Story summary

• The Ottawa County Board of Commissioners is seeking its next administrator — it's fifth in three years.
• On Friday, the county released the names of three finalists in the search, but two have since dropped out.
• On Wednesday, June 11, Board Chair John Teeples said the board would continue with the remaining candidate's interview as planned on Thursday, however, it's possible for the board to go back to a broader list of finalists to consider.

OTTAWA COUNTY — Ottawa County might need to go back to the drawing board after all but one finalist dropped out of the search process for the next administrator Tuesday night.

The board of commissioners is seeking its next administrator — it's fifth in three years. The board, now six months into a new four-year term, has set the identification of the new administrator as their top goal of 2025.  

On Friday, June 6, the county announced the top three finalists, based on search firm Double Haul Solutions' recommendations, although that list came after conflicts between the current moderate Republican majority and the far-right Ottawa Impact minority. 

By Tuesday, June 10, only one remained to go through the public interview process.

How we got here

In March, commissioners selected Brighton-based Double Haul Solutions as their search firm for the permanent administrator role.

The decision came after the position was vacated for a fourth time in December after interim administrator Ben Wetmore was given a severance agreement by the previous board — which has since been challenged in court.

Wetmore, who began his short-lived stint as deputy county administrator in November 2023, was appointed by the OI majority in October after previous interim administrator Jon Anderson resigned — for the second time in two months — after he lost the Republican primary race for county sheriff. Wetmore was selected without a formal search process.

Anderson, himself, replaced former permanent administrator John Gibbs, who was fired in late February 2023 after a falling out with the OI majority. Anderson was selected without a formal search process.

Gibbs sued and later settled with the county for $190,000. 

Gibbs replaced previous permanent administrator John Shay, who the OI-led board abruptly fired on Jan. 3, 2023, the day they were sworn in. Shay was promoted from deputy administrator in March 2022.

How the processes differ

The former Ottawa Impact majority attempted to fill the full-time position after Anderson resigned, and while Wetmore served as interim. 

The process, however, faced scrutiny after former board Chair Joe Moss hand-picked the search firm without a formal process and created an executive search committee composed of five OI commissioners, two of whom had lost their Republican primaries in August.

The decision to launch a search for a new permanent administrator just 90 days before OI lost its majority didn’t land well with other commissioners.

Commissioner Jacob Bonnema, who initially was aligned with OI during the 2022 campaign season but publicly split from the group in March 2023, asked Moss and other OI commissioners in early November not to move forward with the process, saying it would disenfranchise the incoming traditional Republican majority.

“I formally request that no final decisions or offers regarding this position be made until the new board is seated in 46 days,” Bonnema said in a Nov. 17 email. “We currently have an interim in place, offering us the luxury of time. Rushing this decision could undermine your standing with the incoming majority.”

Just days after Bonnema voiced his opposition, the search process halted entirely after the top two finalists dropped out just days apart, prompting Moss and his fellow OI commissioners to claim at least one candidate was intimidated.

Commissioner Allison Miedema claimed that then-Commissioner-elect John Teeples and Bonnema, who was re-elected in November, “intimidated” Lower into dropping out.

“He began receiving intimidating phone calls from John Teeples and Jacob Bonnema,” Miedema said.

Teeples said he never intimidated the finalist and that the finalist initiated the communication — not the other way around.

“He was looking for assurance that we would not have another recruiting process if he did a good job over the next 12 months,” Teeples said. “I told him that I personally could not support that because the public needed to see a process of transparency similar to what was done when the board interviewed and hired John Shay” in 2022.

Bonnema said the OI-led board only had itself to blame for the failed search at the end of the year.

“The Ottawa County administrator process has been rushed, frantic and flawed before it was even announced. The current OI majority has been eager to ‘own’ the process, but not the mistakes they made which brought us to this position,” Bonnema said in a November statement. “They chose to exclude re-elected commissioners and act in opposition to the clearly stated wishes of the incoming board majority.”

“This lame duck commission hired an inexperienced agency to run a search they couldn’t support, for a job that could not provide stability or longevity for the candidates. As a result, there are no candidates remaining.”

Tension on the board over the search

The four OI commissioners who remain on the board — Sylvia Rhodea, Allison Miedema, Kendra Wenzel and Moss — attempted to delay the current search process at a special meeting Wednesday.

The meeting had been intended for the board to go into closed session to allow commissioners to speak freely about which candidates they preferred and to compile a short list of finalists to interview, but before that vote could take place, the meeting quickly devolved into personal attacks.

Moss said he needed “more time to prepare,” a sentiment echoed by the other OI members, and made a motion to adjourn the meeting. That prompted a rebuke from Teeples.

