Jeannine Gray
Following an uncontested race in the 2024 election, Jeannine Gray will take the place of John Jessup on the Hancock County Board of Commissioners.
Gray, the current County Council President who has been on the council since 2017, says that while she enjoyed her time on the council, she wants to have more say over what projects the county is getting involved in.
“I like to see things being built,” Gray said. “I like to see projects come to fruition, and I think [the BOC is] a better fit actually. I’m a policy girl, too, and I think that being a commissioner after learning the fiscal side of county government, it will make me a much better commissioner in the long run.”
For months, the BOC has worked down a member due to Jessup’s ongoing sexual assault case in Nevada, requiring two people to do the work of the county’s executive branch rather than three. Gray said she’s ready to “pick up the slack” and praised the two returning commissioners, Bill Spalding and Gary McDaniel, for keeping things running despite being short-handed.
Gray said that her biggest priority once she’s sworn into the BOC is to ensure the maintenance and upkeep of county facilities, noting that the various buildings the county owns are expensive and many of them, such as the courthouse, are also extremely old, meaning that the county needs to focus on keeping what it already has in good condition.
She went on to praise several current projects from the commissioners, including the recent establishment of a county parks board and Project Amplify, an education center which will give both high school students and adults within Hancock County the opportunity to learn trades and skills that they otherwise may need to either move or make long commutes to be trained in.
On the parks board, Gray said that she’s glad the board has “the right people” on it who are “energetic and ready to make a difference,” while on Amplify she says she expects and is optimistic that the program will quickly outgrow the initial campus once it opens.
Gray heavily criticized former commissioners for fostering what she sees as irresponsible growth in the Western portion of the county. She noted that while the growth in and of itself was inevitable as the Indianapolis metro expands, she feels the choice to bring in warehouses and speculative buildings was the wrong one, causing headaches to homeowners in the area and putting additional strain on infrastructure for buildings that in many cases remain empty to this day. She highlighted that in the past two years the county council hasn’t approved a single tax abatement, which she says is encouraging more responsible growth and is an attitude she’ll bring to the commissioners.
She noted that her background in human resources will also provide a unique asset to the commissioners, who are in charge of the county’s personnel. The county hired a new human resources director earlier this year, but Gray highlighted the importance of having that experience on the board itself in addition to having it as its own position. She went on to note that she has her own blind spots, such as construction, that will be filled by the other members of the board and information from staff members such as county engineer Gary Pool.
“Although I’ve served in county government for several years, I still need to get my feet wet on the commissioner’s side,” Gray said. “I have a lot to learn, but I’m a quick learner, I’m open-minded and I’m a good listener. I think that those qualities that will help me succeed. As a commissioner here.”
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