"Keep This Ship Running": The (Interim) Richard Lewis Era Begins

He served as city manager for the City of Traverse City from 1991 to 2008, then as a Traverse City commissioner from 2015 to 2019, and then as TC’s mayor from 2021 to 2023. Now Richard Lewis is stepping into a new role: interim county administrator for Leelanau County.

With County Administrator Deb Allen’s April 12 departure date fast approaching, the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners spent last week finalizing an interim replacement. The county is seeking to expand the administrator role to include chief financial officer responsibilities in an effort to solve ongoing problems with its finance department.

At a special meeting, commissioners interviewed five candidates for the interim role. While the crop of applicants included numerous familiar local faces – including Leelanau County Undersheriff James Kiessel and Jean Derenzy, who recently stepped down as CEO of the Traverse City Downtown Development Authority (DDA) – Lewis rose to the top. In a straw poll taken immediately after the interviews, five of seven commissioners ranked Lewis as their first or second choice. (Kiessel was the second-place vote-getter.) Commissioners ultimately voted 5-2 to offer Lewis the job.

“My job is to help you to keep this ship running in this direction,” Lewis said in his interview, calling on his experience serving in interim leadership posts similar to this one; he acted as interim village manager of Suttons Bay in 2018, and stepped into the same role in Elk Rapids last year. “I’m not going to help you take on any brand-new ideas; that’s for your next administrator… But I’m very confident that this county has great administration and great people working for them, so my job is just to keep it aligned, keep everyone from hurting each other – to the best of my ability – and just to be here to assist you.”

The county commission has hired Chet Janik – formerly a Leelanau County administrator himself, now a consultant with the Michigan Leadership Institute – to lead the admin search and negotiate with candidates. After getting the green light from commissioners on Tuesday, Janik offered Lewis the interim position and sat down with him to hash out terms. Presenting that tentative agreement to commissioners at another special meeting held Friday afternoon, Janik described the contract as “pro-county,” noting that Lewis is only asking for a daily rate from the county – previously set by commissioners at $700 per day – and not any benefits or vacation days.

Commissioners voted unanimously Friday to approve the contract pending review by legal counsel. Assuming the agreement gets that final rubber stamp, Lewis will step into the position on Monday, April 8 and will stick around until the end of July. Janik previously laid out a timeline that should have commissioners interviewing prospective administrators in May and making a hiring decision by the end of that month. The July termination date on Lewis’s contract would ideally leave a month or two for the new hire to get their affairs in order and be ready to start the job by midsummer.

“I’ll make a pledge right now,” Lewis told commissioners on Friday. “If for some reason, [my stint as interim] has got to go for an extra couple weeks or an extra month because whoever you decide on, they can’t leave their current place or whatever, I’m not leaving you. It’s always good to have a [closing] date; that’s what we’re all shooting for. But I’m not going to leave you.”

Lewis wrapped up his time as Traverse City’s mayor just this past November, handing off the baton to now-incumbent Amy Shamroe after declining to seek reelection. While Lewis’s time in office in Traverse City has reached its apparent conclusion, though, Leelanau Board Chair Ty Wessell said the former mayor’s reputation in his hometown remains sterling.

“I was at the Community Mental Health meeting in Traverse City yesterday, and I heard from several people – both in the audience and on the Community Mental Health board – that applauded our choice and told us how fortunate we are,” Wessell told commissioners Friday.