Mark Justin. Kip Belcher. Michael Belsky. Tracy Byard.

One of them will very likely become Leelanau’s next county administrator – and the first person ever to hold the county’s newly-created joint administrator/CFO position.

Across nearly ten hours of meeting time on Thursday and Friday, the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners interviewed seven candidates for the role, which was left vacant when former administrator Deb Allen left the county in April. Allen chose to vacate the position after commissioners made a move earlier this year to add CFO duties to the job description – a move aimed at resolving ongoing problems with the county’s finance department. Allen did not have a financial background.

While commissioners had initially planned to sit down with eight candidates, one of those applicants – Ahmed Abou-Ismail, withdrew his candidacy the day before interviews started.

After interviewing the other seven applicants Thursday and Friday – some virtually, some in person – commissioners took a straw poll to determine which candidates had the broadest support. Chet Janik, the consultant leading the admin/CFO search process, instructed board members to tally the candidates they would “advance” or “advance with reservations” to the next round of interviews, describing those two ratings as the A-grade and the B-grade, respectively, of this process.

The poll indicated the strongest backing for Justin, Byard, Belcher, and Belsky – all of whom the board voted to bring back for a second round of interviews next week. The other three applicants – James Kiessel, Leelanau’s deputy sheriff; Robert Reinshuttle, most recently the deputy county administrator and acting public safety director for Florida’s Manatee County; and Anna Nelson, the controller for a tribally-affiliated government contracting entity in Asheville, North Carolina – were not invited to proceed.

Justin drew the most support, with all seven rating him as an “advance” or “advance with reservations” candidate, and five of those votes falling into the “advance” bucket. A Michigander, Justin served as county administrator for Gladwin County from 2021 to 2023. While he was terminated over allegations of misappropriation of county funds, he has maintained the firing was the result of a “targeted personal attack,” and seemed to satisfy commissioners with his explanation.

“From my view, our board chair had a couple of major conflicts of interest that were bordering on being ethical violations,” Justin told Leelanau commissioners. “After sitting back and watching that for a few months, I had to address it with her. The conversation did not go well. She turned on me immediately, told me this conversation was over, and our relationship from that point forward went from building into trust to being absolutely nonexistent.”

The issue escalated during Gladwin County budget sessions last summer, when Justin said he noticed an issue with his salary.

“I was due a salary increase in August, and the payroll clerk had put it in early,” he explained. “It was $30 a pay [period], and quite honestly, I didn’t notice it. But my intent, once I figured it out and talked to the payroll clerk about it…was to bring it to the board’s attention and say, ‘This is what happened, this is the total amount, I’ve already corrected the wage in the system, but let’s deal with this overpayment.’”

Justin continued: “I walked into that board meeting, and the chair opened the meeting by saying ‘I’d like to amend the agenda to terminate the county administrator for misappropriation of county funds.’ She had obviously already had a couple of the other commissioners convinced of [my guilt]. They went right to a vote, the vote was 4-1, and the sheriff was walking me out the door. And you could have knocked me over with a feather, because never in my life had I been in a situation like that.”

Byard also received seven “advance” or “advance with reservation” votes, winning commissioners over with an interview that drew direct lines between her last two jobs and the administrator/CFO role that Leelanau County is seeking to invent. Byard is currently county administrator for Michigan’s Oceana County, and previously served as county administrator for Clare County. Both jobs, she said, have combined administrator duties with additional responsibilities around finances and human resources.

“The way that you’re looking to set [the admin/CFO job] up is the way that I’m accustomed to, because we did it in Clare County and I’m doing that now,” Byard said.

Rounding out the list of final candidates are Belcher, the multijurisdictional task force commander for the Michigan State Police’s seventh district in Gaylord; and Belsky, who lives in Chicago and works as the principal for EKI Digital, a company that does “financial analysis of state and local government clients to determine the fiscal wherewithal to invest in digital innovation.” Both pledged to prioritize repairing strained workplace culture and trust at the county government center. Belcher vowed to be “a leader who’s actually out, and circulating, and interacting with people, and getting that feedback on a continuous basis.” Belsky, meanwhile, told commissioners that what they really need is “an administrator who gets along with people. I do that. I’m not one to dig my heels in and have an ongoing conflict with elected officials. It does the county no good; it does the people no good.”

Janik will now invite the four remaining candidates back for 90-minute interviews next Monday, June 10 at 10:30am. Janik said he would also schedule time for candidates to meet with county staffers. With the interviews themselves tentatively slated for 11am, 1pm, 2:30pm, and 4pm, the meeting will run most of the day, with commissioners likely selecting their favored candidate that afternoon/evening during post-interview deliberations.

“On June 10, your best-case scenario is you’ll select a candidate to enter into negotiations with and do formal background checks on,” Janik said.

Pictured (clockwise, starting top left): Justin, Belcher, Byard, and Belsky.