News · Marquette
Marquette County board will appoint a District 1 commissioner for the last 10 weeks of the year after Karl Numinen quit by email
MARQUETTE, Mich. — The Marquette County Board of Commissioners is filling a vacant seat for what amounts to the rest of the year, after District 1 Commissioner Karl Numinen resigned effective immediately.
Numinen did not attend the board’s Oct. 13 meeting and sent his resignation in a brief email to County Clerk Linda Talsma, The Mining Journal reported. “Please consider this email my resignation from the Marquette County Board of Commissioners effective immediately,” it read. He did not give a reason, and did not respond to the paper’s request for comment.
Numinen was appointed to the seat on Oct. 14, 2025, after longtime Commissioner John DePetro retired. He had previously served as the board’s civil counsel. A Democrat, he lost in the August primary and was already set to leave office at year’s end, according to the county’s chief deputy clerk.
How the appointment works. Under state law, MCL 46.412, the board may appoint a suitable person to fill the vacancy, and the appointee serves the rest of the term, which ends Dec. 31. Applicants had to be registered voters in District 1 and submit resumes to the County Clerk’s Office, 234 W. Baraga Ave., by 4 p.m. Oct. 20.
District 1 covers city of Marquette Precincts 3 and 4, an area the county describes as bounded by the city limits, Wright Street, Lincoln Avenue, Fair Avenue, McClellan Avenue, Washington Street, Fourth Street, Fisher Street, Front Street and Whetstone Brook.
The person elected to the seat on Nov. 3 will take office in January. The board had not announced a date for the appointment as of Tuesday.
Sources:
The Mining Journal, “Marquette County Board seeks applicants to fill commission vacancy after Numinen resigns,” Oct. 2026 (email text, appointment history, primary loss, MCL 46.412, deadline, district boundaries), https://www.miningjournal.net/news/front-page-news/2026/10/marquette-county-board-seeks-applicants-to-fill-commission-vacancy-after-numinen-resigns/
TV6/WLUC, “Numinen resigns from Marquette County Board effective immediately,” Oct. 14, 2026, https://www.uppermichiganssource.com/2026/10/14/numinen-resigns-marquette-county-board-effective-immediately/
WNMU-FM, “Karl Numinen resigns from Marquette County Board of Commissioners,” Oct. 15, 2026, https://www.wnmufm.org/government/2026-10-15/karl-numinen-resigns-from-marquette-county-board-of-commissioners
Photo: Paul R. Burley, “Marquette County Courthouse Michigan 20220620-7157.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), cropped and color-adjusted, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marquette_County_Courthouse_Michigan_20220620-7157.jpg
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