And then there were two.

Though members of the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners initially planned to advance three finalists to a second round of interviews for the vacant county administrator job, The Ticker has learned that one of those candidates has withdrawn his name from consideration.

Board Chair Ty Wessell confirmed to the Leelanau Ticker on Monday that Kip Belcher had “dropped out” of the application process for county administrator. Belcher works in law enforcement, serving as the multijurisdictional task force commander for the Michigan State Police’s Seventh District in Gaylord. He previously applied for the county administrator job earlier this year, and commissioners even advanced him to the final two before opting not to hire anyone. Belcher was one of several candidates from that spring 2024 applicant pool to reapply for the job when the board restarted the hiring process this fall.

While Wessell didn’t share a reason for Belcher’s decision, he did say that the other two finalists – James Dyer and Mark Brown – have accepted the county’s invitation for a second round of interviews. Those interviews are scheduled for next Thursday, December 12, after which the board could make a decision on who to hire.

Dyer is currently the village manager in Northport, while Brown is a Lake Leelanau-based CPA and the CFO for a news media organization.