Sumpter committee recommends McClary for administrator

On Monday, March 14, a second round of interviews for two finalists for the position of Sumpter Township Administrator had been scheduled, but instead the hiring committee considered references and newspaper articles and then took a vote.
Before the 5 p.m. meeting began, Clerk Esther Hurst was seated at the board table because she had been appointed to the committee by the township board and she intended to stay on the committee.
But, Supervisor Tim Bowman, another member of the committee said she should give up her seat on the committee to Trustee Tim Rush, who was the back-up member appointed by the board and sat in for Clerk Hurst at the first meeting of the board on this topic March 7 when she was absent.
Supervisor Bowman told Hurst it was “nothing personal,” but thought Trustee Rush should sit on the committee because he heard the interviews and would have more information. At that point, Rush was seated in the audience. Rush is also Bowman’s temporary deputy supervisor.
Committee members asked Public Safety Director/Police Chief Eric Luke, another committee member, what was the law on this and he replied he doesn’t know what the law says and his job is to follow the law.
Treasurer Vincent Warren, who was chairing the committee, called township attorney Rob Young and told him the committee wants to know what to do and if there were any legal ramifications.
After the call, Treasurer Warren reported that Young said this was an ad hoc committee with no set rules, but they should “go with Esther” or go back to the board to make the decision.
Trustee Rush said, “You guys should go ahead” since this position has been vacant so long.
A motion was unanimously passed to go on with the committee as appointed and then the meeting began.
Treasurer Warren said the committee members were there to discuss references and the initial committee vote on the two finalists was 234 points for Darwin McClary and 208 votes for Karen Armatis.
Rush said he contacted references listed for McClary and no one said anything negative about him. He said Armatis had submitted reference letters and he called two of the writers.
“There was nothing negative on either candidate,” Rush said.
Chief Luke asked if candidates weren’t going to be reinterviewed and Warren said they were just going to review the references and find out what compensation McClary wanted. Warren said the scoring was completed.
Clerk Hurst said she read the background checks and there was nothing to find for Armatis, but there were red flags for McClary. She said the chief did background checks and sent them to all the committee members.
Luke said he Googled the candidates as well, as any of them could do, but he sent no statements.
“Were they negative?” Bowman asked of the stories and Luke replied, “Not for me to say.”
Hurst said, “He doesn’t stay long at one place,” claiming the longest time was one and a half years.
“I want somebody who’s going to stay with us,” Hurst said and then asked her deputy Anthony Burdick to go to her desk and get the newspaper articles and bring them to the committee. She passed them on to Bowman.
“I checked everything in the articles,” said Rush. “His firings were all politics based,” explaining it was after a changing of the guard after elections and the same thing happened to Finance Director Scott Holtz in Sumpter. Holtz is back and was sitting on the hiring committee.
“Don’t you find it strange … all the firings?” Hurst said.
Rush said it was mutual consent and one and a half years was the shortest stay.
“I don’t really trust what I read in the media anymore,” he said.
Bowman said the board in Ypsilanti fired him for making the wrong choice.
“It would be nice to have a second interview to ask him questions,” Hurst said.
“I think we should vote,” Bowman said.
Warren asked Burdick to give them paper to write down their choices and Trustee Peggy Morgan in the audience asked if it was a secret.
“We can put our names on it,” Warren said with a smile.
Deputy Burdick tabulated the votes and announced there were three votes for McClary – Holtz, Warren, and Bowman – and two votes for Armatis – Hurst and Luke.
The committee voted unanimously to send its recommendation to the township board to be on the next agenda. Rush said after the board votes, Luke can do deeper background checks.