What you need to know about the 5 finalists vying to be Ottawa County's next administrator

OTTAWA COUNTY — Ottawa County got its first look at its next potential permanent administrator, as it nears completion of its search process — its third in the past 12 months — with some familiar faces on the list of contenders.

The county released a list of five candidate finalists on Friday, Sept. 5, after the board of commissioners on Aug. 26 whittled a list of 58 applicants to their top five picks and two alternates, should up to two finalists drop out before the process is completed.

How we got here

The county quietly relaunched the search for its next permanent administrator on July 16 after a previous effort failed to produce more than one finalist to interview and the search firm hired by the county withdrew from its contract on June 19.

Read More: Ottawa board to jumpstart administrator search for third time, rescind controversial motto

Read More: Administrator search firm cuts ties after Ottawa County process stalls

In March, commissioners had selected Brighton-based Double Haul Solutions as their search firm, a move that came after the position was vacated for a fourth time in December 2024 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 promoted by the former far-right Ottawa Impact majority in October after previous interim administrator Jon Anderson resigned after he lost his bid for county sheriff in the August Republican primary.

Anderson, himself, replaced former permanent administrator John Gibbs, who was fired in late February 2023 after a falling out with the OI majority. 

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

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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 had been promoted from deputy administrator in March 2022.

The former OI majority attempted to fill the full-time position after Anderson resigned in October, and 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 already lost their Republican primaries in August and would term out at the end of 2024.

Ultimately, the process resulted in all candidates backing out. OI lost its majority at the end of 2024. The current composition of the board is a six-seat majority of traditional Republicans, four Ottawa Impact Republicans and one Democrat.

Read More: Ottawa County administrator search in jeopardy after all but one candidate drops out

Meet the finalists

On Tuesday, August 26, 2025, the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners met to identify finalists in its search for a new County Administrator. 

On Monday, Sept. 8, a workgroup of community stakeholders hosted a public interview workshop. The group, which will not actively deliberate on the finalists, is composed of community stakeholders around the county, including current and former elected officials and municipal professionals and community partners. 

The five finalists are:

Paul Sachs: Sachs is the director of Strategic Impact for Ottawa County, having previously served as the department’s assistant director, management analyst and land-use planner.

Prior to that, he was the executive director of ACRE AgTech, a Michigan-based entrepreneurial support organization. 

He has a bachelor of science degree in geological and earth sciences/geosciences from Western Michigan University. 

Sachs’ office works to help the county improve organizational performance and maximize the use of financial resources, increasing economic development, and protecting and improving the quality of life for residents.

This is not the first time Sachs has been considered for the role. He was on the list of finalists in April 2024 when the seven OI commissioners who were then on the board leveraged their majority to hire Anderson.

When asked to describe his leadership style during the Monday interviews, Sachs said he is a “relationship builder.”

“I find it to be an ideal characteristic to move initiatives forward that are important, especially at a county-wide level,” he said. “My leadership style is to listen and to support and advise, offer the strategic higher-level thinking, if you will, and motivate. When you have the right relationships, build the right trust and you listen and support the right way, you can navigate a lot of obstacles and challenges. 

“You can't do that independently. You need to work with people and collectively find that path to the board [of commissioners] that benefits all of us.”

Matthew Farrar: Farrar currently serves as the deputy administrator of Muskegon County, previously serving as the director of that county’s Public Works department. He has been with Muskegon County since 2016. 

Farrar, who holds a master of business administration in finance management from Baker College and a doctorate in public administration from Northcentral University, a California-based online program. He also served in the U.S. Air Force.

Farrar recently was instrumental in a massive infrastructure project currently underway in Muskegon and Ottawa counties.

The $72 million project, known as the Southeast Regional Force Main, connects Coopersville's strained sewer system to Muskegon County’s vast, underutilized wastewater treatment facilities, creating a pathway for future industrial expansion.

Farrar, as a member of the Muskegon County Wastewater Committee — along with his public works experience — negotiated all development agreements with businesses who will connect to the 20-mile pipeline, worked with state representatives, lobbyists from the region and many others to gain initial funding for the project. The project is set to be completed in 2026.

When asked about his understanding of Ottawa County and its values, he said he thinks he has “a pretty clear understanding” of the county to the south.

“I hear from business people all the time, it’s easy to do stuff here in Ottawa County. … Ottawa County is really good at supporting our business community, and that increases your tax base. It reduces crime, it keeps us going. … I think everything else is better because of it,” he said.

This is the second time a Muskegon County administrator has been considered for the next Ottawa County administrator. In the county’s first search earlier this year, Muskegon County Administrator Mark Eisenbarth was announced as a finalist for Ottawa County. 

Shortly after his name was released, however, Eisenbarth withdrew from consideration. No reason was given; however, the Muskegon County Board of Commissioners held a special meeting shortly after his Ottawa candidacy was announced to discuss revising his contract to "entice him to stay" and to raise his pay "a little bit," according to Muskegon County's website.

Kurt Dykstra: A Wisconsin native, Dykstra might be familiar to Holland-area residents, as he served as the city’s 31st mayor, serving in the role from 2009 to 2015, when he left Michigan to become Illinois-based Trinity Christian College’s 10th president.

He served in that role until 2022 and briefly served as the president and CEO of Independent Colleges of Indiana, a group that represents Indiana's 29 private, nonprofit colleges and universities. 

