Saline MI
6-13-2025 10:42pm

City Manager Search Issue Could Come to a Head Monday

The controversial city manager search issue may come to a head Monday evening at the Saline City Council meeting.

At a special meeting of the city manager search committee Thursday, Mayor Brian Marl said he planned to forward candidates Dan Swallow and Jason Smith to the next round of interviews.

For reasons unexplained, the search committee met with the city attorney for a brief meeting Thursday. When the committee resumed public action, the committee unanimously voted to name Swallow, Jason Smith and Michael Trembly as the  finalists.

City council interviewed these four candidates weeks ago.

The controversy exists because many people, including city councillors and business owners downtown, expected Elle Colle, Acting City Manager since January, to be a finalist who would be interviewed.

Jill Durnen, owner of Hartman Insurance, spoke in support of Cole before the committee went into closed session Thursday.

Many in the community are confused by the committee's decision not to advance Cole through the process. Marl offered some reasoning after Thursday's meeting, saying that the four who were advanced were from a "good to great" selection of candidates who applied for the job, even though two of those finalists had no experience as a city manager.

The issue is a discussion issue on the agenda. Things to look for at Monday's meeting:

  • Will council make some effort to address Councillor Jenn Harmount's request to have the committee explain how they made its decision about the finalists?
  • Will someone offer an agenda item to interview Cole for the position? And if so, would that motion pass?
  • Will Marl motion to interview his favored candidates?

In addition, Saline City Council be discussing the report it commissioned on fire services. The city may make the report public to other communities in the fire assessment district.

On the consent agenda are proposed contracts for Deputy Police Chief Andrew Hartwig ($112,000) and Police Chief Marlene Radzik ($117,603)

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6-14-2025 9:30am

I am confused about two references in the article referring to the candidates to be put forth and to the potential motion at Monday's meeting as "Mayor Marl's" selected candidates.  These is a committee comprised of several members including members of City Council that was charged with and that did narrow the selection to the final candidates.  Therefore, they are the Committee's candidates.

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6-14-2025 9:43am

In the live interview following the closed session, Mayor Marl actually addressed the candidates as “his choices;” stating that council “agreed with him.” Tran did repeat those words back to Marl for clarification and Mark said it again. 

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6-25-2025 7:00am

So great, Libby, now we know who the Mayor supported and voted for. Another way to view that is transparency. The Mayor also pointed out that other members of the Committee also supported the same candidates (which is clear simply by the fact that these candidates moved forward as they would not have without majority vote). The implication in your statement is that every other member of the Committee who voted for these candidates was derelict in performing their duty to select the best candidate for the position and simply voted for these candidates because the Mayor (also) supported them. Surely you do not mean to state or believe that members of the Committee who also voted for these candidates failed the residents of Saline and failed to do their duty with integrity. If you do, that is not a problem with the Mayor, it is a problem with the other members of the Committee. 

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