jobs number one, and making and managing the schedule with the commission was an issue. But I mean, we managed and we’ve done well.

David Martin: 34 years. Has anyone served longer than you in the state?

Don Brown: I don’t believe so. I think I’m I think I’m now the top.

David Martin: What on earth kept you going for 34 years? Why did you keep doing this?

Don Brown: I’m interested in public service. I’m interested in doing what I do. I enjoy what I’m doing. I got involved in government initially because neighbor of mine had died before going to the hospital, because the local fire department didn’t have any ability to break the skin or administer any drugs. And I figured that was kind of crazy. So I got a little township committee committed sense.

Okay. Said, you want to do some amount of study. It went and brought a proposal to bring advanced life support to my community. And, that was when I was 26 years old. And then after that got involved. And you’re saying landfills in the county? Who does that? They call those evil commissioners down in Mount Clements. So I got involved in county government, did have a hand in saying that what was going on there, and it’s been one issue ever the next after that.

David Martin: So are you one of the evil county commissioners or have you stopped people?

Don Brown: I’m one of them. We only have one landfill, say, in our county as opposed to multiples. And that’s really good thing.

David Martin: So are you one of the evil county commissioners or have you changed that perception?

Don Brown: My perceptions change now with my tenure. So but yeah, we do a lot of good things for the community. And it’s really county government, truly the linchpin between federal and state services to the people. And so we’re close to the people, carriers of the ground and where they were. A lot of innovation about government starts at the county level, ground level work with our local officials.

David Martin: We’re here at the National Association of Counties Convention in Austin, Texas. What is it about county government that you think makes it special?

Don Brown: I think it’s the link, because we’re we’re the in between the local government as well as a state and federal government. We got to act. We have access to all levels of government to bring help to our communities, whether it’s, grants from the state to help our locals or federal and access to all the local officials for up and down the spectrum gives us a unique position to, help the communities, help the Queen through the quality of life.

That’s what I’m about. Try and help to improve the quality of our community and in our county. And that’s what I did. What should we.

David Martin: Do? And I guess for 34 years, people typically do it okay.

Don Brown: I think I’ve been doing all right. I’m pretty pretty happy with the results. And, you know, there’s always something to do. And now my latest project is with the our jail. We’ve just make it made a major investment. Significant mentioned our county’s ever had we invested appropriated $237 million towards building a new jail annex and diversion. So that’s going to help prevent people from repeating crimes.

David Martin: And so tell me how the diversion center works.

Don Brown: A diversion center is when somebody comes in, we can do a law enforcement. They’re brought to the county jail all in Excel. They’re going to be assessed at the time they’re brought into the jail to determine whether they have mental health issues, or they’re busted for drunk driving or, or whatever they happen issues. We assess them and if there’s not a problem, if they’re not a danger to society, will divert them.

They get the help and treatment they need for their issue, rather than locking them up at the jail where they get no attention, they get no help for their problems, cost the taxpayer more money, and ultimately they’re released and do the same crime over and over again. Breaking into our residents homes. We hope to break the cycle by what we’re doing today.

David Martin: How long has this project been up and running?

Don Brown: The project is just getting started. We’ve just just broke. We’ve initiated the money to build the diversion center and the annex Center to our jail. So it’s going to take some time to build, design and build. But we’re going to start where it’s a starting point where plant seeds.

David Martin: Where you doing something like this already.

Don Brown: To a to some small degree, but not to the extent we’re going to do it because we didn’t have the capacity, didn’t have the capacity in the jail to have a diversion, didn’t have enough mental health cells. So we need to have more mental health cells there and more, more room, quite frankly, to do the diversion work that needs to be done.

David Martin: Some people would say building a newer, bigger, better jail is not exactly, good for the community. What would you tell them?

Don Brown: It’s absolutely good for the community. It’s good for the taxpayer because we reduce how many people stay in our jail that they have to pay for. It helps. It helps the citizens because we’re getting someone’s life straightened around. This is not going to be a burden to society. Using services that the county that the taxpayer has to provide for, and it’s going to help them from breaking into their homes, looking for money for drugs or anything else they need on the streets or shooting up a neighborhood because they got some mental health illness.

We’ll be able to get ahead of it now and try to reduce that.

David Martin: What else are you working on? What are the big projects that you’ve been spearheading?

