Tecumseh City Council chooses Coker as next city manager

Brett Coker

By DAVID PANIAN

davidp@tecumsehherald.com

TECUMSEH — City council members opted Monday to promote from within to fill the coming vacancy in Tecumseh’s city manager position.

The council voted 6-1 to begin negotiating a contract with Brett Coker to succeed Dan Swallow as city manager. Swallow is leaving Tecumseh to become city manager in Saline. The city council there approved a contract with Swallow at its Aug. 4 meeting.

Coker has been Tecumseh’s assistant city manager for three years and also is the city’s police chief, a position he had held since 2019. He joined the police department in 2014 and previously worked in Raisin Township, Huron Township and Ypsilanti.

Coker has a bachelor’s degree in public safety administration from Eastern Michigan University and has graduate certificates as a certified public manager from Saginaw Valley State University and from EMU’s School of Staff and Command, Swallow said. He also has been directly in charge of the police, fire, public works and cemetery departments since January 2023 and has worked with the economic development department on several projects.

The city manager is the chief executive of the city administration. The manager oversees the day-to-day operations of the city government. The position is one of two, along with city attorney, that is hired directly by the city council.

Mayor Brian Radant, Mayor Pro Tem Katie Mattison and City Attorney David Lacasse will negotiate the contract with Coker.

Council Member Ron Wimple was the only “no” vote. He said he would have liked to have done a search to see who else might apply and to not quickly react to Swallow’s departure.

“I think we need to plan instead of react, and a quick decision may not be the best decision tonight,” Wimple said. “I don’t think we need to go on a nationwide search, but at least the tri-state area would be something I would be willing to support.”

During the first public comment portion of the meeting, former Mayor Jack Baker recounted the history of the assistant city manager position in Tecumseh in offering his endorsement of Coker to be city manager. When he was first elected to the city council in 1990, Baker said, the city had a full-time Assistant City Manager, Mark Vanderpool, who left Tecumseh in 1993 to be assistant village manager in Skokie, Illinois. Vanderpool has been city manager in Sterling Heights since 2004.

When Tecumseh hired Frank Crosby as city manager in 1994, Baker said, Crosby decided he didn’t want to have an assistant manager. Crosby’s successor, Kevin Welch, also declined to have an assistant manager. When Tecumseh hired Swallow, Baker said, he didn’t push for Swallow to have an assistant manager. About three years ago, he thought the city should have someone on staff who could fill the assistant city manager position in a partial capacity to bring them along to see if that position was something they wanted to do. Coker offered to fill that position.

Six of the current council members, with the exception of Mattison who was not on the council at the time, agreed with Swallow’s recommendation to add the assistant city manager role to Coker’s responsibilities as police chief.

Along with Baker, Radant and Mattison, Planning Commission Chairman Bob Fox and Council Member Brent Gnodtke also voiced their support for promoting Coker to city manager, citing the respect the police officers have for him and how well he has filled in for Swallow when he had extended absences for health reasons.

Mattison said she had been on the fence about promoting Coker.

“Mr. Coker could attest that he and I met this morning, and I grilled him,” she said. “We met for about two hours, to be fair, and I held my own interview, if you will, and have lots of notes from that meeting. I think that Mr. Coker is an amazing asset to our current facilities and our community. From our meeting, I can see the passion in his vision for our future, and I can see how he’s brought a lot of amazing things to his tenure so far.”

Radant said he watched all of Saline’s city manager interviews, which were livestreamed and recorded. He said unlike a search process where the council would perhaps get to spend an eight-hour day with each candidate and ask them 14 or 15 questions during an interview, Coker has been on a three-year interview.

“That is the longest interview that anyone in this city has been on,” Radant said. “…If anybody doubts that, I will challenge it tooth and nail, because everything that he has done has been outstanding. It was his position to lose. We don’t hand out promotions. That’s the last thing that we do. What we do is we set people up for success, and it’s up to them if they decide to fail, and Assistant Manager Coker has not done that.…

“I will go into battle with someone I have got some time with and went through some challenges versus somebody that might have a long list of qualifications, and I mean that in the politest way possible. That is just the way that I think.”

One city resident spoke in favor of doing a search for a new city manager. Lisa Hart said the council should follow its past practice of doing a search for its city managers. She said someone from outside the city could bring ideas that could make Tecumseh even better than it is.

Hart also is on the Tecumseh District Library’s board. She said the library board recently did a search to hire its new director.

“It was quite a process, so I know it’s not an easy thing to do,” she said.

By at least collecting applications, Hart said, the council could see what other applicants might be interested.

“If Mr. Coker applies and you look at other candidates, then you have an opportunity to say, yes, he is the right person for this job,” she said.