ESCANABA — After months of discussion about making the relationship with Interim City Manager Jim McNeil more permanent, the city council unanimously voted to hire McNeil as the city’s permanent city manager Thursday night.

“I’ll put my best foot forward and hope to make the citizens of Escanaba proud,” McNeil told the council Thursday.

The hire comes only a day after McNeil sat for a formal interview with the council. During the interview, which lasted over an hour, the council both praised his performance as the interim city manager and grilled him about his qualifications and dedication to the city.

“That is the most impressive resume I have ever read. Ever,” Council member Karen Moore told McNeil during his interview Wednesday.

McNeil, who is an Escanaba native, first started with the city in the summer of 2018 as in intern in the assessors office. In January of 2019, McNeil officially joined the city as assistant assessor, becoming the city’s lead assessor in September of the same year.

Maintaining his role as the city assessor, McNeil took over as the city’s interim city manager following the resignation of former City Manager Patrick Jordan last fall. While the council’s relationship with Jordan was strained prior to Jordan’s resignation, the council has often praised McNeil’s performance.

“Working with you directly since you’ve been put in this position — and even prior to that working with you as the city assessor — you have done a (good) job with communication. I think your communication skills have greatly improved from our previous experience, in my opinion, and I do appreciate the updates that you provide to us,” Council Member Tyler DuBord told McNeil during the interview.

It is expected that McNeil will continue to serve as the city’s assessor unless it is found that filling both positions would result in a conflict. City staff will be reaching out to the state attorney general’s office to make sure the joint position is not a violation of the Incompatible Public Offices Act.

While creating a joint position is something the council has advocated for in the past, the decision to stay on as an assessor was largely McNeil’s.

“I think being here every day I’ll still be able to do the high level work, the studies and be that resource,” said McNeil Wednesday, noting that serving in both rolls would save the city around $75,000 and would only be fair in light of the workloads other departments have been asked to make due to budget cuts.

McNeil’s hire Thursday hinges on the approval of a contract, which will be negotiated by the city’s human resources director and city controller with the assistance of Mayor Mark Ammel and Council Member Ron Beauchamp. The two council members were already on a contract committee as a result of a disagreement between the city and Jordan.

One of the key issues in the dispute between the city and Jordan was once again raised Thursday, as members of the council grappled with how long the term of McNeil’s contract should be. The council had previously attempted to get Jordan to agree to a new contract with both a shorter term and a drastic cut in pay than the one he was employed under, which allowed him to continue serving the city until it was decided he should be terminated.

“I think I should save everybody some time. I don’t intend to accept a term. I see it as the charter says, ‘an indefinite position.’ That’s the way it has historically been done,” said McNeil. “I don’t see the need for anything that would handcuff council in terms of a severance package that would be out of the ordinary. If removal was desired by council, I think there’s a process and it shouldn’t be an overly difficult process, but I do see it as indefinite and not tied to the terms of any individual council member.”

While there were no votes against McNeil’s hire, Beauchamp chastised some on the council for not pressing McNeil harder during the interview process.

“I am rather disappointed in this council. The majority of you did not ask him any questions. I do think you did him a disservice by doing that. A lot of people in the community, I’ve been told they feel he’s too young; too inexperienced,” said Beauchamp. “That is the reason I suggested we interview him, give him an opportunity to shine, and I do believe he did a fabulous job, but I am disappointed that more of you didn’t ask him questions and let him shine even more.”

Despite a contract not being officially signed, members of the council quickly dropped the “interim” designation when referring him throughout the rest of the meeting. In turn, McNeil addressed one of the other touchy subjects under Jordan’s leadership by recommending the city hire a new municipal attorney.

McNeil told the council he had spent the last two months searching for an attorney to replace Lisa Vogler, the hire made by Jordan who routinely attended meetings virtually but had occasionally made the trip to Escanaba to appear in person. McNeil’s search for a local attorney well-versed in municipal law who could attend all meetings in person was fruitless, as there are too few municipal attorneys in the Upper Peninsula and those that are available would have a difficult time clearing and conflicts of interest due to the size of the community.

Instead, McNeil suggested the council hire Laura Genovich of Foster Swift in Grand Rapids. Genovich has served as the city’s attorney on adult-use marijuana issues for some time, but has never attended a meeting in person.

“The previous city attorney we allowed to remote in rather than attending all of our city meetings. That was intended to be a stop-gap,” said Beauchamp, who said it was in the city’s charter that a city attorney must attend meetings.

Genovich, who attended virtually, said she was only aware of such a rule being part of the city’s code of ordinances and not the charter. Beauchamp disagreed, but focused more on what he saw as the rationale behind the rule.

“I simply feel that our charter — I believe our charter, whether you call it ‘ordinances,’ what have you — expects or prefers to have someone local with some ties, some understanding of what we’re facing on a regular basis rather than someone that’s hundreds of miles away and, forgive me, out of touch with what happens in the Upper Peninsula,” he said.

With no other current options and McNeil not just highlighting Genovich’s past performance but also the benefits of the city having access to the resources at Foster Swift, the board ultimately approved entering into an hourly agreement with Genovich for legal services.