“The last couple of weeks, we've been talking about a schedule, a plan. In fact, Joe, you contacted me last Thursday, asking that the county provide the packets 48 hours or so in advance. After talking to you, I laid out a schedule that I thought would work,” Teeples said Wednesday. “You thought Monday was appropriate to get them out. You thought that the dates and everything worked through was a reasonable and transparent plan.”

After comments from Wenzel about some candidates being Democrats and from Moss on candidates' spouses' political activity, Teeples said the business of the county was to further the candidate selection process and not to make a decision that day.

He emphasized that it wasn’t appropriate to discuss the candidates in detail without going into closed session.

“We're not here to discuss the candidates at this point,” Teeples said. “We understand that your assessment of your need for research, and you're asking for additional time, right? The rest of us have done our research, and we feel comfortable to move ahead. So the specifics of the candidates are not what we're here to do.

“I felt the purpose of today's meeting was to discuss these candidates as a group, and we're not making a final decision,” said Commissioner Jim Barry. “We all have this opportunity for us to share our perspectives on these candidates and to get this down to a manageable group that we're going to eventually ask to come in for one-on-one meetings and in-person interviews. I view this as part of a consultative process, not the decision process.”

Despite championing the hire of three administrators without public searches during his time as chair, Moss said the board has an obligation to promote transparency.

“What is the principle that we're trying to look for? And one of the principles I think of is government information should be public and transparent,” Moss said. “When the board is looking at one of the most important decisions of this term, I ask where do we place the priority? Do we keep the names of people who applied to lead Ottawa County secret? Do we keep it hidden, or do we let the public know?”

He pointed to the one search process the OI-led board conducted in September 2024, lauding it as an example of how to do it right, despite the outcome not yielding a new administrator. 

“We went through a highly transparent process where all of the applicants were put into the packet and done publicly last year. And it went, it went pretty well up until the end, right?” Moss said. “I preferred the balance of transparency, and one of the reasons is because we got information and comments from the community. So one thing that I'm definitely concerned about is not having comments or input from people outside this board. … I wonder why it has to be done in secret, and it gives me concern that without the transparency, we will make the wrong decision.”

“I'm surprised if you actually believe that,” Teeples said, “because you cannot gather a quality pool of candidates if they don't have the opportunity to inquire about an opening knowing that we're not going to disrupt their life unless it gets to the point that they be considered a finalist.”

Which candidates move forward?

Ultimately, the board voted to advance the top five candidates recommended by Double Haul to the finalist, in-person interview phase in a 7-4 vote, with all the OI commissioners opposing.

Moss attempted to amend the motion to include the top 12, then a curated list of his preferred seven candidates — both failed.

Moss complained that Double Haul’s top recommendations didn’t necessarily line up with what he valued in a candidate.

“There are some in here, in this list that, outside the top five, that I really like, and one of the top five wanted internal equity audits for Ottawa County. And I don't think we need equity audits. So I think it would be unfair to, in my view, to forward that person.”

“Seems like a great discussion to be had in closed session,” Jorritsma quipped.

The board finally ended the 5.5-hour meeting with advancing the top five recommended candidates from Double Haul.

On Friday, the county released the names of three finalists in the search, after two in Double Haul’s top five withdrew upon advancing to the finalist stage.

“These finalists reflect a diversity of backgrounds and leadership styles,” Teeples said in a Friday news release. “We’re committed to finding a leader who can build relationships across our organization and community, support our staff, and help guide Ottawa County into its next chapter of service.”

The candidates:

• Mark Eisenbarth: Eisenbarth brings nearly two decades of public service experience, currently serving as county administrator for Muskegon County. His leadership has focused on financial stewardship, strategic planning and public-private partnerships. During his tenure, Muskegon County’s unassigned fund balance rose from 14% to 27%, and he helped secure more than $85 million in competitive grant funding — including collaborations with Ottawa County. He also oversaw initiatives that resulted in over $1 billion in community investment and has successfully negotiated multiple collective bargaining agreements.
• Glen Salyer: Salyer currently serves as deputy county administrator for Lee County, Florida, where he helps manage a 2,900-employee government with a $733 million operating budget. He led the creation of LeeCARES, a $134 million COVID-relief initiative, and has managed $1.2 billion in hurricane recovery efforts and a $149 million ARPA Recovery and Resilience Plan. His experience spans legislative policy, economic development, public health infrastructure, and municipal coordination, with over 20 years in local government.
• Michael Tremblay: Tremblay is a retiring U.S. Army officer and two-time Brigade Commander with over 20 years of executive leadership. He served as city manager (Garrison Commander) of USAG Humphreys in South Korea, overseeing a $1.1 billion capital-improvement budget and leading one of the largest infrastructure transformations in the region. Tremblay has deep experience in workforce development, municipal operations, crisis response, and strategic planning. His background also includes managing a $214 million operating budget and leading a team of over 2,400 employees across 280 locations.