Don Brown: Well, another major project is water quality. We’re on Lake Saint Clair. The Great Lakes is a major, issue for us. for.

David Martin: Lake Saint Clair is not a Great Lakes.

Don Brown: It is a great lake to us. Yes, I’m sure it’s a connecting water between Lake Erie, Lake Michigan, or Lake Huron. But any case, we’ve had development over time and we don’t have we don’t have the capacity necessary to treat all the sewage is created in our community. So some of it ends up in the lake. So we’ve been an advocate for reinvesting, money in sewer and sewer connection, illicit connections and stuff like that to prevent the amount of sewage going to the lake.

Reduce that. So the is cleaner.

David Martin: Reduce can you can you just eliminate the sewage going into the lake?

Don Brown: Not at we separate all the sewers in Southeast Michigan, which the cost to do that is in the billions of dollars. But we’re going to do what we can incrementally to reduce what we can in our neighborhood and, try to help out, but we can get there.

David Martin: How much have you been able to reduce it by?

Don Brown: We probably reduced it by since the mid 90s, probably about 40%. And we’ve got initiative right now that’s going to take it from our county. Probably pushed it up another 20%. What do we get done with some work in, Saint Clair Shores? Our Public Works commissioner, Candace Miller, who was one former member of Congress I used to work for my old boss, is now running public works, and she’s got many innovative programs in which we’re diverting 40 million of our our money to her to the reduce, to help do those sewer projects in the south end of our county.

So we’re really getting there. We’re putting all of our money that we got from the, our from the Biden administration towards infrastructure lasting improvements, transformational projects. The jail will be there for many generations. Sewers that we’re putting in will be taking care of long term problems. They’ll also reduce the cost to the residents, have to pay water and sewer bills without those.

Those improvements have to be made anyway. But with this federal money, it’s going to reduce the cost to our taxpayers to do those improvements.

David Martin: What did you know about sewers before you took this job, and what have you learned?

Don Brown: I’ve learned that they’re like roads. They break down and you don’t have enough money to keep them up. Like our roads are always crumbling, never have enough money for road improvements, are sure an underground infrastructure is crumbling as well. It needs to be replaces some of it’s 4050 years old needs to be replaced. Sewers are collapsing in our county and as a result it costs many millions of dollars.

So now the Public Works Commission is going through and we’re funding her with our budget to, identify the problems that need to be fixed and repair them before they become major, environmental damage and so forth.

David Martin: So I’ve been to, Detroit. I’ve been to Lake Saint Clair. It’s a beautiful lake. You said I said, it’s not a great lake. You said it is to us. I saw boats on there. I saw people swimming on there. I mean, there must be a real mandate to keep it, to make it as clean as possible.

Don Brown: It’s a huge economic engine. And it’s. It is. Everyone in Southeast Michigan uses it because of of the recreation it brings. I’m a fisherman, so I care about the water bill and so and but people vote on it will come out. Their businesses use it to entertain clients. It’s a it’s a resource for the whole southeast Michigan. It’s one of the good reasons why you want to live in Southeast Michigan, because you get access to the Lake Saint Clair and the Great Lakes.

David Martin: so what are you catching in Lake Sinclair?

Don Brown: all right, now, a smallmouth bass. The spring was a lot of time for walleye. So efficient in a while. Walleyes in the Detroit River. And now I was just fishing out there last Sunday, as a matter of fact. Caught a couple nice smallmouth bass of some perch. So it’s good times, you know that lakes is such an as on steroids in terms of fish.

Everything that lake is going to sturgeon, muskies, panfish, walleyes, pike, bass, smallmouth and it’s got everything in there. It’s a great place. As a matter of fact, back this weekend I think they have, Bassmaster Elite Fishing Bassmaster tournaments going to be in there having a fishing tournament. So it’s recognized nationally as a as a prime fishing and fishery.

So it’s awesome.

David Martin: Do you have a good walleye or smallmouth bass recipe?

Don Brown: I want to see some, bass, but it’s really good. But walleye are good. And we just butter them up with some, some dips fishing, fish matter and go for it.

David Martin: That’s that’s it.

Don Brown: It’s it’s simple.

David Martin: Keep it simple.

Don Brown: Keep it simple. I’m not a good cook, so, it’s good enough for me. It’s I like it. I it’s good enough for me.

