By JOHN EBY

Edwardsburg Argus

CASSOPOLIS — After tinkering for almost two hours Thursday, Aug. 26 with a revised version of Terry Proctor’s contract, Cass County commissioners finally arrived at the meat of the matter.

Taking 11 applicants, reducing the field to five for phone interviews and selecting three for county visits, why have those visits been scrapped?

The immediacy and innuendo of the Internet have never been a factor in two previous administrator/controller searches, the most recent two decades ago.

A couple commissioners felt the process has been done in by “rumor” and thought it should be followed to its conclusion despite allegations that one candidate had assaulted his spouse and another as a village administrator in Illinois came under scrutiny by the Chicago Tribune for assigning himself 10 job titles and associated salaries to collect a state-high pension of $252,89 and a $472,255 pay package before retiring.

His accumulation of 435 days of vacation, personal and sick days had Cass commissioners combing through the potential contract drawn up by a committee chaired by Commissioner Charlie Arnold, R-Cassopolis, with a fine-tooth comb.

“Where do we stand on an administrator?” a commissioner asked near the end of the agreement’s review.

Chairman Robert Ziliak, R-Milton Township, indicated he alerted most commissioners by e-mail of the turn the search had taken, but three of the 15 commissioners lack computers.

“The on-site interviews have been canceled,” Ziliak reported. “Four commissioners talked to (consultant Robert) Slavin (of Georgia). He’s in the the process of notifying the candidates to inform them that the interviews have been canceled. He’s going back to square one trying to locate candidates for us. He asked if we’d be interested in some of the others lower on the list of the 11. I told him I didn’t think we wanted to pursue those candidates now. I think the majority of the commissioners were not interested in those candidates or they wouldn’t have rated them the way they rated them.”

“He was told he needs to bring some viable candidates,” added Commissioner Minnie Warren, D-Pokagon Township, “and he needs to run a background check on them before he brings them to us.”