Northport Village Manager Emerges As Potential Frontrunner For County Administrator Job

Up until last fall, James Dyer was a practicing attorney with decades of experience in municipal law. Then, he moved into an actual municipal government job: village manager for the Village of Northport. Now, Dyer’s adventures in government may be bound for another new high: Leelanau County administrator.

Dyer emerged as a clear top choice for the job this week, as members of the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners conducted interviews with eight candidates. Those interviews spanned two four-plus-hour meetings on Monday and Tuesday, after which commissioners and commissioners-elect both praised Dyer as a standout for his calm demeanor and strong municipal experience.

Dyer is one of three finalists that will return for a second round of interviews next month, along with Kip Belcher and Mark Brown. Belcher works in law enforcement, serving as the multijurisdictional task force commander for the Michigan State Police’s Seventh District in Gaylord. Brown is a Lake Leelanau-based CPA and the CFO for a news media organization.

Belcher previously applied for the county administrator position in the spring, when commissioners were looking for a hybrid administrator/CFO. He was one of two finalists commissioners considered hiring, before deciding to table the hiring process.

Following the interviews, consultant Chet Janik – who is helping commissioners conduct the administrator hiring process – asked board members to fill out forms indicating how interested they’d be in bringing each candidate back for a second look. Because the board will have five new members come January, Janik also asked each commissioner-elect to attend the interviews and provide similar feedback.

Dyer had by far the most support among sitting commissioners, with five of the six sitting board members marking him as a definite “yes” for a second interview. Brown and Belcher were the runners-up, each earning three “yes” votes and two “maybe” votes. Among commissioners-elect, Dyer, Brown, and Matthew Marske – the former warden of a prison in Oxford, Wisconsin – garnered the most support.

Briefly, it looked like commissioners might consider simply offering the job to Dyer without a second interview. District 2 Commissioner James O’Rourke argued that, if five of the six sitting commissioners liked Dyer enough to advance him, “we just appoint him, and don’t go to a second interview.”

“I hate meetings,” admitted O’Rourke, who opted not to seek re-election for the Board of Commissioners during this year’s election cycle. “It’s a waste of time and money to bring the other people back,” he added.

“You don’t know that [Dyer] would say yes,” responded Ty Wessell, board chair and District 4 commissioner. “And we’ve got more questions to ask.”

“I don’t,” O’Rourke fired back.

District 2 Commissioner Doug Rexroat concurred with Wessell, stating that, while Dyer was “very near the top” of his list, board members “owe it to the citizens of Leelanau County to do a more thorough dive than this.”

O’Rourke and District 5 Commissioner Kama Ross ultimately opposed a motion by Rexroat to invite Dyer, Brown, and Belcher back for a second round of interviews. Ross wanted to bring back a fourth candidate: Brandon Fewins, a Traverse Citian who currently serves as Michigan’s state director for USDA Rural Development. Fewins had previously said he would not be able to make this week’s interviews due to travel, but ended up interviewing for the position via video chat.

“We know that being interviewed on a little square on the screen does not do anybody justice,” Ross said in defense of Fewins. “To be fair to him, and to be fair to our constituents, I feel like he scored high enough [on our feedback forms] to ask him for a second interview.”

Two other commissioners – District 6’s Gwenne Allgaier and District 7’s Melinda Lautner – agreed with Ross that they liked Fewins, but argued he lacked the municipal experience needed for the job.

“We’ve tried taking someone who didn’t have [municipal experience],” Allgaier said – likely a reference to previous administrator Deb Allen, who came from a philanthropic and nonprofit background. “It’s a big learning curve. I think we need to not do that again. We need to pick somebody who is going to be able to come in and just do the job.”

Lautner agreed, though she said she could see Fewins being “a very viable candidate” to lead Leelanau County in the future.

“I look at him as a young guy. He may be back here in 10 years, if he gets some experience in county government,” Lautner said. “If we were in the position of training an administrator, I think he’d be a great one.”

Provided that Dyer, Brown, and Belcher all accept invitations for a second interview, commissioners will sit down with the candidates again on Thursday, December 12. Janik told commissioners they should plan to have a signed contract in place with their new administrator by December 31, “because if not, technically, the next board could start the process all over again.”

Speaking of resetting the process, Michael Belsky – the other finalist commissioners considered hiring for the administrator/CFO role in the spring, alongside Belcher – submitted an incendiary letter to the Leelanau Ticker last week. In it, he blasted the county board for wasting taxpayer dollars on a leadership search that went nowhere, due to what he perceived as “indecision” and “incompetence.”

“I would urge the new Board and the public to demand that the process [for hiring an administrator] begin when the new board is seated,” Belsky wrote. “The old board – or at least several of the members – showed an inability to make decisions. Why would you think they could assess the decision-making ability of anyone else, including a new administrator?”

Commissioners had indeed decided late this summer to defer the hiring of a new administrator to next year – and therefore, to a new board. They changed their minds a few weeks later, with Wessell arguing: “I do not want to task a new board with the responsibility of learning county government, and learning the role of commissioner, and hiring a new [administrator].”

For their part, several commissioners-elect – including incoming District 3 representative William Bunek, District 5 electee Alan Campbell, and District 7 victor Steve Yoder – were present at Tuesday’s meeting, and each spoke publicly in support of the board’s choice of finalists.