OTTAWA COUNTY — Ottawa County’s search for a new administrator hit a snag this week after one of two second-round finalists suddenly withdrew, then held a press conference disclosing not only the terms of a possible contract with the county but also that he was informed of his advancement in the process one day before the actual decision took place in a public meeting.

What’s happening now

Just hours after Ottawa County announced it had narrowed down its county administrator to two finalists on Thursday, Port Huron City Manager James Freed publicly withdrew from the process — first in a letter dated Nov. 21, then in a press conference in his home city on Friday, Nov. 22.

Read More: Ottawa County names top 2 picks for administrator, then 1 immediately withdraws

Freed said he was recruited by a “head hunter” as Ottawa began the search for its next administrator — its fifth in less than 24 months. He said he “went through the process” because “Ottawa is a premiere county.”

“It is one of the top positions within my profession. So within my profession, it is one of the premier positions in the state of Michigan, and it was an honor to be selected,” Freed said at the Friday press conference.

Freed was one of four finalists brought in for in-person interviews Tuesday, Nov. 19, before a four-person subcommittee of the county board of commissioners.

Two days later, board Chair Joe Moss said his top picks were Sparta city manager Jim Lower and Freed and the other three members of the committee agreed to advance Lower and Freed to a second round of interviews to take place Friday, Nov. 22.

Hours after the decision, however, Freed sent a letter to commissioners formally withdrawing from consideration.

“It would be unfair to your organization and your residents to continue in the process to become your next county administrator,” Freed said in the letter.

Freed withdraws237KB ∙ PDF fileDownloadOttawa County finalist Jim Freed withdrew from consideration on Thursday, just hours after he was named one of two top finalists.Download

At the Friday press conference, Freed said he spoke to Moss on Wednesday — the day after his interview, but one day before the executive search committee met to publicly discuss and make the decision to name Lower and Freed the top finalists who would advance — a possible violation of Michigan’s Open Meetings Act.

“(On Wednesday) the chair of the board called me and essentially said, you're moving on in the process. It'll be announced tomorrow,” Freed said at the Friday press conference. “And we began talking about where I can enroll my kids in school and where I can buy a house, and how fast I can get to Ottawa County, because they wanted me to start pretty quick. That's when things got real, real, real.”

Listen to Freed’s press conference:

Freed said he was told by Ottawa County representatives that the administrator position pays a quarter of a million dollars annually — $40,000 more than what the previous two administrators received.

“The position pays $250,000 a year with an immediate 12-month severance of $250,000, so it's about a half-a-million dollar proposition to be the Ottawa County administrator,” Freed said Friday.

How we got here

The executive search process comes after previous interim administrator Jon Anderson resigned — twice — in September and October. 

Read More: Interim Ottawa County administrator resigns — again

Deputy Administrator Ben Wetmore was named as the interim administrator as the search process has played out, however, the Ottawa Impact majority on the board unexpectedly opted to broadly expand Wetmore’s powers to no longer include board approval for department head hires and fires — a rule that has been featured in all previous administrator contracts.

Read More: Wetmore wants to make key hires. Moss wants to name him interim administrator.

A search committee was created in September by Moss — who appointed himself chair and populated the remaining four slots with OI commissioners, two of whom lost their Republican primaries in August (although Commissioner Gretchen Cosby has not attended the last several meetings).

Ottawa Impact is a far-right fundamentalist group formed by Moss in 2021 after he took issue with pre-K-6 school mask mandates and other mitigation measures issued by the state and local health departments during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The group has had as many as seven seats on the 11-member county board, but currently controls six, and has made a series of controversial decisions over the past two years that led to six lawsuits — two remain ongoing — and a brief investigation from the state attorney general's office.

Ottawa Impact commissioners fired previous administrator John Shay on Jan. 3, 2023 — the day they took office — after he had been in the role for only seven months.

They immediately used their majority to vote in former Republican Congressional candidate John Gibbs, who worked in the role for 13 months before he also was fired Feb. 29 this year; he has since sued for wrongful termination and claims Moss defamed him.

Several members of Ottawa Impact lost their bids for re-election and OI’s representation will pare down to four seats when the new four-year term begins in January. The current majority is continuing with the hiring process despite some of the new incoming commissioners not affiliated with Ottawa Impact asking the board to wait.

Commissioner-elect John Teeples of District 7 asked the board at its meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 12, to not hire a county administrator during their lame-duck session before the new board takes over.

"Please don't make an imprudent decision by hiring the wrong person as our next county administrator,” Teeples said at Tuesday’s meeting.

Why it matters

Thursday’s withdrawal wasn’t the first time Freed emailed the Ottawa commissioners. On Oct. 25, he emailed them saying the administrator search process through Grand Rapids-based W Talent Solutions was “legally dubious.”

Read More: Candidate for administrator calls Ottawa County's process 'legally dubious'

“The process your consultant tried to lay out was one that was legally dubious, ‘offsite meetings’ and ‘just oral presentations,’ and obviously designed to circumvent Michigan’s sunshine laws. I have no desire to take part in such evasive measures,” Freed wrote in the email.

“The process your consultant tried to lay out was one that was legally dubious, ‘offsite meetings’ and ‘just oral presentations,’ and obviously designed to circumvent Michigan’s Sunshine Laws. I have no desire to take part in such evasive measures,” Freed said.

He noted to commissioners that W Talent Solutions, “who has never conducted a search for a public position before,” required unusual criteria for candidates not typically used in municipal searches, such as a leadership/personality assessment and what he described as a “cognitive/IQ test.”

It was unclear during Freed’s interview Tuesday if he had completed the requirements the search firm laid out and the Ottawa committee didn’t address Freed’s complaints nor the search firm’s criteria during that meeting.

Freed’s disclosure of the $250,000 figure also is noteworthy, as it marks a nearly 20% increase in the compensation for the county administrator position (both Gibbs and Shay made $210,000 plus benefits annually).

What happens next

With Freed’s withdrawal, only Lower remains in consideration.

Lower, 35, served as an Ionia County commissioner from 2011 to 2012. At the time, he was one of the youngest elected officials at age 21.

In 2012, he unsuccessfully ran for Ionia County clerk; in 2013 he took a position as legislative director for the Michigan Senate. He served in that role for one year, then ran successfully for the 70th state House district, where he served for four years. Lower then became the director of strategy and operations for the Michigan House for two years.

Last year, he became the village manager for Sparta. He holds a master’s in business administration from Grand Valley State University.

Read the live feed from the interviews here.

The committee meeting was scheduled to meet Friday, Nov. 22, at the county administration building in Fillmore Township, however, that meeting was canceled Friday morning shortly after Freed’s press conference.

The search committee has a meeting scheduled for 9 a.m. Monday, Nov. 25, but it’s unclear if that will but used to advance Lower as the remaining finalist to the full board for consideration the following day.

The board of commissioners has just two meetings left on the calendar: Nov. 26 and Dec. 10. If the board opts to hire an administrator before the end of the year, state law limits them to offering only a one-year contract — a provision in the state statute that prevents outgoing boards from undermining incoming elected officials.

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Terms for county commissioners in Michigan also change at the beginning of the year, going from two years to four years. Ottawa Impact is set to lose its controlling majority at the end of this year.

— Contact Sarah Leach at SentinelLeach@gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter @SentinelLeach. Subscribe to her content at sentinelleach.substack.com.