Ludington Council Interviews Two Interim City Manager Candidates

[XLFD]

On Thursday afternoon at 1:30 PM, a special meeting of the Ludington City Council was convened in order to interview two 'external' candidates for the interim city manager position, a position created by the impending resignation of current City Manager John Shay, so that he can assume his new position as deputy county administrator for Ottawa County.  

Another lesser task of this meeting was to have a first reading of  Ordinance No. 380-18 beginning a  multi-year contract between City of Ludington and Foth Infrastructure & Environment, LLC.  This will come before the council at the next regular meeting, you will recall, this website has been the only local source to note the $5 million in FASTLANE grants, which may turn out to have some costs to the Ludington taxpayer.  

Two suited gentleman sat in the audience seats of the council chambers of Ludington City Hall, with all councilors present along with the city clerk, mayor and treasurer, the police and fire chief, and a variety of others including Mayor candidate Steve Miller.  The mayor invited the public to speak, none did (one should not be averse to the council picking city manager candidates, that ability is within their powers, picking a councilor within 60 days of a regular city election is not, especially when a vacancy has not been created yet).  They called the first candidate.

Ted Talks

Ted was a rather short 60-ish man who amused the council by making self-deprecatory comments on his last name, a 13 letter Polish nightmare of a surname, and noticing that there was a Pomorski, Winczewski and Ezdebski already on the panels.  Instead of reiterating his introductory bio, I procured a copy of his resume, which I produce here.  

Resume p.2

You can see he is well traveled, growing as a city official in East Lake, Ohio after being on the Planning Commission for 13 years, up to their highest job, Mayor (the city has no city manager), and then going to Michigan and New York to serve as city manager.  In his interview, the council found that he could start immediately, had lots of experience in water and sewer projects, learned he wasn't a micromanager of city departments, and was willing to accept any salary that the council thought was fair for the six months.

He seemed proud of having came into the 'strong' mayor spot in East Lake when the previous mayor had spent $45 million on a minor league ballpark without properly funding the cost of it.  He was able to refinance the bonds, sold naming rights of the stadium and reduced the debt down to $19 million by his departure.  

He stressed that he was adaptable to changes, able to work with anyone, likes to do things good and for the public good, make a difference, and likes to leave behind a good legacy.  Mayor Holman remarked at the end that she appreciated that he advanced much like her, in that she was a PC and council member before becoming mayor after a resignation, then a mayor-elect.  All in all, the council asked 11 questions to Ted, which he answered confidently.

Steve Jobs

The next applicant, Steve Brock, was called immediately thereafter, a taller and thinner man who also gave a biography of himself, which is covered mostly in his E-mail of application:

Steve was asked 15 questions total in his interview, and had a tendency to incorporate his knowledge of the area and his acquaintance with John Shay into his answers without obvious intent.  Steve said he let department managers do their jobs, but always met with them after council meetings to give and receive updates.  He mentioned some of his development projects throughout his long tenure in Farmington Hills (FH), along with various water/sewer projects, bond financing, refinancing, and updating fire stations.  

Steve liked seeing the city working on infrastructure and noted he like the parks and the proposed West End project.  He is impressed that the tax rate has remained fairly steady.  He has worked on budgets primarily as part of a team at FH, which has a population ten times the size of Ludington, but has dealt with township and village budgets slightly smaller and larger than us.  

He states that he wants to accomplish all that would have been accomplished in the six months as if John Shay were still serving.  He noted he had served as an interim city manager for 9 months at FH, being promoted from an assistant, before he was hired full time.  He said that he does not generally get into conflicts, but has found that communication is important, both listening and explaining.  

Steve seemed more of a structured professional, Ted seemed more of an easygoing everyman.  After reviewing the interviews and resumes, I was more impressed with Ted's ability to reduce debt and his approachability, and less impressed with the possibility that Steve may be a Shay-clone.

  However, in doing extra research on both of their pasts, I have found that there are a few question marks following Ted (see here, here, and here, among others) and mostly exclamation marks following Steve on his retirement and other projects (as in here).  Steve is likely the best choice for a six month solution for Ludington.

Fastlaning the FASTLANE

The major question behind the FASTLANE grant that the City will receive on behalf of the Lake Michigan Carferry (LMC), is that the City will have to pay for the dock improvements with their own money before being reimbursed by the Federal government.  This will likely require a short term loan by the City of up to $2.5 million, but such a loan is likely to come with a significant payment of interest, and that is likely not refundable by the grant.  Perhaps staggering the payments may obviate the need for going beyond the City's liquid reserves of cash, but this wasn't suggested this afternoon.  

The Ludington Torch is looking to get additional information on the competitive bidding process which led the City of Ludington to choose Foth as their engineering contract without any apparent process even at the committee level.  This contract is over $359,000 and apparently has been fastlaned by the outgoing city manager for this project.  We hope to have more information before the next meeting, but with the Independence Day holiday, it may arrive late.

[AQUAMAN]

Can't really say I like or approve of either of these candidates for interim CM right now. Both are from different states and have been on the go more than not in jobs and have fishy backgrounds imho. Esp. Ted, and Steve wants to stay in a cottage in Hamlin and go to Fl. in the winter too. Only question to me is, which is the lesser evil of the two! You would certainly think that there are far more potential candidates that would ably and honorably qualify for Ludington right now, and at a much younger age than these two.

[shinblind]

You could tell by the questions asked who the pick for the interim city manager was going to be.

That and the blatant pandering by  Steve Brock mentioning that Shay came calling.

Steve has no experience outside of government.

He is a one city manager, a growing city with almost 3 times the per capita income of Ludington.

And the residents of Farmington Hills are carrying half the debt that Ludington residents are carrying.

Even Shay couldn't mess up the Farmington Hills City Manager's gig.

Ted on the other hand had 25 years working in the real world.

After which he moved  on to city government.

3 cities in 18 years. Some larger than Ludington some smaller. Some more prosperous, some less so.

None were blessed with being growth communities.

Some of Ted's tenures were contentious with what the starry-eyed city councils wished.

Maybe we could have used some of that around here.

I hope the hiring committee gave Ted gas fare to get back home so his time wasn't a complete waste. Like watching the NFL interview that mandatory minority coach for a job he will never get.

So we ended up with...Shay by proxy.

Sad thing is that the majority of these same councilors will also be choosing the next full time city manager.

Steve = Shay by proxy.

[XLFD]

Don't be surprised if the equation holds true, that Brock gets a three year extension.  Especially if he favorably fends off the barbarians at the gate.