When Republican Mark Ouimet announced last winter that he was giving up his seat on the ­Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners to run for the state house, Democrats hoped first-time candidate Adam Zemke might take the traditionally Republican district in the county’s northwest corner. At the time, no GOP candidate had stepped forward.

“Then a year ago this May the ­Washtenaw County Republican Party asked me if I knew anybody who was interested in running—and to include myself in my considerations,” says Rob Turner, a Chelsea resident and third-­generation owner of Turner Electric. “They said, ‘We’ll give you all the support we can,’ and they gave me lists of people and contacts. But they didn’t have any money, and I received no financial support from anyone. It cost me $4,000, but I beat Adam.” Though not by much: the final tally was 52 to 48 percent.

You might think the liberal Democrats who represent Ann Arbor on the commission would be hostile to their new GOP colleague. But a year later they have nothing but praise for Turner.

“You can’t find a guy who cares as much about people as Rob does,” says board chair Conan Smith. “He’s all heart. The first thing he’s concerned about with anything that comes before the board is how does this affect people in need?”

“Rob Turner really cares about human services,” concurs Barbara Bergman. “He not only talks the talk, he walks the walk.” Leah Gunn calls him “one of the nicest guys on earth,” and adds, “he knows the rural townships need human services.”

That hasn’t necessarily been the view of officials from the western part of the county. In the past, many have argued that only folks in the urban east need the human services the county provides.

“There was denial, but not anymore,” says Turner. “The recession has multiplied the number of needy … It’s more hidden in the rural areas—you don’t see it on the street as much. But you get to know it through the schools.” Before joining the county board, he served nine years on the Chelsea school board. “When you see the numbers of drugs in the school and that more kids committed suicide in the west over the last ten years than ever before, you know there’re problems.”

Turner says the biggest issue facing his district is lack of jobs. “We have issues with human services and transportation and police protection, but we have all these issues because of unemployment and under-employment. For example, trying to secure human services is hard to do out here. People have to travel to the city to get them, and that’s difficult to do for some families.”

From the outside, Turner thought the county board was “dysfunctional. There was a lot of infighting and showboating, and when I met with the incumbents, three or four of them said they didn’t like some of the other incumbents and wouldn’t work with them. But from the inside, I saw it was not as bad as I feared, and I would be asked to be an unofficial mediator, and when things were talked through, they found they were able to work together.

“It all flows from my main goal, which is to provide service to the people,” Turner says. “With shrinking state and federal funding, it’s more important than ever. When I joined, the board faced a cut of $20 million out of a $100 million budget. With fixed costs going up, it’s getting tougher all the time.” For the 2014–2015 budget, he says, “we’re facing a cut that may be as big as $25 million. And we’re fortunate in this county compared with so many others in the state who have so much less.”

Turner didn’t always care this much. “But when I was twenty-one, I accepted Christ in my heart, and the Lord has given me compassion for people, especially people in need. Government is a safety net for people. That’s certainly what county government is here for. I’m fiscally conservative, and I want to shrink government as much as possible, not services but overhead, so more of the ever-shrinking state and federal money can be funneled into human services. I hate waste in government when it could have gone to helping people.”