ESCANABA — Residents raised concerns over the way individuals are appointed to boards in the city Thursday after one business owner claimed she had been unfairly barred from joining the Escanaba Downtown Development Authority.

Kelly Van Ginhoven, owner of For The Love of Cupcakes on Ludington Street, spoke during the public comment period at Thursday’s city council meeting and claimed she had been applying for an open seat on the DDA since February. Despite asking the council for a reason for her application being denied, she said she had heard nothing from the council or mayor. The seat was filled by Patricia Baribeau on April 4.

According to Van Ginhoven, Baribeau told her she had been approached by Mayor Marc Tall and asked to apply for the position prior to her appointment to the DDA board, despite Van Ginhoven’s application being on file for an extended period of time.

“This in my opinion, not only undermined my opportunity but is unethical,” said Van Ginhoven.

The issue was rehashed at the Escanaba DDA meeting Thursday morning, but continued at the evening council meeting when Van Ginhoven and a handful of her supporters addressed the council.

“I have demanded answers and received none, if he wanted to spare my feelings email me, call me, speak to me in person, but I have received nothing regarding this … appointment. The manner in which these seats are appointed is wrong and needs to be changed so that what happened to me does not happen to anyone else,” said Van Ginhoven.

Until recently, all applications for board appointments were submitted to the city clerk, then forwarded to the mayor, and then distributed to the remainder of the council prior to a mayoral appointment. Within the last week, City Clerk Phil DeMay began sending applications to all members of the council at the same time.

“Of late, they’ve been coming to all five of us at once. Yes, at one point they would come to me and I’d send it out to everyone, but Phil is short-circuiting that and I’m fine with that,” said Tall.

Van Ginhoven told the council she had submitted a petition to the city clerk’s office requesting the council appoint a committee to investigate why she was denied appointment to the board and to see if the appointment made filling the position was done properly.

Discussion about the appointment process got heated when a few of Van Ginhoven’s supporters spoke out of order. One resident reminded Tall he is elected by the people and another compared him to Donald Trump. Tall regained control of the meeting by rapping his gavel.

“I’d like to apologize for being out of order, but I’d also like to state that Mr. Tall needs to learn some respect for his constituents,” said resident Leonard Peterson during the subsequent public comment period.

No decisions were made about appointing an investigative committee, but Mayor Pro Tem Ron Beauchamp expressed he would like to see candidates who are not chosen to fill board positions given notice.

“When someone is denied, I’d like to see a letter go out — something emailed giving some brief description as to why. Similarly, when someone is appointed, they should sent to them a letter in the mail,” he said.

Also during the meeting, the council set a public heating on the 2019-2020 fiscal year budget for May 2, set a public hearing for objections to street improvements on South 32nd Street for May 16, approved a small winemakers license for Bell’s Brewery, and went into closed session to discuss three ongoing legal disputes involving the city.