He rejoined Milwaukee law firm Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren in 2024, where he started his career as an attorney 20 years after graduating from law school at Milwaukee-based Marquette University. The firm provides legal counsel to businesses and organizations in the areas of dispute resolution, litigation regulatory compliance and organizational governance. He received his bachelor’s degree from Northwestern College in Iowa.  

Other roles Dykstra has listed among his credentials include a senior executive in a Michigan regional bank, serving as a judicial law clerk at the Wisconsin Supreme Court and lecturing on legal, educational, and public policy topics. He also serves as a major in the U.S. Army Reserves as a civil affairs officer.

When asked why he applied for this position, Dykstra said it “feels like home.”

“We've been engaged in the community — more maybe in the southern end of Ottawa County. Over the course of our time, our children are here. My in-laws are here. … Dovetailing that with this position and this institution is a place that matters,” he said. 

“I get to help clients figure things out in higher education spaces, some government spaces. But at the same time, caring about places is really important. Caring deeply about places that shape us is pretty important. So I've always been a believer in, if opportunity is there, you try and seize it, and the opportunity presented itself.” 

Patrick Waterman: Waterman also might be a familiar name for those who have followed Ottawa County in the news over the past two years.

Waterman was hired as Ottawa County’s deputy administrator in November 2022, shortly before OI assumed its majority on the board of commissioners in January 2023. 

Waterman resigned unexpectedly in July 2023; in a letter to department heads explaining the decision, he cited a strained working relationship with then-new administrator Gibbs.

"Despite my best efforts, I have been unable to establish an effective working relationship with Mr. Gibbs over the past seven months. I do not feel as though my experience and abilities are valued or utilized by the current administration, and have come to the decision that it is time to move on,” Waterman said when he resigned.

He was quickly hired as deputy city manager for the City of Wyoming in Kent County, following his previous boss, Shay, who now serves as Wyoming’s city manager.

Waterman served a key role in OI’s pursuit to fire Ottawa County Health Officer Adeline Hambley, who sued the board in February 2023 for overstepping its state authority when the majority tried to demote her, then fire her.

In a dramatic hearing in October 2024, Waterman — who was subpoenaed to testify — said he was present during the 2023 hiring process for an executive aide position and expressed concerns about Gibbs’ choice of Jordan Epperson because of "certain behaviors" he showed during his interviews, including vocal “support for Ottawa Impact.

That testimony, which included Waterman’s account of Gibbs overriding the selection committee’s choice of an older, more qualified candidate to hire Epperson, ultimately led to a lawsuit against the county for age discrimination. The plaintiff in that lawsuit, Ryan Kimball, agreed to a settlement with the county in December 2024 for $250,000. Hambley also settled with the county in February 2024, with the county paying her legal fees that totaled more than $188,000 and her remaining in her position.

When asked why he wanted to return to Ottawa County, Waterman said he never wanted to leave.

“To be clear, I did not want to leave. I loved it here. I loved the organization. I loved the people. I loved the projects we were working on. I love the career growth that I was creating for myself, because county government was new to me, and it was a whole ’nother animal. And I really enjoyed that.

“Unfortunately, the circumstances were such that I could not effectively work in that organization,” he said. “I tried, despite my best efforts, to stay on and be very loyal. I ultimately felt that it was doing a disservice to the organization and to our taxpayers to stay here without being put effectively in my job. So that's why I left [but] that does not mean that I quit paying attention to what's happening here, and have a very, very vested interest in seeing things get better.”

Waterman said he didn’t apply for the position in previous rounds, but now felt like the right time.

“This last round, my family and I were on vacation and talked to my wife about it at length, and prayed about it, and … I don't know what changed, but I felt called this time to apply for the position,” he said. “Once I got through that, now it's just excitement. I thought about how I could help here; I thought this was the right decision.”

Chris Kukulski: A Michigan native — he grew up in Livingston County’s Deerfield Township — Kukulski has served as the city administrator of Billings, Montana, since 2018.

Kukulski began his foray into government work when he worked as an economic development specialist in Calhoun County’s City of Marshall. He then served as village manager in Hillsdale County’s Jonesville from 1996 to 1999 before relocating to Kalispell, Montana, to be that city’s manager for five years.

Kukulski then went to Bozeman, Montana, to work as that city’s manager for over a decade; he then moved into business development briefly before rejoining civil service in Billings in 2018.

Kukulski attended Western Michigan University and holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master of public administration from the university.

When asked what drew him to the job, Kukulski said he has always had a passion for politics and government. He said prior to falling in love with the Rocky Mountains, he aspired to work as a city manager on Lake Michigan.

“Everyone else in our family lives in Michigan: my parents, [my wife’s] parents, my brothers, sisters, my daughter and son-in-law are in school here and so we have been determined to get back to Michigan,” he said. 

He said he and his wife recently became empty nesters, sending off their youngest of three daughters to college this fall.

“We're just in a very different phase of life now,” he said. 

What happens next

The community work group will provide feedback to the board of commissioners, which ultimately will select which of the finalists is the best fit for the next county administrator.

The county board of commissioners will conduct its own in-person interviews with the finalists at 9 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 10, in the board room of the county administration building at the Fillmore Complex, 12220 Fillmore St., West Olive. 

The interviews will be live-streamed. If additional time is needed for deliberations or follow-up conversations are warranted, a second meeting will be scheduled, the county said on Friday.

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