David Martin: All right. Okay, okay. I have to go to the lake.

Don Brown: trying out once a week. Oh, and on the weekend, we got time. It was, the weather permitting, a little windy. My basketball doesn’t manage those, three footers, and they were all out there. But I was out there last week and three footers, and, you know, it’s a little choppy, but, you know, we’re trying not to weather dependent.

David Martin: So 34 years, does everyone know you in the county?

Don Brown: I’m, I’m pretty well known in the county because I’ve been around, you know. So I know all the, the people and leaders in the county. And I said, and my community knows you real well. I’m so I’m. Yeah, I care about my community, care about my constituents, their problems, my problem. I don’t care if it’s a big problem or a small problem.

I want it to ground for them. And, in doing that for such a long period of time, built a lot of friends and friendly relationships, and people know that they call me. They’re going to get attention to be able to solve it, because some issues I just can’t solve. But we try to work to help them get to where they want to be.

David Martin: How accessible are you and how accessible should people in your position be? How accessible should, government leaders be?

Don Brown: Well, we need to be Trimble. I’m full. Yes, but my my cell number, my personal summers and all my business cards. It’s on my personal website. It’s on our county website. We’re very transparent. Our county’s been one of the leaders about being a transparent county in terms of all the budgets and numbers. We try to be transparent. Our meetings are televised, so we try to be transparent, as accessible as possible.

We push out those meetings to all of our local cable stations so that they can the the people can see them have. And then there’s obviously a place where you can say, guess what is it showing your interest. You contact Dan Brown, your chairman, your county commissioner, to get further information. So we’re all about, you know, engaging with the community and being as transparent as possible.

David Martin: You’re chairman. How many county commissioners serve with you?

Don Brown: 13 commissioners. Our population we get to our properties. What is 890,000 office. It’s about 75,000 people per commission. District.

David Martin: What’s the big town in your county?

Don Brown: Big town in our counties. probably the city of Warren is the biggest the biggest city in the state, followed by Sterling Heights. It’s number two. Clinton Township. But we’ve got many. You know, my district’s the biggest in terms of er, examine the northern edge of the county. So I’ve got six townships that I represent, the biggest in terms of area but relatively the same number by population.

David Martin: Detroit has certainly fallen on hard times. you know, I’m sure lots of people have seen the photos of the houses in the abandoned streets, in, in parts of Detroit. you know, the auto industry is not what it was. Has any of that affected your county and how have you dealt with it?

Don Brown: Well, in Detroit, file bankruptcy. We lost our Triple-A boundary, not through any fault of our own, but because the effect of the local economy on the bankruptcy cost, we lost our Triple-A bond rating, but we have a double AA plus bond rating where our finances are solid as can be. And, in Detroit, it’s a good time of the D.

Actually, the city’s on a rebound. the auto industry is is is consol leading and advanced manufacturing is number one. Again. Macomb County leads the nation in manufacturing for the whole country. We’re we’re a major key defense center supply depot for the U.S. Army, again, providing 60% of all the Army’s supplies for wheel and track vehicles go through Macomb County.

David Martin: How many cars do you make in your county?

Don Brown: I don’t know the number of that, but believe. But we have all three car manufacturers in there. Daimler, Ford and GM are all located in our county. There’s a Romeo Ford plant right in my community as well. So we’re we’re aggressively, promoting the aerospace and defense industry as well. With the tri, we have Selfridge Air National Guard base in our county, the largest, National Guard base in whole country.

We’ve got all five branches of the service there. we’re on the short list. When we were on up to get the F-35 next generation fighter to our community, our congressman, John James, and our senior, another delegation in our state is working to bring the F-15 x the number one, another fighter mission to Selfridge. So we’re, we’re supporting our defense industry, supporting the defense community, and and.

David Martin: Putting people to work.

Don Brown: Exactly. There’s 4500 people at at Selfridge, our National Guard base, in all the ancillary industry that supports. It’s a huge economic engine for our county. And and it’s a very critical component for the national defense as well.

David Martin: Do you drive a Ford?

Don Brown: I do drive a Ford, as a matter of fact, I just bought a Bronco, last August. I love it.

David Martin: Just did you go see it being made?

Don Brown: I didn’t go see it made. But I knew as I’ve driven enough of them that I know that it was top rated vehicles. Awesome.

