City will do its own city manager search

The city council and Mayor Ameer Ghalib decided to not hire a search firm to get candidates for the position of city manager. Instead, they will do their own search.

By Charles Sercombe
Back in June, it was announced that then-City Manager Kathy Angerer was resigning to take a new job.
Her last day on the job here was July 15.
But before she left, the city council directed Interim City Manager Max Garbarino to seek bids from search firms to look for a new city manager.
Now, however, the council is taking a new direction in its search for a city manager. Councilmember Mohammed Hassan has urged the council to skip hiring a head hunter, and instead to conduct its own search.
The council formed a sub-committee at Tuesday’s regular council meeting. That committee will draw up job requirements, with an eye toward making it as Hamtramck-centric as possible.
Ghalib said one reason to not hire a search firm is the cost, which can be about $30,000.
He said the council “didn’t realize the cost” a few months ago, and that it’s a “huge cost for hiring a city manager.”
Ghalib further stressed for transparency in the search for a city manager, and has said in the past that only qualified candidates will be considered.
The candidate, Ghalib said at an Aug. 23 city council meeting, “has to be qualified.”
City Attorney Odey Meroueh said not just any city manager will do because of Hamtramck’s “complexities” – apparently referring to the city’s diverse cultural blend, financial challenges and aging city infrastructure.
Meroueh further stressed that the city doesn’t need outside consultants, because the mayor and council are “the experts on the city.”
The council already hired a deputy city manager last August after posting the job on the city’s website.
Only two applications were submitted for that position. One came from a Harvard graduate, Maali Luqman, with a master’s degree in Liberal Arts but with no city administration experience.
Luqman also has a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Michigan in education, mathematics and ESL.
The other applicant, Kenneth Marten, is the current village administrator in the Village of Bingham Farms, who also has experience in economic development and a master’s degree from Central Michigan University in public administration.
He has been in public administration in a couple of capacities since 2015.
The deputy city manager job posting by the city required:
“Any combination of training and/or experience that would provide the knowledge and abilities necessary to perform the duties of the position. A typical way to obtain the knowledge and abilities
would be:
“Education: A Bachelor’s Degree from an accredited college or university with major coursework in Public Administration or a related field is required. A Master’s degree in a related field is desirable.
Experience: Five (5) years of increasingly responsible professional or management experience in a municipal government, including at least three (3) years in a supervisory capacity.”

The council hired Luqman, who has no public administration experience, six weeks after she and the other candidate, Marten, submitted their applications.
Marten told The Review he was not interviewed for the job.
The Review received copies of applications of both Luqman and Marten through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Ghalib told The Review that he was unaware of the Marten’s application.
Ghalib did say at an Aug. 23 city council meeting that he met Luqman 20 years ago at the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) organization.
Posted Oct. 14, 2022