Longtime Leelanau Township treasurer Denise Dunn attended her last regular township meeting on Nov.12, wrapping up her 28 year-long tenure in the position to retire.
A number of township staff and members of the public took a moment during the meeting to thank Dunn for her time in office, something she said she was not expecting, but took her pleasantly by surprise.
“I had no idea (it was going to happen), but it was awesome,” Dunn said after the meeting. “The zoning administrator, before he left yesterday, he came up to me in my office and said ‘I put a box of Kleenex in front of where you sit because you’re going to cry tonight,’ and I said ‘I’m not going to cry’... Rick Cross was the first one to speak, and dang, there goes the tears.” Former Leelanau Township Supervisor Rick Cross attended Dunn’s last meeting to thank her for her service. Cross, who previously served as Northport Public School’s superintendent, recalled how helpful Dunn was at the township as the district experienced financial diffi culties in 2001 when they were in-formula and essentially broke. He also talked about his time working with her when he was on the township board and the impact she’s had in the community.
“Since then, over the last 24 years, every time I’ve come in here with any issue I’ve had, Denise has addressed it if she could, and if she couldn’t, she’d refer me to the people that could,” Cross said. “... Denise really is the face of the township. When people come here, she greets them, she treats them with respect, and she does whatever she can to get what it is that they need, even if it doesn’t fall in her area of expertise. Public service is hard, I know, because I’ve spent my life in it. You’re often unappreciated and people often don’t recognize the service you perform. Denise, I appreciate what you’ve done, and I appreciate you and wish you the best.”
Leelanau Township Fire Chief Hugh Cook, another longtime public servant and Leelanau Township employee, extended his thanks to Dunn at the meeting as well.
“Nobody has ever battled more than Denise… So we’ve always tried to resolve it, and I don’t think there’s anybody here that’s going to miss her more than me,” Cook said.
Supervisor Mike McMillan echoed the comments of both Cook and Cross, noting how Dunn has been in the township office almost every day that it’s been open for the last 28 years. He said Dunn was also an immense help when he first took on the supervisor position and throughout his time on the board.
“She knows everybody, she’s just very accommodating,” McMillan said. “She really was very helpful and I just think she’s such a compliment to what Northport is all about. She’s one of those people that you’ll miss more than you think.”
Dunn started on the job on Nov. 20, 1996, working with seven supervisors in her three decades as treasurer. The role was intimidating for the first couple years, Dunn said, recalling how on some days, she’d work into the evening until 6 or 7 p.m. to get everything done that she needed to do. As years passed though, she was able to adapt and worked well with other township staff and community members.
“And I had tremendous headaches, I almost quit a couple of times,” Dunn recalled. “It was so daunting, and I was not good at math, but I got good at math and the calculator helped a lot.”
Since 1996, Dunn has had a front row seat in watching the township progress and become what it is today. She said she remembers in those first years, the township would do its collection once a year in the winter, and while she had summers off, she still went in everyday.
There were of course controversial issues Dunn witnessed as well, such as when the sewer was put in, during board turnover, or the hard politics involved with the job, but she stood her ground on things she believed in and worked through problems with others whenever she could.
“I have to vote (on matters) the way I feel about it. I have to feel good about how I vote,” she said. “I’ll miss going in everyday and having the communication with the public that i’ve had for 28 years, but being able to help the people through things — if wh o e ve r they needed to talk to wasn’t there — I made it my job and my business to learn a lot about zoning, and a lot about my job…” Dunn said she doesn’t have big plans for her retirement years, but it will most likely include spending time with her kids that live in the area, and possibly picking up a part time job in the county.
“I have so much admiration for the people in Leelanau Township… It’s been a long road and I am going to miss it. I’m not going to miss the politics,” Dunn said. “People would come in and if they were crabby and complaining about their tax bill, they always handed me a check and left with a smile, whether they wanted to or not, they were smiling.”