David Martin: All right. It was. It is the is your was your car made in your county?

Don Brown: It was. Oh I think the Broncos I made him my calm down there. So it’s an awesome facility in certainly in southeast Michigan. And so we’re happy to keep our local auto, our auto industry workers, as you know, auto workers in manufacturing is no longer the old rust bucket that people remember it from the 50s. Now it’s high tech manufacturing.

You needed here is you need to be a smart person to be working in those auto plants. Given the high tech technologies going into those auto, cars in production.

David Martin: All right. So now that was the easy part. So we’re going to get into your philosophy of government.

David Martin: Now, right now you’re listening to The Good Government Show and Valley Park Productions. We’ve expanded. If you want to hear more good government, join me over on a new show I’m hosting, Leading Iowa Good Government in Iowa Cities. I host the show with the mayor of Dubuque, Iowa, Brad Cavanagh. On our show, we talk with mayors and other city leaders across the state of Iowa.

We talk about what makes each city a distinctly Iowan city. We share ideas with mayors around the state. We talk about what works and how each city can do better. It’s an up close look at what’s going on in Iowa and how the city’s leaders are making Iowa better for the people in Iowa. Every day, there’s a few fun facts.

We talk baseball in Dyersville, Iowa. That’s the site of the actual baseball field for Field of Dreams. There’s a lot to Iowa. Come listen right here. We’re listening now to leading Iowa. Good government in Iowa City is with me and Brad Cavanaugh. See you there.

We’re going to talk about, we have our, good government questionnaire. And, here we go. Here we go. You ready?

Don Brown: I’m ready.

David Martin: Tonight. All right. 34 years, County commissioner, to find good government.

Don Brown: Good government is being efficient with the taxpayers money. Being a fisher. I’m a libertarian at heart. I mean, I’m a physical conservative. I’m prime. The more socially I love and socialist a little bit more liberal. But. But we need to be physically a steward. We need to be smarter with the taxpayers money we spend like our own money.

Macomb county’s governor’s lean. We’re not not voting with staff. We’re, you know, we’re understaffed over all the departments because we we run a tight ship. And so unlimited government is the best governor, in my opinion.

David Martin: How do you judge your success?

Don Brown: Church is sex based on the outcomes of our services. Like we’re setting up this diversion center, we’re going to track what happens to those individuals when after we release him and, you know, go through the process of diverting, getting the community, put them out, you.

David Martin: Know, that’s something the county is going to do. You personally, how do you judge your personal success?

Don Brown: My prayer based on the public, whether the public supports me and what I’ve done a good job. My election every year is a termination of whether they think I’ve done a good job or not. And, Publix was really happy with me so far, I guess.

David Martin: So 34 years, how should people know if they’re getting good government? What should they be looking for?

Don Brown: They should look for a fish first of all, their taxes. How much are they paying versus how much they’re getting? Are they getting quality services for what they’re paying?

David Martin: If people feel like they’re not getting good government or the government’s not responsive to them, what should they do?

Don Brown: They need to be active. They need to engage their local representatives. They need to tell them they need to voice their opinion, but they’re unhappy. That means, you know, in this day and age, it’s so easy to communicate with elected officials, text them, call them, write them. They need a letter official know and get engaged.

David Martin: How do you get through the static of social media where people just scream and, you know, not necessarily fact based?

Don Brown: Well, listen, that that’s listen, they got it from my job is to educate them so and I can present the information to and they can choose to take it or not. But you know, there’s a lot of information out that is flying around. And you have to be and it’s on them as well as on us to do a better job of understanding what they’re reading.

And, and my job is to get the information out to them so they can understand what the facts are, and people can choose to believe it or not. But no, that’s I can’t do anything about that. But we just have to we’ll roll through the storms of, you know, sometimes it’s misinformation. Some there’s a lot of information out to the people that either are good.

So it’s just a shadow. disseminate what you’re looking at.

David Martin: 34 years in as an elected official, what would you like people to know who aren’t in government about government?

Don Brown: Governments on your side? Government is there to make your life easier, to improve the quality of your life, to make the life of you and your children a better place so you can, you know, have a productive, healthy life yourself. Government shouldn’t get in the way of what you’re doing, but they are there to assist if you need something is not to be your nanny, but to support what you’re trying to do.

David Martin: Who’s your political hero? What got you involved? What got you started in all this?