What's happening now

At Tuesday's Finance and Administration Committee meeting, interim administrator and retired county sheriff Gary Rosema informed commissioners that Salyer had dropped out of the search process as well.

Rosema did not cite a reason.

That set up a finalist pool between Eisenbarth and Tremblay, however, Eisenbarth also dropped out as of Tuesday evening.

No reason was given, however, the Muskegon County Board of Commissioners held a special meeting to discuss revising his contract to "entice him to stay" and to raise his pay "a little bit," according to the county's video meeting.

The revision, which was approved unanimously in a 6-0 vote, renews Eisenbarth's three-year contract, despite being in the second year of his previous contract, and includes a termination provision of 120 days from either side.

Eisenbarth made $191,222.72 as of 2023, according to the salary database OpenPayrolls. Ottawa County's last permanent administrator, John Gibbs, made a salary of $210,000.

Meanwhile, the citizen committee that was set to interview finalists on Wednesday was cancelled due to only having one viable candidate.

At the June 4 meeting, Teeples asked for those interviews to be open to the public.

At 9 a.m. Thursday, June 12, the board will conduct an in-person interview with Tremblay, the remaining finalist, at a public meeting in the board room of the county's Fillmore Complex in West Olive.

Tremblay, however, is one of four finalists in another Double Haul Solutions-led search in Washtenaw County's city of Saline.

Tremblay interviewed with the city on May 21. As of Saturday, June 7, The Sun Times News reported that he was still being considered.

On Wednesday, June 11, Teeples said the board would continue with Tremblay's interview as planned.

"We will interview the candidate and we'll see where that takes us," Teeples told ONN. "So where we go from there ... if he doesn't get voted in ... that's still up in the air."

On the question of whether having one candidate could compromise the process of identifying the county's next administrator, Teeples said it's important to be open to unexpected outcomes.

"It's always a fluid issue," he said.

One thing Teeples stressed is that if the current process doesn't yield a new permanent administrator, his Ottawa Impact peers are not to blame.

"I hope to avoid any more conflict with too much of this stuff, but I'll be honest with you, I think one of the four candidates sounds like he backed away because of what he saw at the board meeting last week. The other three had other reasons that had nothing to do with Ottawa Impact," Teeples said.

As to Eisenbarth, who appeared to be a favorite, Teeples said he understands why Muskegon County worked hard to retain him.

"It was just too hard for him to say no to the people up there," Teeples said. "He's a relationship kind of guy. And they made it really difficult for him to look at their face, and say, 'I'm moving on.'"

Teeples said serving in the role of chair has brought many challenges, some expected, but many unexpected.

"A goal of mine has always been to try to unite the community and get the conflict and divisiveness to end," he said. "And I know it's easy right now to point fingers — 'you caused this, or you did that, or we won this.' And I think that's the wrong answer for everybody, and that's what I'm trying to work toward. But obviously it's not easy, but maybe this is the lesson for all of us."

If the search process must continue, Teeples said he thinks there were other qualified candidates who could be considered as a good fit for the county.

"I had 10 candidates, any one of which I could have supported," Teeples said. "That's how good this pool of candidates were. In my book, there's still a lot of room in that candidate pool if those folks are still interested, including someone that backed away. So there's a lot of opportunity there, but whether we go back to that well or not, I don't know."

In the end, if the search must continue, start over or be delayed, Teeples said he's confident in current staff leadership to keep the county moving forward.

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"We'll be fine," he said. "I didn't lose any sleep last night, and there were times I have lost a lot of sleep over the last several months, but last night was not one.

"One thing I've learned in this whole process is you take every day, every step at a time, and when you start to get ahead of yourself, you get yourself anxious, and you make impulsive decisions. You just have to be methodical and patient — not reactive," Teeples said.

Once a final candidate is identified, Double Haul Solutions will coordinate a comprehensive background check and assist the board of commissioners with contract negotiations and onboarding support, if requested, according to the county’s news release.

“This next phase is about learning more about each finalist as a person — not just a resume,” Teeples said. “We’re looking for someone who can lead with steadiness, communicate with intention, and navigate complexity with professionalism and care.”

— Sarah Leach is the executive editor of the Ottawa News Network. Contact her at sleach@ottawanewsnetwork.org. Follow her on Twitter @ONNLeach.