Bippus receives high marks from city commission, sans Mayor Lowry

Three Rivers City Manager Joe Bippus received 312 out of 350 possible points in his annual evaluation conducted by Three Rivers city commissioners, according to documents obtained by Watershed Voice via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The evaluation, which took place in closed session at a June commission meeting, asked commissioners to rate Bippus’ effectiveness in 10 key areas on a scale of 1 to 5, with five representing outstanding performance. Bippus was evaluated on organizational management, program development and follow-through, financial management, intermediate/long range planning, intergovernmental relations, citizen relations, employee relations, commission relations, professional development, and personal characteristics.

Commissioner Pat Dane gave Bippus a rating of 46/50, Commissioners Daryl Griffith and Carolyn McNary both submitted a score of 47/50, while Commissioners Chris Abel and Alison Haigh gave Bippus 48/50, and Clayton Lyczynski gave the city manager a score of 49/50.

Griffith praised Bippus for his performance both prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic, citing Bippus’ professionalism, “community building” skills, and code enforcement efforts.

“I put a pretty big expectation on you to step up code enforcement from the levels of years past,” Griffith wrote in his evaluation of Bippus. “It would have been easy for you to justify a zero tolerance ‘just get it done’ mandate to the enforcement officer effected citizens. Instead, you displayed empathy to the citizens who would encounter special challenges right now, but most importantly put the health and well being of the officer first before the potential impact to your performance. Your priorities are in the right place and I commend your character for doing so.  Thank you (again) for being such a great city manager for my city.”

Griffith also complimented Bippus on how he has handled “several unprofessional outbursts” by Mayor Tom Lowry, who Griffith suggests may either be “experiencing age related health issues” or is bending to the pressure of “one or more of (Bippus’) more vocal critics.”

“You have handled yourself well with several unprofessional outbursts by our confrontational mayor,” Griffith wrote. “It is unclear if he is experiencing age related health issues or is bending to pressure from one or more of your more vocal critics.  Continue to weather these with professionalism and doing your best. The rest of the commission is obviously fully aware the criticisms are unfounded and your performance, again, top-notch.”

Lowry gave Bippus a rating of 28/50 (the total in this article’s featured image is off by one point), and criticized the city manager for lying in 2019 about how many hours he was working at his second job as a patrol officer for the Schoolcraft Police Department.

“You burned/destroyed some of the hard-earned and desired trust/political capital that ‘we’ (city employees, department heads, you and the city commission) have earned and built up by working that second job on weekdays, by trying to hide that fact, and by lying to me,” Lowry wrote. “You have stopped this in the last six months — so I feel a little better.”

Lowry added he continues to get citizen complaints about Bippus, including several from Three Rivers area minsters, saying “You must do better on this.”

Alek Haak-Frost is executive editor of Watershed Voice.