Keeping Belleman ‘Would Have Paralyzed Saginaw County,’ Commissioner Says

As East Lansing Mayor Pro Tem Jessy Gregg is describing how Council could tonight reconsider its decision on the hiring of Robert Belleman over Tim Dempsey as city manager, ELi has obtained a recording of the June 20 meeting where Belleman was fired by the Saginaw County Board of Commissioners.

The recording from another news organization indicates the meeting was raucous, with the chair having to repeatedly call for decorum, as people applauded and cheered on county employees, former employees and elected officials calling on the board to terminate Belleman’s contract.

Several top elected officials and appointees from the region also came to the podium to support Belleman, who worked for Saginaw County for 10 years.

Word was out that Belleman’s contract might be terminated at the meeting, and many showed up to comment.

Brenda Moore, mayor of the City of Saginaw, led off public comment by saying she was “coming in support” of Belleman because “in the past, the city and the county were always divided,” but now they are starting to work together.

Tim Morales, the city manager for Saginaw, also supported Belleman, calling him “courteous and professional” and dedicated to service.

Former County Commissioner Carl Ruth said he was surprised the board was considering termination, given Belleman received a good evaluation in the last year. He said he supported Belleman.

Reached by ELi earlier today, Ruth said he was on the committee that moved to hire Belleman. “He’s a man who’s committed to doing what’s right,” he said.

He pointed to new commissioners as the reason for Belleman’s outster. Five of the 11 county commissioners were elected for the first time in Nov. 2022.

“I would work for him and hire him again,” Ruth said.

Annette Rummel, president of the Saginaw County Convention & Visitors Bureau, said at the meeting the decision to hire Belleman “has contributed to the advancement” of the county.

Norm Bamberger, who said he had worked with Belleman, called him professional, “to the point,” someone who “held [people’s] feet to the fire” and held people responsible for their actions.

“That’s the sort of person that I want leading Saginaw County,” he said.

Jon Block said he worked with Belleman as manager of the Dow Event Center and praised him for his “leadership and guidance.” He said if Belleman were to leave, “it would leave a big deficit for Saginaw County,” and he would be challenging to replace.

Steve Black said he had worked for Belleman in Bay City and praised him as “exceedingly professional.” (Belleman worked as city manager in Bay City for 10 years.) He said he did a great job with the city’s finances and introduced ethics training. He called Belleman a very clear communicator.

“As an employee, it was no mystery where he stood,” Black said.

Belleman’s wife Amy Belleman came to the podium to tell the board, “I don’t understand why you’re not having conversations with him and trying to work things out.”

She told the board he was a hard worker.

“This last week has left my kids and myself hurt, frustrated and, most of all, tired. I need you to resolve this insanity,” she said.

But many comments fell on the other side of the termination debate.

The county’s Register of Deeds Katie Kelly said she had repeatedly informed the board of problems with Belleman. She said he had “displayed anger” towards her when she handled things differently than he wanted and that he “threatened me personally with a lawsuit and promised to ruin my reputation professionally if I did not go along with what he said.”

She said the county deserved better.

Saginaw County Clerk Venessa Guerra told the board Belleman treats different people differently. She said work under Belleman was “best described as a toxic work environment, in fact the most toxic work environment I have ever worked in.”

County Prosecutor John McColgan told the board, “I’ve been in this building almost four years and I’ve never seen employee morale lower than it is now.”

McColgan said the county used to be a great place to work but “obviously that’s not the case anymore,” as his department struggles for hires. (In his remarks during his Aug. 7 interview with East Lansing’s Council, Belleman said the prosecutor was having trouble competing for attorneys in the current market.)

Tricia Barnes, who worked for the county as an animal control manager, told the board Belleman undermined female staff members. She said he did nothing when she reported sexual harassment and assault at the county’s animal shelter. She said he “pressured us” to change records in order to mask unused budgets.

“Robert has made everyone’s life a living hell,” Barnes said, “and [he] has tried to destroy anyone he could.”

Josh Brown, the county’s IT Director who has been at odds with Belleman for years, told the board, “You have a bully sitting amongst you – someone who harrasses, belittles and destroys the confidence of everyone he comes in contact with. And that person is Robert Belleman.”

Brown said Belleman had called him a failure, called him useless and told him he was not qualified to be a director.

At the meeting, Brown was supported by several employees from the IT department including Carol Somers who asked the board to “consider the tone at the top of your organization chart.” She said the toxic management style was “trickling down” and impacting residents, too.

