GLADSTONE — The Gladstone City Commission has set a special meeting for 6 p.m. Monday to discuss terms for bringing Robert Spreitzer on as interim city manager.

Current City Manager Eric Buckman announced in September he would be retiring. Buckman began working with the city just shy of 40 years ago and moved from water department employee to department superintendent before being appointed as interim city manager multiple times, first in 2016. He has been the full-time manager for six years.

The city has sought to promote someone from within to fill the city manager role. A subcommittee of the City Commission, comprised of Mayor Joe Thompson and Commissioner Judy Akkala, was tasked with interviewing candidates. After considering Water Superintendent Spreitzer and Wastewater Superintendent Rodney Schwartz, they selected the former.

During the regular city commission meeting Nov. 10, the commission accepted the decision and directed the same subcommittee of Akkala and Thompson to negotiate a six-month interim city manager contract with Spreitzer. Since then, Buckman said he’s been “showing (Spreitzer) some of the ropes.”

But the contract and training agreement were not prepared in time for Monday’s regular meeting, requiring the the special meeting be set. As with regular meetings, the session will be public at City Hall.

The next regular Gladstone City Commission meeting Dec. 8 will be an organizational meeting and have the swearing-in of the newly elected commissioners — Whitney Maloney, elected to replace Commissioner Robert Pontius, and Thompson and Steve O’Driscoll, who will enter new terms.

Noting it was Pontius’s last regular meeting, other commissioners thanked him for his time and service, wishing him the best for his future. Commissioners Akkala and Barad Mantela said they hope to see him back in some capacity.

The Dec. 22 commission meeting that would fall the week of Christmas has been cancelled.

Other commission business Monday included:

— Approving the purchase of a new snow plow for an electric department truck. It will be an 8-foot plow for the department’s 2024 Ford F250 and will be purchased from Gary’s Collision Center in Escanaba for $11,523.28. Though the bid from Gary’s, one of three received, was about $1,000 more than the lowest bid, department head James Olson recommended the more local supplier for ease of installation and service. The other bidders were Honkala’s Service of Ishpeming and U.P. Off-Road & Performance of Negaunee.

— Hearing that outstanding utility fees owed to the City of Gladstone by a handful of property owners will be assessed onto winter property tax bills, a common practice.

— Amending a handful of contracts with Municipal Employees’ Retirement System, or MERS, for health care. There is no financial difference or change in coverage for city employees; the modifications were to clean up language, reclassify various departments and unions into certain divisions, and to eliminate divisions that had no people in them.