GRATIOT COUNTY — The Gratiot County Board of Commissioners voted on October 20, 2026 to reassign animal control and immediately rescind authorization for animal control officers to carry or have access to firearms while on duty.
The meeting was a regularly scheduled Board of Commissioners meeting. The county’s published 2026 meeting schedule lists Tuesday, October 20, 2026 at 4:30 p.m. as a regular meeting (marked with an asterisk for the usual recess into the Airport and Finance committees). The county calendar entry is titled “Gratiot County Board of Commissioners Meeting.” The recording posted the next day is titled “Gratiot County Board of Commissioners Special Meeting 10/20/26.” No separate special-meeting notice appears in the posted materials. The agenda followed the structure of a regular meeting.
The meeting was not livestreamed. The recording was posted to the county YouTube channel the following day: youtu.be/mCIXhoOYlqI. The county’s Virtual Meetings page continues to state that meetings “will be live-streamed and will remain posted after the meeting is finished.”
What the resolution does
Resolution 26-468 passed on a unanimous roll-call vote (Bailey, Bunting, Gay, Sopocy, Owens). It does two things:
- Reassigns the animal control agency from the sheriff’s office back to the county administrator’s office, effective immediately.
- Directs the administrator to rescind authorization for animal control officers to carry or access firearms on duty and to rescind authorization for them to respond to law enforcement calls in their official capacity.
Administrator Timothy Dolehanty said the change would take effect the next morning. He reported that the county’s liability insurance carrier had added an endorsement of roughly $95,000 annually after reviewing the practice. Animal control officers are not MCOLES-certified law enforcement officers. Their training was described as similar to a concealed-pistol qualification plus sheriff’s range qualification. The officers had also been authorized to self-dispatch and respond to law enforcement calls. The administrator said the underwriters determined the risk exceeded what the existing coverage supported. He noted that directing the sheriff to make the changes would not guarantee compliance, while directing the administrator would.
The sheriff was not present; he was attending a conference in Traverse City.
The March 2025 vote
On March 18, 2025, the same board voted unanimously to place animal control under the sheriff’s office. Sheriff Tom Clark and Animal Control Director Jaime Haase presented the move as a safety and operational improvement that would expand training, access, and the possibility of approved sidearm carriage under sheriff policies. The motion passed on roll call: Sopocy yes, Bailey yes, Bunting yes, Gay yes, Owens yes. That meeting recording is at youtube.com/watch?v=SOp5zBcIC_c. County animal control officer job descriptions have listed the ability to handle and shoot a firearm.
The September 15, 2026 regular meeting included discussion of a request to reclassify animal control officer pay from Grade 2 to Grade 7. No final decision on wages was recorded at that meeting. The October 20 action addressed department placement and equipment authorization, not pay.
Livestreaming and the law
The Open Meetings Act does not require livestreaming. Meetings must remain open to the public, people may attend and record, and minutes must be kept. Not streaming does not break the law. It does remove the real-time remote access the county has been advertising.
What the record shows and does not show
The public record shows the March 2025 vote was presented as a safety measure and the October 2026 vote was presented as a response to an insurance underwriter’s risk and cost determination. It does not establish any other motive. Official minutes will be the formal record once approved. Meeting materials remain on BoardBook.
Questions that remain
- Why was the recording titled a special meeting when the county’s published schedule and calendar list it as a regular meeting?
- Has the insurance carrier confirmed removal or reduction of the added endorsement?
- What is the exact written policy language and effective date for the rescission of firearms and law-enforcement response authorizations?
- Will future meetings continue to be livestreamed as the Virtual Meetings page describes?
Corrections and responses are welcome.
Corrections
Oct. 21, 2026: An earlier version of this report, first posted on Facebook, misspelled the surname of Animal Control Director Jaime Haase. A reader pointed it out. Thank you for the feedback. The spelling here follows the county’s Animal Control page.