A decision as to who will take on the role of Northport Village manager will likely be made at the council’s regular meeting today.
On March 7, the Northport Village Council conducted its second round of manager interviews with finalists’ Douglas Dorando and Jerred Ottenwess. Both candidates were unable to make it to their respective interviews in-person, and tuned in to the hybrid meeting via Zoom.
There were only three village council trustees, Laura Cavendish, Hugh Cook, and Edwin Dean, present last Friday to interview the candidates, so a quorum was not an option to make a final decision. Once the council deliberates and makes a choice, they will be able to offer the job to the candidate and enter into contract negotiations. The village aims to have a new manager approved by mid-March to allow for at least a two week transition period before current manager Jim Dyer’s last day on March 28.
In December, Dyer accepted a one-year employment contract to serve as the next full-time Leelanau County administrator starting March 31. Dyer, who has more than 30 years of experience as a municipal management professional, has served as the village manager for over a year now.
The second round of interviews gave council trustees a chance to ask more personal questions and ultimately helped them get to know the candidates better. Dorando and Ottenwess have served in different capacities of public service and local government throughout their careers.
Dorando currently serves as general counsel for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency and Office of Homeland Security, and has worked as an attorney representing units of government for more than a decade. He was the first in the lineup to interview, and expanded on topics related to personal goals in life and on the job, as well as various work experiences/scenarios.
“My intent was always to go into public service — to always be in government and I sort of had to make a career out of it as an attorney even though that wasn’t what I had initially planned on,” Dorando said during the interview. “So having this opportunity is very much akin to the work that I’ve wanted to do my entire life.”
When asked about what availability looks like for starting on the job, Dorando noted that since he is a senior attorney for the state of Illinois, it would take him a few weeks to wrap things up and relocate. In Dorando’s first interview, he shared with the board his desire to move back to Michigan, his home state, and his particular admiration of Leelanau County, adding that he has family that reside in the Northport area.
“I do think it could be done in a fairly timely fashion,” Dorando said. “I do have a place available to me up there. That may not be my longterm solution, but at least it could be sort of a stop-gap for a while.”
Ottenwess has over 13 years of experience working in local government and in city manager roles, but currently works as a mortgage home officer for Direct Home Mortgages. Before Ottenwess shifted career paths, he served as the city manager in Keego Harbor for a year, and as the city manager for Traverse City from July 2013 to March 2015. He was also the city manager for several years up north in Ishpeming and in Trenton, Florida.
In his first interview, Ottenwess told the board that although he’s been on hiatus from local government and management professions for the last few years, he wants to utilize his relevant experience to get back into the career path. The second interview allowed Ottenwess to share more about how he operates in the manager setting and what the council can expect from him in terms of work ethic. He said he could start anytime, taking into consideration the logistics of getting an employment agreement in place and finding a place to rent.
“I feel like I could step in and I wouldn’t need to bring on consultants or maybe in a very minimal way to actually do the grant writing and administration from start to finish. I feel like I have that level of expertise and I’m comfortable doing that,” Ottenwess said. “My number one priority is to establish a really solid tenure in a position as a manager again, and I see that as being a minimum of five years… that’s very important to me, to just have an effective relationship with the council, to have the support of the council, and more broadly, the community at large.”
Ottenwess also expanded again on how his tenure from a decade ago as the Traverse City manager made him a better person. He resigned from the manager job to focus on personal matters at the time following being charged for domestic violence and attempted assault of a police officer in 2015. Since then, Ottenwess said he leads a completely different lifestyle and has healthy ways of dealing with stress.
“It caused me to really look inward in a way that I was never able to before and it gave me a level of self awareness and willingness to work on the struggles that I had at the time,” he said. “It’s something that I will work everyday for the rest of my life to try and make up for that, especially like I said for myself and my family. To be an example for my children… I have a totally different lifestyle and routine where I focus on my emotional and spiritual wellbeing in a way that I really didn’t understand or know how to before.”
The council’s regular meeting will be held today at 7 p.m. To tune in via Zoom, people can go to https://villageofnorthport. net/village-council.
