City manager role gives Coker new opportunity to serve Tecumseh

Brett Coker, Tecumseh’s new city manager, outside Tecumseh City Hall. He has worked for the city since 2014, including as police chief since 2019 and assistant city manager since 2023.

By David Panian

TECUMSEH — About four years ago, Brett Coker started to think about taking his career beyond law enforcement.

Earlier this month, Coker’s career took a big step forward when he became Tecumseh’s city manager.

Coker became chief of Tecumseh’s police department in 2019. He joined the department in 2014 following stints in Ypsilanti, Huron Township and Raisin Township in a law enforcement career that began in 1998. By 2021, he was thinking he had more to offer in public administration.

In 2022, the city council and then-city manager Dan Swallow created an assistant city manager role, which appealed to Coker. The council approved him taking on that role along with being police chief in January 2023. He’s also earned a graduate certificate as a certified public manager from Saginaw Valley State University to go with his bachelor’s degree in public safety administration from Eastern Michigan University. He also is a graduate of EMU’s School of Staff and Command.

“The initiation of that position was very beneficial for my growth and what I wanted to help accomplish,” Coker, 52, said in an interview just over a week after he officially became Tecumseh’s city manager. “…I was ready for new challenges, new opportunities — wanting to remain with the city, obviously, but definitely move on to new experiences and challenges.”

Coker was the council’s choice to succeed Swallow when he accepted the city manager position in Saline in August. The council members approved a contract with Coker on Sept. 2, and Coker’s first day as Tecumseh’s city manager was Sept. 5.

The city manager is the top administrator who oversees the day-to-day operations of the city government.

Problem-solving, responsibility and service to the community are all aspects of being city manager that appeal to Coker.

“It just all appeals to me to be able to assist in all the different aspects of the city government — support all the department heads, support all the departments and employees, and provide the best service that we can and have a wonderful community like we have now,” he said.

As assistant city manager, Coker said, he was able to gain a fuller appreciation of everything the other city departments do beyond their regular job descriptions. He had oversight of the police, fire, public works, utilities and cemetery departments.

“For instance, and it’s just one example of many, but the Appleumpkin Festival is coming up, and the utilities department is tasked with moving tables and chairs around and getting them in the proper locations on the Friday before,” Coker said. “And they also distribute the straw bales that are placed around town both for decoration and for being placed on top of the barricade legs. Stuff like that: It’s done, it’s there, and people don’t realize how that happened, or even think about how that happened.”

Coker also was in charge when the city experienced a water supply problem this past January that led to a boil-water advisory. Swallow was out on a medical leave then, so he worked with the economic development and utilities departments to develop a campaign to get the information out to the public.

Another time when Coker had to interact with the public in a potentially difficult situation was during a Black Lives Matter protest in the summer of 2020.

“I actually went out in uniform and walked amongst the crowd and talked to whoever was willing to talk to me about their concerns and their issues,” he said. “I think that went really well. Actually, there’s a lot of good conversations I had from that day.”

He also had to prepare for the possibility of conflict during the demonstration.

“We had heard that there were counter-protesters coming in from the west side of the state. … So I did set up an action response plan,” he said.

That plan included having the entire Tecumseh Police Department on duty that day along with assistance from the Raisin Township and Clinton police, Michigan State Police and Lenawee County Sheriff’s Office just in case something happened, but nothing materialized.

His experience in law enforcement, where it is sometimes necessary to make critical decisions in stressful situations, has helped prepare him to be city manager, Coker said.

“That has helped me to better handle city management critical issues or stressful situations, because you actually have more time,” he said. “Most of the time it’s not a life-or-death situation, so you have a little more time to actually think through and be more analytical in your decision-making.”

Coker expects he’ll let his police officer certification lapse. He said the work requirements, which would require him to work part-time as an officer for another department, will be too difficult to maintain while working full-time as city manager.

While Coker and the city council have not yet set goals for him, he said he wants to continue the fiscal management, infrastructure management and capital projects planning the city had under Swallow. Keeping up with maintenance helps the city’s finances.

“Maintenance is much cheaper than if you let things go and you have a failure and a large infrastructure project that’s going to cost a lot more money,” he said.

Short-term challenges include staying on top of how much projects might cost.

“Construction costs and materials cost is going to be a challenge. It already is challenging,” he said. “Services and goods and projects are coming in higher than the previous years, so that’s definitely a challenge.”

There are opportunities for improvement within the city, Coker said. The city administration will continue working with Lenawee County on redeveloping the Tecumseh Products Co. property along East Patterson Street, another building is planned in the Business & Technology Campus, and a housing development is in the works along Red Mill Pond off Bishop Reed Drive.

“There’s definitely opportunities we want to maintain,” he said. “I think economic development and their team has done a fantastic job with all the events downtown and, in speaking with them in recent weeks, they have new ideas on how to refresh events and keep them new and even expand. So I think that’s fantastic.”