Livingston Today

Some State representatives aren’t happy about Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s denial of their request to make Livingston County a Lansing region. 

They expressed their issues on the Michigan House Republicans website on June 15. 

Reps. Hank Vaupel (Fowlerville) and Ann Bollin (Brighton Township) reacted to the governor’s decision to associate Livingston County in the Detroit region, despite their requests amid the area’s rising climb in COVID-19 cases. In a June 14 update, Livingston County had 404 COVID-19 cases compared to 21,023 in Wayne County, 8,559 in Oakland County, and 6,886 in Macomb County. 

Vaupel said on the GOP website, “There is a serious difference between Livingston County’s COVID numbers and those of counties that would traditionally be considered part of metro Detroit. The governor is not basing her decision on available data, which proves Livingston County should be on track for reopening much more quickly than the Metro Detroit area.”

The state representatives also said that Livingston County has more historical links to Lansing, according to the GOP website. Still, these arguments weren’t enough to convince Gov. Whitmer to make the county a part of the state’s capital city. 

Bollin added, according to the GOP website, “I am disappointed that the governor insists that Livingston County belongs in a large metropolitan region. For the first 8 weeks, our data was collected and Cares Act money was distributed in a different COVID-19 response region.”

Now, they’ve asked Whitmer to provide her own data to back her decision to put Livingston County with Detroit. 

On her Safe Start Plan, Gov. Whitmer put Livingston County in Region 1, described as the Detroit Region, while the state reps hoped she would put in Region 5, the Lansing Region. 

The other regions are as follows: Grand Rapids Region (2), Kalamazoo Region (3), Saginaw Region (4), Traverse City Region (6), Jackson Region (7) and the Upper Peninsula (8).