Don Brown: I was interested from a political elected leader, probably Ronald Reagan, talking about, you know, New Federalism and putting government back to the states and putting individual responsibility, you know, for your for your life and not look to the government for your for your solutions. But government does have a place and, you know, and and now we’re trying to you said balance that need for providing services that aren’t, you know, necessarily a being somebody’s mother either.

David Martin: All right. So I’m coming to Macomb County. I’m going to take a little trip up there. I’ve been to Detroit a few times. I know the famous cuisine of Detroit is a coney hot dog. what? Do we have it? And where are we going? What are we having in your county?

Don Brown: Well, you can come to Warren. First of all, when you come a Vandyke, you can have a coney dog at the National Coney Island at 12 Mile and Vandyke and in Warren take you there. Then we’ll go over to Saint Clair Shores, take you over to brownies, which is right on Lake Saint Clair. Right? Right in the boat town there, boat town, USA, in Saint Clair Shores.

They got great food there. And then we’ll catch up.

David Martin: What? What do we have in there?

Don Brown: You can have some crab cakes. We got some. Some great crab cakes. Lump crab cakes. And unlike other places where crab cakes are mostly filling in bread, these things 100% crab and they’re awesome. And then we’ll get on a boat and take you out to Lake Saint Clair to get some sun. The sun take you out to the moon and let you enjoy yourself out there.

David Martin: And what’s the mood.

Don Brown: Mooch? It’s a it’s a bay out Lake Saint Clair where a lot of boats congregate and dock. And you can walk in the water and and socialize and recreate.

David Martin: All right. it is there is there like, a, an official dish of a top county?

Don Brown: Well, we’re we’re pretty heavy Italian and Pickle county, so we got a lot of great Italians.

David Martin: I live in Brooklyn.

Don Brown: You live in Brooklyn. I see you love that. And so, so you got your plenty of choices off of a fine Italian restaurants. Luigi’s. And it’s it’s all kinds of good places out there.

David Martin: All right, so Italian food. So a little seafood, a little Italian.

Don Brown: Actually, for sure. Yeah.

David Martin: All right. Good. As a kid growing up, did you think about being running for office or being president or any.

Don Brown: That’s not at all. I mean, actually, though, I look back when I was just like in elementary school, a neighbor of mine was running for office down in Warren, and I went helped his campaigns. He paid us with going to McDonald’s. So we’ll take you to McDonald’s if you pass out my ledger down the street. So sure, no problem.

We’ll put them in the doors. But I had no interest in politics until it’s like so probably times about 16, 17 years old when that neighbor of mine died in my community. I get that’s crazy. How can that how can they let that happen?

David Martin: So you started knocking on doors in elementary school and now you’re doing it again, knocking doors.

Don Brown: I just was going down the street, shovel and the doors and neighbors shooting me way from this. There’s their house. You know, we don’t want that, you know.

David Martin: Are you do you still knock on doors when you’re right?

Don Brown: I do. Absolutely. That’s the best way to do it. That’s how I develop a connection to my district. By knocking on doors, coming up and talking to people for a few minutes about what issues they’re concerned about. Give them a little snippet about what I’m doing and just to establish that personal connection with them is what you can feel, you know, 3 or 4 minutes at the door.

David Martin: So we are called the Good Government Show. we always like to hear about good government projects. 34 years. Give me an example of of a good government project you were able to provide.

Don Brown: Well, that what I’ve told you about the, about the jail diversion project, I’ve talked about talked about the the E-m-s service that we were brought to the township. That is probably the best idea I’ve done. But also, I put Malcolm Orchard Trail together. I bought that well, I was part of the team that negotiated and purchased 26 miles of railroad from Canadian National Railroad.

We converted it from a rail system to a trail system, rails to trails. And that’s that was a premier initial premier, trail system in the Macomb County. It’s now pay for 26 miles between Shelby Township over to Richmond. It’s a lot of it’s an economic development tool for the community because many people on the trail use it.

They get off the trail, they go work crews have a burger.

David Martin: Or is it a walking tour, a bike trail or.

Don Brown: Walking bike trail? Walking hike, bike trail. So that’s pretty cool. And as a result, now that’s tied into the whole McComb County as a trail network, it’s almost a complete circle around the county. And, this was a leading element of a trail system that goes around the whole county. Now.

