A 1-year contract
The Leelanau County Board of Commissioners extended a job offer to Jim Dyer, Northport Village manager, for the county administrator position after a follow-up interview Thursday. Dyer entered a one-year contract with the county Tuesday.
All six of the currently sitting county commissioners favored Dyer over MediaNews Group Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Mark Brown, the other finalist, but commissioners Gwenne Allgaier and Doug Rexroat noted that both candidates were extremely qualifi ed for the position.
“We had two really excellent candidates. If Mr. Brown had applied last summer, he’d probably be here,” Allgaier said, referring to the county’s earlier interviews for a combined administrator/ CFO position. “I feel like Mr. Dyer can just step in and start to do the job. Of course there will be a learning curve, but he knows municipal government. And it sure doesn’t hurt to have another lawyer around,” Allgaier continued.
The county administrator is perhaps the most important non-elected position in county government, as they implement the county board’s directives. Janik said Tuesday evening that the recommended salary is $127,000 per year.
Dyer will have 25 vacation days per year and 12 personal days per year, plus a $300 monthly vehicle allowance, the same as previous administrators. Dyer will not opt into the Michigan Employee Retirement System.
Over a year as Northport Village manager and his first two interviews with the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners, Dyer established something of a reputation as a mediator. The county commissioners responded well to his stories about de-escalating conflicts.
Dyer’s conflict resolution skills could be the remedy for the interdepartmental drama in county government. There has been a high rate of turnover at the government center in Suttons Bay, particularly among department heads. Earlier this year, employees gave the work culture an average rating of 3.8 out of 10 in a survey.
For that matter, the commissioners themselves may benefit from Dyer’s skills in this particular area. At the start of their special session, the board had a brief but heated argument about where the commissioners- elect should sit during the interviews, to the chagrin of staff.
“It’s very difficult to be angry at somebody who’s your friend,” Dyer explained in Thursday’s interview. “That’s really what it boils down to. To the extent possible — and I recognize sometimes that’s just not possible, there’re just difficult people in the world who will not approach you in that fashion. But if you’re friends first, you can resolve just about anything, in my experience.”
But Dyer made it clear that, despite his calm and soft-spoken demeanor, he has a firm backbone and is willing to raise his voice in an argument. But he says his goal in those situations is still reaching a mutually agreeable solution and remaining friendly with the other party.
“When you have a reputation of being calm, losing it, if you will, can be very effective. It can be an exclamation point to make people understand that you’re really serious, if it’s necessary,” Dyer said.
The current county commissioners also considered feedback from the people who were chosen to take their offices in the Nov. 5 elections, whose terms start in January. Four of the five commissioners-elect participated in the second round of interviews with Dyer and Brown Thursday, joining the sitting commissioners in conversations with the two finalists.
In a straw poll of the commissioners-elect, the incoming officials were split between Dyer and Brown. Commissionerselect Rick Robbins and Steve Yoder voted in favor of Dyer, while Alan Campbell and Mark Walter voted in favor of Brown. Will Bunek was absent from the meeting as he was travelling out of state.
Walter praised Brown for being “more diversified” and bringing “a different perspective” as an outsider to county government. Campbell said that Brown narrowly edged out Dyer in his opinion, but it was so close that he could have flipped a coin.
“What I’m hearing is either one would be a good thing (for the county). This candidate would come in with a new board that seems to welcome them and their skillset,” Rexroat said while summing up the commissioner- elects’ decisions.
The six current county commissioners unanimously authorized Chairman Ty Wessell and Rexroat as vice chairman to enter negotiations with Dyer for the position. Former County Administrator Chet Janik, who worked as a consultant in the administrator search, will serve as a mediator in negotiations. The contract costs for the search are $8,750.
The sitting commissioners voiced their optimism about Dyer working with the next board. But as the incoming district no. 1 commissioner Robbins noted, the new board – including himself – will need to act decisively for Dyer to be the most effective.
“It doesn’t matter which one of these guys we pick. Unless we act as a board and give them directions and stay in our own lane, it’s never going to work up here. We hired an administrator. It’s their job to run the dayto- day operations, like Doug said. That’s what we have to emphasize on Jan. 1 as a new board – we give direction, and we let them run the show,” Robbins said.
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