The primary ballot for those in the City of Ludington will have one proposal on it which simply allows the city council to offer a prospective city manager the option to offer a contract of up to three years rather than the current term of one year.  Here is how it will look on your ballot:

This is a reworking of a similar proposal made in 2016 which would have offered a term of up to five years.  Both were proposed by the council with full backing of then-CM, John Shay, who said:  

"the one-year term may discourage qualified applicants from applying for the job because few people would want to risk switching jobs, moving to Ludington and buying a home if they are only guaranteed one year of work.  However, even if the term is extended to five years, the council may still terminate the city manager’s contract at any time."

The proposal was narrowly defeated, likely leading to this rewrite.  In marketing the proposal this year they have primarily used a slightly different approach:  

"this amendment is necessary so that qualified applicants are more likely to apply for the city manager position when it is vacant. Very few, if any, cities have a provision in their charters which limit the terms of their city managers to one year."

These arguments for the proposal, however, do not come close to negating the two primary reasons why the proposal should fail.  We will look at those and refine a proposal that should have been put on the ballot that is superior and conforms to what many other local governments and colleges use to get their best administrator.  The arguments of why this is a bad proposal are:

1) The proposal makes the city manager position even less accountable 

In 2016, it was argued that going from a one year contract to a five year contract is akin to looking at what happens to a company that has a supervisor on site every day rather than one that just comes by one day a week.  Citizens have no control over the acts of a city manager, the city council is the supervisor of the city manager, and it is a fact that appropriate supervision increases productivity and product quality.  

A one year contract ensures that the council evaluates performance of the manager at least yearly, and they can adjust the compensation upwards if the manager does a good job, which spurs that manager to do a good job.  A confident applicant may actually welcome a one year contract over a longer contract in order to get more in his bank account over the first three years than he otherwise would.  

A three or five year contract does not invite the applicant to be accountable to the council for years; since the council is discouraged to be involved in direct supervision of the manager, this could lead to underlying problems sitting around for a while which may lead to other problems accumulating, which would otherwise have came out with a periodic evaluation.  Consider what happened at WSCC last year, when they evaluated their president and found him a bad fit, leading them to terminate him before his contract was up for renewal.

2) The proposal is not worded to optimize getting the best applicants for city manage

If the goal is to get the best city manager candidate out there to be interested in coming to Ludington, then the proposal needs to be more flexible.  The proposal does allow for terms of 1-3 years, which does allow for more flexibility than there currently is, but some city managers may want a contract of four or more years.  The best candidate might have that qualifier in their mind coming here, and would likely be used to other places that have the ability to grant such contracts.

Consider Scottville:

 

Consider Manistee:

Consider Cadillac:

And the charters of many other local Michigan cities and villages that have the same wording.  Others do not even specify any kind of term at all, like Newaygo, Fremont, Hastings, Reed City, Whitehall, Big Rapids, Frankfort and Hart:

So why would Ludington want to restrict their options on the length of a contract/term when 100% of our neighbors with city managers do not?  These cities have existing contracts of varying lengths depending on not only what was best for their CMs when they applied, but also what they were willing to offer at the time to that candidate. 

THE FIX

The fix is to simply do two things.  Change the charter to allow for an indefinite term for the city manager, to allow some flexibility for the council to negotiate. 

But at the same time, change the charter Section 3.1 to reflect an additional duty onto the city council to annually evaluate the city manager.  The council could conduct this in closed session at the CM's desire (as per the Open Meetings Act, MCL 15.268(a)) as many cities and colleges do for their periodic evaluations of their administrators, including WSCC.  This maintains the accountability that the current system offers, and doesn't cost anything extra.

Rather than evaluating the CM at the very end of the year, when lame duck councilors may decide the CM's fate in their last gasp, hold these evaluations in September, so the consensus can be disclosed to the public before elections.  This would make both the council and the CM be more accountable to the real boss, the voters.  

I think if we had more heads at the table rather than the limited scope of a couple councilors and the city manager, that this fix or perhaps an even better fix could have been devised, drafted and offered to the voters.  The 8000 other citizens of Ludington were never invited to the table for input.

Please offer any other amendments, advice, support or criticism of the ballot proposal and/or my proposed fix in the comments.  

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Make it mandatory that the city manager takes the oath of office.

It already is Ludington Charter sec 4.11

"Every officer, elected or appointed, before entering upon the duties of the office, shall be given the oath of office prescribed for public officers by Article XI, Section 1 of the Constitution of the State of Michigan and shall file the oath with the Clerk together with any bond required by statute, this Charter, or by the Council. In case of failure to comply with provisions of this section within fifteen (15) days from the date the officer is notified in writing of the election or appointment, such officer shall be deemed to have declined the office, and such office shall thereupon become vacant unless the Council shall by resolution extend the time in which such officer may qualify."

What's worse than having an appointed officer fail to take the oath of office mandated by the charter and by the State Constitution?  Having the public body who have taken their oaths to defend the state constitution endorse the person's decision not to.  That's the policy our city council has ascribed to.  John Shay refused to take the oath of office for the city manager job, it was because he wasn't interested in getting strung up for violating his oath later on if somebody in the council grew a backbone and a pair of stones and held the lawless scoundrel accountable.

Is there an oath involved with becoming the Deputy Director of Ottawa County or whatever his title officially is?

Will they offer Shay the same option to decline the oath?

Article XI section 1 applies to all state and local government officials (all levels).

In a high position, like a city manager or a deputy administrative officer, this requirement shouldn't be ignored, as it makes the rest of the officials that serve in that public body believe that their leaders, for some odd reason, think they are above the mandates of the law. 

Widespread corruption is the result, as officials at all levels believe they can choose which laws to break.  Yup, that's what's happened in Ludington.

I don't think it's a bad idea to have a 3 year contract for a new CIty Manager. It would give a good, qualified candidate some security and reason to relocate. Whoever is chosen can always be fired at the Councilors whim anyway.

Would prefer a proposal to term limit the length of employment for the city manager.

8 years and out.

6 years would be even better.

Get some fresh blood in there. 

No pension. No carry-over  benefits. The compensation is adequate that if shouldn't be necessary to burden future taxpayers. If they can't manage their own retirement they sure as hell can't manage a city.

I would much rather throw out a competent city manager than see a repeat of the last 15 years.

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