David Martin: Have you walk the entire trail?

Don Brown: I am no, I’ve, I haven’t come close, but I have biked about a half of the McComb Orchard Trail. But, you know, it’s 26 miles. So you go halfway. It’s, you know, it’s it’s all right.

David Martin: So maybe 5 or 6 miles every weekend.

Don Brown: Exactly. For sure. About six miles. It’s fun.

David Martin: All right. Don Brown, you are the chairman of McComb County Board of Commissioners in Macomb County, Michigan. Thanks for stopping by.

Don Brown: Hey, it’s a great time in Macomb County. Come down to Macomb County. We’ll take you around.

David Martin: well, we’ll hit the bike share. We’ll get some Italian food, we’ll get some fish.

Don Brown: Then we’ll run down the lake. Exactly. Great. Come on.

David Martin: Out. All right. Sounds good. Thanks for stopping by. Yeah.

Don Brown: Appreciate you. And the good job you’re doing is we want to let people know the good things are going on in government. You know, people pay for it. They’ve got to get value for it. In know Macomb County, they’re getting a good day for the government right now.

David Martin: Well, your your hero Ronald Reagan said the scariest words are we’re from the government. We’re here to help. I think you already proved that. That’s that’s not true.

Don Brown: Well, it’s it’s not true in all cases, but there are certainly plenty of examples where it is.

David Martin: All right. Okay. Thanks for stopping.

Don Brown: By. Take care. Have a nice day, Sarah. Bye bye.

David Martin: Where do you get your news from? Where do you get your state and local government news from? Because that’s getting harder and harder. And it’s essential to stay updated with your community and it’s becoming increasingly important to know what’s going on in other cities and states, because they’re likely facing challenges that you’re grappling with, too, or you’re going to face eventually.

That’s why we’d like to welcome our new partner, route 50, to the show. Route 50 is a leading online publication covering state and local governments across the country. They’ve written about states protecting themselves against the rise in cyber attacks, counties using AI to better support citizens services, local responses to crumbling infrastructure and extreme weather, and much, much more.

There’s a lot there. It’s a one stop shop for issues affecting state and local governments and their residents. That’s you. That’s all of us. Do yourself a favor and go to route 50.com to see the topics and solutions they cover, and learn what other people in government are doing. They also deliver a daily newsletter called route 50. Today I see it in my inbox every morning.

I check it out and you should too. Thanks again. Route 50. We’re excited to have you on board and being a partner here at the Good Government Show.

What is it the county government does? That’s the question county commissioners get asked the most. And the simple answer is everything on the Good Government show. We’re so lucky to have talked with so many county commissioners and other county officials that have shown us how effective county government is. County government dates back to get this 1634, making it one of the oldest forms of government in the United States.

Think about it. Roads. Highways. Hospitals. Schools. Recycling. Law enforcement. Water. Sewers, and most of the county. Those services are maintained by the county that’s county government. The National Association of Counties represents all 3069 counties across the USA. Naco helps county government work better together through things like sharing best practices. When county government works well, well, that’s just good government.

We hope to break this cycle by what we’re doing here today. That’s Don Brown on the purpose of the diversion center. That’s good government all the way and good work on cleaning up the water in Lake Saint Clair. That’s forward thinking, good planning and a way to look out for citizens. This is what The Good Government Show is all about, shining a light on how government does work to help people, and often in ways that people may not see or they may not even know about.

But when we listen to Don Brown and people like him, we get to hear about good government. So thanks to Don Brown and the members of McComb County Commissioner Don Brown, 35 years, that’s a lot of good government. We like that. That’s our show. Thanks for listening. Please like us and share this with your friends and our viewers right here where you’re listening.

And check out our website. Good Government show.com for extras. Help us keep telling stories of good government and action everywhere. Join us again for another episode right here. I’m Dave Martin and this is the Good Government show.

The Good Government Show is a Valley Park production. Jim Ludow, Dave Martin, that’s me and David Snyder are the executive producers. Our show is edited and produced by Jason Stershic. Please subscribe then share us and like us and reviews. That’s the best way to make sure we’re able to keep telling these stories of our government working for all of us.

Then listen to the next episode of The Good Government Show.

**This transcription was created using digital tools and has not been edited by a live person. We apologize for any discrepancies or errors.