The Atlantic City Council discussed, but took no action on who will be appointed as the next City Attorney. The search began early last month after Jamie Arnold announced his resignation. The City’s Personnel and Finance Committee declined to make a recommendation to the Council on the three applicants for the job, choosing instead to let the Council discuss the matter first.

The prospects include Clint Fichter, of Avoca, with Fichter Municipal Services and Law; J.C. Van Ginkel, with Van Ginkel Law Offices, and, David Weiderstein, with Otto, Lawrence and Weiderstein Law Offices, both located in Atlantic. The applicant who is appointed would fill the vacancy position from October 1st, 2015 through December 31st, 2016.

Councilperson Linda Hartkopf said she felt comfortable with having Wiederstein resume full-time role of City Attorney, based on the fact he has experience in that arena already. Mayor Dave Jones suggested J.C. Van Ginkel would be a good choice because David Weiderstein is the Cass County Attorney, and former Attorney for the City of Atlantic, who hired Jamie Arnold. Arnold worked for Wiederstein’s law firm until his abrupt departure. Wiederstein has been serving as the City Attorney in the interim.

Jones said he prefers J.C as a “Matter of principal.” He explained “Dave’s the County Attorney. He’s our City Attorney. Basically, he’s gonna hire our next City Attorney. My concern is ‘Our we picking our City Attorney, or is Dave picking our City Attorney?'” Wiederstein said even though he did pick the City Attorney the City still went through the bidding process when it came time to appoint that person.

J-C Van Ginkel served as Assistant City Attorney many years ago, when his dad James Van Ginkel was the City Attorney. Jones suggested going with Van Ginkel will allow Wiederstein get his office staffing needs met in the interim. He felt the City would eventually end up hiring someone from Wiederstein’s office anyway.

After some discussion, the Council decided to let the Personnel and Finance Committee take written questions from the Council for each of the candidates, with members of the Council sitting in on the interview process with the Committee as observers. The date and time for the interviews was not set at Wednesday night’s Council meeting.