Name: Wayne County Commission unveils portraits of past commission chairs Woronchak, Boike
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Wayne County Commission unveils portraits of past commission chairs Woronchak, Boike

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Skip to contentThe Wayne County Commissioners unveiled the portraits of past commission chairs Gary Woronchak and the late Edward Boike at noon Oct. 5, inside commission chambers at the Guardian Building in downtown Detroit.Woronchak, the most recent past chairman, represented Dearborn and Allen Park on the Commission. Boike represented Taylor during his tenure.Their portraits join others of previous commission chairs in the hallway outside the chambers, located on the building’s mezzanine level.Woronchak served 14 years on the commission and was chair from 2011-2018. He previously represented the Dearborn area for six years in the Michigan House of Representatives.Boike served 20 years on the commission and was chair from 2009-10. He passed away in 2017.“This continues our effort to place portraits of everyone who has served as chair since the county charter was adopted in 1982,” current Chair Alisha Bell said. “These portraits join those of the other men and women who have led the commission.”Several people spoke on both Boike and Woronchak’s behalf during the ceremony.Speakers included County Executive Warren Evans, Taylor Mayor Tim Wooley, Todd Boike (Ed’s son), Woronchak’s former special advisor to the chair Alan Helmkamp, current Commissioner Sam Baydoun, who replaced Woronchak on the Commission, and Commission Vice Chair Joe Palamara, who served with both Boike and Woronchak while they were on the Commission.Evans was the first guest speaker on the agenda.“Both Ed Boike and Gary Woronchak are people I had an opportunity to work with,” he said. “And it’s been an honor.”Evans talked about Worochak’s “dual” careers as a longtime politician and as an editor at both the Dearborn Press &amp; Guide and the Royal Oak Daily Tribune.“That was a real passion of his,” Evans said, before talking about Woronchak’s political leanings.“While our politics are often very very different, The connection with making sure we did the best we could do for the citizens of Wayne County is something I will never forget,” he said.Evans called Woronchak a strong advocate for the citizens, and for the Commission itself.Following Evans’ speech, Wooley came up to speak about Boike.“My first memory of Mr. Boike was the man who ran the community center,” Wooley said.Wooley said he really got to know Boike through Little League Baseball.“”My fondest memories of Mr. Boike was just him sitting out in left field watching his grandkids play,” Wooley said. “I miss him a lot. He always had a great smile and a great laugh. Thank you for recognizing such a great man.”Palamara spoke about many memories of Woronchak, whom he served with for the entire time he was on the Commission, and of Boike, who he served with for about 12 years.He told two stories about Worochak talking about professional wrestling, as he spent a few years as a promoter between the newspaper job and running for political office.Palamara said pro wrestling only came up twice in their time together in politics, once when Dearborn native Terrence Gerin, aka World Wrestling Entertainment star Rhyno, came to visit the office, and again when a text message was sent during the 2016 Republican presidential debates.“Pro wrestling is real, politics are fake,” Palamara recounted the text message saying, right after Donald Trump kept talking about his opponents using fake nicknames he had created for them.Another of Palamara’s memories was when Woronchak, a Republican himself at the time, decided to switch political parties.He said that Woronachak told him his ideals aligned more with the Democratic party, and he wanted to switch.“It’s one thing to change parties and get elected,” he said. “That itself is a great feat. But it’s a whole other deal to build up enough trust in seven years for a former Republican to get elected chair of the Democratically dominated Wayne County Commission. That kind of thing just doesn’t happen folks, not in Wayne County. His path to the chairmanship will never be duplicated.”Todd Boike spoke in place of his father. He spent the majority of his time talking about his family, saying that’s what his dad would have wanted. family mattered to him more than anything.Woronchak closed out the meeting with his own speech.“Obviously, this is a special day, and one that I never imagined when I left the commission almost five years ago,” Woronchak said. “Serving as chair of the Wayne County Commission was certainly one of the great highlights of my career, which spanned over 20 years as a newspaper editor and another 20 holding elected office.I was proud to have earned the trust of my fellow commissioners who chose me to lead the commission, and I was just as proud to have kept that trust for four terms.In case you don’t know it, people elected to office can be a handful from time to time, so it’s no small task to get a majority of a legislative body to agree on a leader from among their ranks.We did a lot of good work together, not just as commissioners, but in collaboration with the administration.”During his speech, Woronchak spoke fondly of key issues he helped to guide the Commission through during his years as chairman.“We navigated the controversies surrounding the jail project and worked with the administration to find a solution to what seemed like a bottomless pit of a problem,” he said. “When the state and county negotiated a consent agreement to dig out of a declared financial emergency, I made sure the commission had a seat at the table and was a full partner.And, in response to some ethical lapses that created a cloud over Wayne County government, we undertook the complicated process of creating an ethics ordinance and board of ethics.”Shortly after he left the Commission, COVID-19 hit, causing more strife than anyone could have imagined.of“I left the commission thinking we had accomplished a lot and had overcome the most significant challenges I could imagine. Surely, we had survived the most difficult decade ever for Wayne County government,” he said. “And then, about 15 months after I left the commission, Covid turned the world upside down, and Chairwoman Bell and this commission had to help keep county government functioning and doing its legislative work while dealing with conditions that we hadn’t seen in our lifetimes.Meanwhile, you’re doing it in an environment of political divisiveness that was unimaginable just a few years ago, even as things were starting to get dicey when I left the commission.”Woronchak closed his speech with advice for Bell, and whoever may eventually replace her.“Today, we’re on the brink of political insanity that was accelerated by social media and could be pushed over the edge by artificial intelligence. Yet again, uncharted territory not seen in our lifetimes,” he said. “My point is, whomever is chair of the commission, over whatever period of time, is going to face unique challenges and difficulties, and if commissioners have chosen their chair wisely, they will meet those challenges successfully. As Jewel Ware and Ed Boike and others did before me, and as Alisha Bell continues to do today.It is my privilege to have led the Wayne County Commission during that portion of the county’s long timeline, and it’s humbling to have my portrait alongside all those others who have taken a turn at this crazy and wonderful job.”Portraits of past chairs Arthur Blackwell of Highland Park and the late Jewel Ware of Detroit were added last year.Most Popular

Skip to contentThe Wayne County Commissioners unveiled the portraits of past commission chairs Gary Woronchak and the late Edward Boike at noon Oct. 5, inside commission chambers at the Guardian Building in downtown Detroit.Woronchak, the most recent past chairman, represented Dearborn and Allen Park on the Commission. Boike represented Taylor during his tenure.Their portraits join others of previous commission chairs in the hallway outside the chambers, located on the building’s mezzanine level.Woronchak served 14 years on the commission and was chair from 2011-2018. He previously...

Wayne County Commission unveils portraits of past commission chairs Woronchak, Boike

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