“Public service suffers when employees are unhappy, undervalued and have one foot out the door,” she said.

IT employee Pam Pelkki asked the board to act in order to provide “a stable environment for all Saginaw County employees” and for the community.

A representative from the UAW, the union representing Brown’s department, also spoke in favor of Brown and against Belleman, as did Brown’s father, Ed Brown, who had also been a local union leader. Ed Brown described his son Josh as having his mental health undermined.

“This isn’t a joke,” Ed Brown told the board. “This guy treats people like they’re nothing.”

BriAnn Summersett, who worked with the Medical Examiner’s office, called for Belleman’s termination. She said she had many concerns about bodies being released to funeral homes without proper autopsies in cases that might lead to criminal prosecution. She said she brought the problems to Belleman “to no avail,” claiming Belleman’s decisions were being driven by economics instead of what was right.

Belleman described the situation differently in his Aug. 7 interview before East Lansing’s City Council.

When he was interviewed for the job of East Lansing’s city manager, Belleman immediately addressed the news of his termination.

“When you look back at the news articles that have come out, they say ‘toxic work environment,’” he told Council. “I take issue with that because there was only one employee that spoke about a situation that I was working with that employee on.”

He was referring to Josh Brown, IT director for the county. As described above, several current and former employees also came forward at the June 20 meeting with complaints about alleged bullying, harassment, questionable accounting techniques and administrative techniques.

After hearing public comment at the June 20 meeting, the Saginaw County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to “approve the hiring of special labor counsel to conduct an investigation for legal/labor issues involving complaints about a County Employee,” referring to the complaints by Brown against Belleman.

The commission then voted 9-2 to put Belleman on paid administrative leave “until the investigation is completed and a referral is made to the full board.”

But, County Commission Chair Christopher Boyd warned his colleagues, because “now we’ve heard a plethora of complaints,” the board was obligated to investigate them all. “It’s going to be a lot,” he said.

The board recessed for a break as Boyd asked Belleman and the county’s attorney to meet in his office for a discussion. (In his interview with Council, Belleman mentioned that he returned home at that point and only found out later, from an MLive reporter, what happened after he left.)

After about 20 minutes of recess, minutes show, the board came back into session. The chair said he was aware of a commissioner wanting to make a motion to consider termination. The board then quickly voted 8-3 to terminate Belleman’s contract.

The county attorney gave his opinion that this meant the board would not have to investigate all of the complaints made – just the outstanding complaint from Brown.

Two commissioners who voted for termination explained their reasoning to ELi.

Reached by phone earlier today, Saginaw County Commissioner Jack Tany, who voted to terminate Belleman’s contract, said, “As far as running the day-to-day activities, the budget and all the different departments, I’d give him a 10 out of 10.”

“What we had an issue with,” Tany continued, “he treated a couple of employees not well. Dressed them down, dressed them down in front of co-workers….In this day and age, you cannot berate someone in front of co-workers. We received emails from the entire IT department. They were going to walk. That would have paralyzed Saginaw County.”

Saginaw County Commissioner Rich Spitzer told ELi by phone today he voted to terminate Belleman’s contract due to the weight of the evidence presented, not any one particular aspect.

“I have never met a more intelligent or knowledgeable man as Mr. Belleman,” Spitzer said. “He is a virtual walking encyclopedia of statutes and regulations,” and creative at coming up with more efficient systems.

“Having said that,” Spitzer said, “his management style is such that he has had difficulty working with departments and elected officials in the past….Whether or not he has taken his experience from Saginaw County and learned from it and evolved, I cannot say.”

ELi reached out to commissioners who voted in favor of retaining Belleman but has not received responses from them.

Asked for comment on a news broadcast that included footage of complaints made about Belleman at the June 20 meeting, East Lansing Councilmember Dana Watson, who voted to hire Belleman as city manager, said, “Going forward, I wouldn’t set up our staff to be mistreated.”

Watson went on to refer to the ongoing investigation in East Lansing related to an anonymous complaint alleging power overreach by Mayor Ron Bacon and others. That anonymous complaint purported to explain why so many department heads have resigned from the City of East Lansing recently.

“The investigator of the letter [about] charter violations is seeking to understand our internal complaint process for employees,” Watson wrote. “I think overall trainings for implicit bias, sexual harassment, leadership and work cultures will be beneficial and have been absent from standardization in the city.”