City Commission unanimously approves hiring of former Longboat Key town manager
On May 19, after the longest regular meeting that the Sarasota City Commission has conducted in quite some time — as Mayor Liz Alpert pointed out — the board members agreed to hire former Longboat Town Manager Dave Bullock of Sarasota as their new interim manager.
Formally, on a unanimous vote, they directed staff to draw up an agreement pertaining to Bullock’s service with the city, so they could review it the following day during a special meeting.
Then, on May 20, during that special meeting, they voted unanimously to hire Bullock. He will begin work on Tuesday, May 27.
Bullock told the commissioners that he will be out of the office for two weeks “in the very beginning of June,” because of previous commitments. He will return to the office on June 16, Bullock added.
The agreement that the City Commission approved on May 20 calls for Bullock to receive an annual salary of $228,000, “payable in installments at the same time and in the same manner as applicable to general employees of the City.”
A city news release issued after the May 20 vote said that interim City Manager Doug Jeffcoat “will resume his role as Public Works Director and postpone his June 1 retirement to assist with the management transition, with initial focus on the current budget planning cycle.”
The backup materials for the May 19 City Commission meeting agenda item regarding Bullock’s hiring included a copy of a contract that had been used in the past for an interim manager, along with a draft proposal that Bullock had provided to City Attorney Joe Polzak and City Auditor and Clerk Shayla Griggs.
Every commissioner except Alpert took time that evening to talk about conversations they had had with Bullock.
They first had discussed his potential hiring during a special meeting on May 12, as Jeffcoat had expressed an interest in remaining in his position only through the late September adoption of the commission’s 2026 fiscal year budget.
Since Commissioner Kathy Kelley Ohlrich had reported that her research into hiring a new city manager could take six months, she and her colleagues had begun focusing on the prospect of hiring someone to succeed Jeffcoat until a new city manager comes on board.
During their regular meeting on May 5, the commissioners decided to relaunch their search for a city manager to replace Marlon Brown, who retired in October 2024.
Decades of public service
In her May 19 remarks, Ohlrich noted that Bullock had been in the audience for the regular session that day. “I figure if we haven’t scared him away by now with this long meeting,” she said, perhaps he would like to come down to the table facing the dais and tell the board members about himself.
(The meeting, which began at 9 a.m., took approximately eight-and-a-half hours, not counting the hour-long break for lunch and several recesses of 10 minutes or so.)
Once seated at the table, Bullock told the commissioners that he served on the Sarasota County Government staff from 1994 to 2011. “I was deputy county administrator for the majority of that time,” he continued,” in which capacity he dealt with all of the county’s operations.
“I specifically oversaw the budget development” he added, during his last 10 years with the county.
In 2011, Bullock was hired as the manager of the Town of Longboat Key, he said; he remained in that position until 2018.
“And then in 2019,” he continued, “I was asked if I would be the CEO of the Economic Development Corp. of Sarasota County — just for a three-month period.” He paused before adding, “A year and a half later, I retired one more time.”
His service with the EDC, he noted, came “during the period of COVID, when we really did a lot of things different …”
For example, Bullock explained, the EDC ended up operating a small business loan program on behalf of the County Commission.
“It was a very interesting time,” he continued; “an opportunity to learn about a lot of new things different than the typical city/county management. Certainly brought me closer to the business community.”
Further, Bullock noted that he was a 30-year member of the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) and was a credentialed manager for most of his time in city and county management.
After he retired from local government, Bullock explained, he no longer maintained those credentials.
“And I have been happily retired ever since 2021,” he told the commissioners with a chuckle.
When Mayor Liz Alpert asked whether any of her colleagues had questions, Vice Mayor Debbie Trice asked Bullock for confirmation that he is serving on the board of The Patterson Foundation in Sarasota.
He acknowledged that he has been on the Foundation’s governing board since 2017.
Then Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch reported that she had received three recommendations from the public for the hiring of Bullock as the new interim manager. “Folks reached out to me to highly, highly, highly recommend him,” she said.
Ohlrich added that she, too, had received “several unsolicited phone calls highly recommending Mr. Bullock …”
When she had an opportunity to speak with him, Ohlrich continued, “It became clear to me that he could step in and manage,” given his long history of public service.
Ohlrich told her colleagues, “Mr. Jeffcoat has been here 30 years, and he knows the city, and Mr. Bullock would have to learn the city, but he has the management skills and experience.”
Commissioner Kyle Battie concurred with “pretty much” of what Ohlrich had said. He was “completely satisfied with [Bullock’s] level of experience,” based on his conversation with Bullock, Battie added, noting that he, too, had found that Bullock “comes highly recommended by other people.”
Following those remarks, Trice said, “I get a sense” that the commission is willing to present an offer to Bullock.
Referring to the timeline that Ohlrich had provided the rest of the board members regarding the expectation for getting a new city manager on board, Trice noted that the draft agreement with Bullock, in the backup materials for the May 19 meeting, called for three months of employment. “I would like us to talk about four or five months, with one-month extensions,” she added.
Bullock responded, “I’m highly flexible.”
He noted that he had had an opportunity to talk with City Attorney Polzak about the sample agreement for service as interim city manager. “I’m fine with it,” Bullock said, “if we just fill in the numbers.”
The only other request he had, Bullock continued, was that he be given a city cell phone to use for city work.
The immediate responses from City Auditor and Clerk Griggs and the board members was that the provision of the cell phone was their expectation.
Following the discussion, Polzak told the commissioners that he should be able to tweak the proposed agreement for their review at the May 20 special meeting, though he conceded, “There’s limited time [for that work],” given how long the May 19 session had lasted.
“I don’t think there’s anything unknown,” Bullock noted.
Griggs added that the proposed contract was not a long document.
Then Trice made the motion for staff to have the contract ready for the May 20 session, consistent with the terms included in the samples in that day’s agenda packet.
Ohlrich seconded the motion, and it passed 5-0.
“Thank you for hanging out,” Alpert told Bullock.