Trustees to Talk about Administrator Vacancy

Mount Pleasant trustees are scheduled to meet in closed session Wednesday for what the agenda lists as "Village Administrator Interviews."

Trustee John Hewitt told Patch over the weekend there's a previous applicant who remains interested in the position.

"My understanding is that there may be a person who applied previously and wants to come back for consideration," he said.

All board members were given packets in preparation for the meeting, but Hewitt said he'd not yet reviewed the materials.

Police Chief Tim Zarzecki has been pulling double duty as the interim administrator since Feb. 15.

After unanimously approving Zarzecki's appointment, trustees agreed to keep accepting applications for the position even though they were not going to continue an active search.

Trustee Gary Feest said it's appropriate for Village President Mark Gleason to call a board meeting, but he believes possibly interviewing a candidate for the top civilian job in the village should have been addressed in an open session board meeting.

"If we're going to be transparent, in my opinion, then this is a topic that should have been on a meeting agenda," he said. "This meeting came as a complete surprise."

The village has been without an administrator since May 2011, when the board voted to fire former Administrator Mike Andreasen. He later passed away from a sudden heart attack on June 1.

Since Andreasen's ousting, Mount Pleasant has used a variety of solutions to provide leadership including a management team made up the former village clerk and president and Planning Director Ron Meyer; appointing Meyer as the sole interim administrator; and asking recruiter Mark Morien to help straighten out some issues only to re-appoint Meyer when Morien resigned last September.

Patch tried to reach Gleason over the weekend, but we've not heard back from him yet. We will update this story after we speak to him.