Top 10 stories of the past year

The Enterprise staff, reflecting on the past 52 issues, has come up with the top 10 stories of 2023.

Another year out from the life-changing COVID, county government and the evolving role of a county finance director are near the top of our stories, for a second-straight year.

1.) Finance Department woes — Leelanau County’s efforts to establish a finance department have been fraught with difficulties since the beginning, and those troubles have continued through 2023. After unusually little discussion, the previous county board of commissioners voted 4-3 in May 2021 to strip control of county finances from the clerk’s office and assign the duties to a new finance department, which was formed in January 2022.