St. Ignace City Manager Receives Satisfactory Evaluation From Council

St. Ignace City Manager Eric Dodson received an overall rating of satisfactory in his annual evaluation from Mayor Paul Grondin and all six council members during the Tuesday, September 8, city council meeting.

All council members and the mayor gave Mr. Dodson a satisfactory rating, and several gave additional comments and suggestions for improvement. A satisfactory rating is the highest among three options in the evaluation. The other two are "needs improvement" and "unsatisfactory."

Mr. Grondin said the manager's number one concern should be the financial status of the city.

"Obviously, that is a no brainer with the state in the finances it is in today, which affects every city in Michigan," he said. "To me, financial solvency of this city is very, very important. Otherwise, we can't provide the basic services we provide."

In addition to the overall ratings, council members made comments about Mr. Dodson's performance.

Mayor Pro-Tem Don Gustafson said Mr. Dodson could include more documentation when council members are being asked to make a decision on an issue and should focus on reducing city expenses.

"The final alternative of tax increase should only be considered as a last resort after other options are exhausted," Mr. Gustafson said, expressing his political view.

Council member Susan Tamlyn- Massaway said Mr. Dodson could improve in the grant-writing area.

"Grants are available for small communities and I think it is important to see those dollars," Mrs. Tamlyn-Massaway wrote in her evaluation. "In his interview, he was very readily talking about grants he had written for his prior position, and seems to not be doing here."

Council member William LaLonde said he is satisfied with Mr. Dodson’s performance and gave a few suggestions about areas that need improvement in the city.

“We do have some issues facing the city that we need to prioritize and hopefully find a way to get them done,” Mr. LaLonde said, “city streets, City Hall [improvements], empty stores downtown.”

Council members Merv Wyse, Tom Della-Moretta, and Paul Fullerton all gave Mr. Dodson a satisfactory rating for his performance in the past year, but offered no written comments on possible areas of improvement.

The instrument for evaluation was changed this year by Mr. Grondin. Changes included eliminating individual ratings on each section of the evaluation and focusing on choosing one of the three overall options.

Mr. Gustafson said since some of the sections are more critical to the success of the city than others, the old evaluation forms did not allow evaluators to properly weigh each section, creating inaccurate results. Instead of only giving two evaluative options like last year, satisfactory and unsatisfactory, the "needs improvement" option was also added this year.

Leading up to the evaluation process, Mr. Gustafson also encouraged council members to make comments on areas that need improvement, telling them, "He can't read our minds."

The evaluation included 10 categories on which to rate Mr. Dodson, including personal, professional skills, relations with elected members, policy execution, reporting, citizen relations, staffing, leadership/ supervision, fiscal management, and community.