By Jim Bloch
Quentin Bishop, the city superintendent of St. Clair, is moving his professional life one city to the north.
The Marysville City Council voted unanimously at its regular meeting May 12 to hire Bishop as its new manager, replacing Randy Fernandez, who is retiring after helming the city for a dozen years.
“There were 16 applicants,” said Mayor Kathy Hayman, as heard on the recording of the meeting posted on Vimeo. “(Finance Director) Mike Booth, Clerk Rene Stoia and I narrowed it down to three candidates who we wanted to interview. It was Quentin Bishop, Nancy Winzer and Ryan Matis.”
The interviews were held May 5.
“All were extremely qualified,” said Hayman. “We had very good and productive interviews. Today, Ms. Winzer withdrew her name from consideration. So, we are voting between Ryan Matis and Quentin Bishop.”
The six council members and Hayman received ballots on which they wrote their choice for city manager and passed their ballots to Stoia to tally.
Hayman announced that Bishop had received all seven votes. “Mr. Booth will make contact with Mr. Bishop and Mr. Matis and let them know the outcome of the vote,” said Hayman.
The council voted unanimously to delegate Hayman and Booth to negotiate Bishop’s contract. His initial contract in St. Clair paid him $120,000 per year, a sizeable bump from his predecessor’s salary of $68,000. Bishop’s package included health insurance, a car allowance of $300 per month, a mobile phone, membership in the St. Clair Rotary Club, membership in the International City Manager Association and Michigan Local Government Management Association, and attendance at their conferences, among other benefits.
The city of Marysville has hired two of the last three city superintendents in St. Clair. Booth served as city superintendent for six years before being hired as Marysville’s finance director in 2019. Booth was replaced in St. Clair by Warren Rothe, who left after
two-and-a-half years in April 2023 to become the assistant city manager of Grosse Pointe Park. St. Clair hired Bishop in January 2024. He lasted 16 months in the post.
Winzer recently retired after spending 31 years on the payroll of the city of Port Huron, notably as the longtime director of parks and recreation and a brief stint as assistant city manager to James Freed. Matis is the program manager for the Economic Development program in Flint.
Fernandez, 68, had a productive decade-plus in Marysville, overseeing the building of a new city hall and dramatic improvements to the city’s parks, including a collaboration with St. Clair County Community College to build a soccer field in Morton Park, and the building of a new band shell in Marysville Park. Fernandez also helped boost the city’s rainy-day fund from $3 million to $11 million.
Until he was hired by St. Clair, Bishop had never been a city manager. According to his resume, he was the administrator and controller of Lapeer County from 2021 until St. Clair hired him. He was the CEO of the Lapeer Development Corporation 2019-2021. He worked as the director of business attraction and entrepreneurial service for the St. Clair County Economic Development Alliance in Port Huron, 2017-2019. He held the position of superintendent of the Crossing School of Business and Entrepreneurship in South Bend, IN, 2015-2017 and worked as the school’s principal 2012-2015. Bishop earned his master’s in education at the University of Georgia and his Bachelor of Arts at Central Michigan.
Jim Bloch is a freelance writer based in St. Clair, Michigan. Contact him at bloch.jim@gmail.com.
