Search firm representative to offer recommendations on candidates
At 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 13, the Sarasota city commissioners will conduct a special meeting during which they will discuss the pool of applicants for city manager, including those recommended by the Atlanta-based search firm they formally hired last year to assist them.
They voted 4-1 this week to allow interested parties who have not done so to submit applications by 5 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 8.
City Auditor and Clerk Shayla Griggs had recommended that deadline, to ensure that staff had sufficient time to provide all the materials to the commissioners and the public prior to the special meeting. She noted that staff has to redact personal information from the applications before they can be made available to the public.
Griggs referred to that Jan. 8 deadline as a means of keeping the process “clean, so everybody’s not scrambling around.”
However, if the board members agreed on Jan 13 that they wanted to reopen the application window, that would be their prerogative, she acknowledged.
Another eight, she believed, had been submitted over the holiday break. Griggs expected to have them ready for the commissioners’ review by Tuesday, Jan. 6, she added.
Altogether, based on an email that Griggs sent the commissioners on Jan. 6, the applicant pool appeared to number 88.
During the Jan. 5 discussion, Griggs also noted that Warren Hutmacher, owner and principal of Sumter Local Government Consulting, is expected to be present at the Jan. 13 special meeting. In the meantime, she added, she understood that, on Wednesday, Jan 7, Sumter would provide its recommendations on the pool of candidates as of that time.
However, in a Jan. 6 follow-up email to the commissioners, Griggs wrote that after “speaking with the consultant, we have been advised that the report for the Commission will be completed and provided by Thursday [Jan. 8]. This timeline is intended to ensure that no additional applications are included beyond those already received.”
Further, Griggs pointed out, “The consultant’s report will outline the proposed review process moving forward and will include all resumes, a scoring matrix, and candidate recommendations for the Commission’s consideration.”
After the Jan. 5 discussion, Vice Mayor Kathy Kelley Ohlrich made a motion, which originally won a second from Commissioner Kyle Battie, to make the application deadline 5 p.m. that day.
Yet, Commissioners Liz Alpert and Jen Ahearn-Koch contended that they believe no more than one or two more applications might come in after those already submitted. Battie joined then them in agreeing that the Thursday deadline would be appropriate.
Moreover, Alpert pointed out, the staff of the search firm might have an idea about other candidates who are interested in applying. The Thursday deadline would give Sumter enough time to encourage those individuals to go ahead and do so, Alpert said.
Initially, Alpert offered what she called a “friendly amendment” to Ohlrich’s motion to shift the cutoff to 5 p.m. on Jan. 8. Ahearn-Koch had suggested that approach; she seconded Alpert’s amendment.
“First of all,” Ohlrich responded, “I don’t get this ‘friendly amendment’ thing. It’s unfriendly. There’s no such thing as a friendly amendment.”
“It’s pretty much changing the motion altogether,” Battie said before rescinding his second of Ohlrich’s motion.
Then Mayor Debbie Trice announced that Ohlrich’s motion had died. Therefore, Alpert made her motion, and Ahearn-Koch seconded it.
“I’m actually opposed to it,” Trice told her colleagues. “My big concern,” she said, “is we are expecting no later than this Wednesday the recommendations from Sumter,” with other information about the candidates. “Just the timing seems difficult.”
Noting an earlier comment from City Attorney Joe Polzak that the timeline for the applications to be submitted had concluded — it ended on Dec. 12, 2025 — Ohlrich asked, “Why are we accepting any applications after the already established deadline?”
Alpert maintained that she expected few new ones if the deadline were extended to Jan. 8. That would give Sumter’s staff time to provide the commissioners additional details about those candidates before the Jan. 13 session, she indicated. “I just don’t think it’s that big a deal,” Alpert stressed.
Griggs told the commissioners that she believes persons “who are really, seriously interested in applying have already done so,” unless unforeseen circumstances had prevented them from taking that action.
“Rationally speaking,” Battie said, “that makes sense.”
Ohlrich ended up casting the “No” vote on Alpert’s motion regarding the extended application deadline.
‘We shouldn’t be looking for a superhero’
The primary reason the commissioners last year halted the initial search for a new city manager was their concern that the effort had not been as open and transparent as they had agreed it should be. City Attorney Polzak remarked at one point on Jan. 5 that the goal is to ensure that the process is “100% transparent.”
On Dec. 23, 2025, Griggs did email the board members to let them know that a public link to all of the resumes received had been established. At that point, she indicated the number was approximately 80.
This is the link: https://www.sarasotafl.gov/Department-Pages/Information-Technology/City-Manager-Search
One member of the public had signed up to address the issue on Jan. 5.
Flo Entler, a 37-year resident of Sarasota who lives in Arlington Park, emphasized to the board members that the city needs “a leader with strong values.” She added, “We shouldn’t be looking for a superhero or an empire builder. We need a solid manager, someone who knows how things work, loves public service and who wants to make the city stronger.”
During her career in human resources, Entler added, she learned that the best way to measure a person’s integrity is to ask the person “to describe an ethical challenge the individual had faced and how the person had handled it. “You’ll learn a lot from how they answer,” Entler told the commissioners.
During the nearly 65-minute-long agenda item on Jan. 5, Mayor Trice also sought clarification about the goals the board members expect to achieve by the conclusion of the Jan. 13 meeting. “What is our process to whittle this list down?” she asked. “Are we going to come up with semi-finalists on Tuesday?”
If she recalled correctly, she continued, the commissioners decided last year that they would interview the semi-finalists via Zoom and then invite the finalists to Sarasota for the final step in the process, when members of the public would be able to watch the exchanges.
Griggs responded, “I’ll make sure you all have something in writing,” for that special meeting, outlining the specific goals.
More details sought from Sumter
During the discussion, Commissioner Ahearn-Koch expressed frustration that Sumter had not indicated in the materials it had provided the city which of the candidates it had encouraged to apply for the position. Yet, she stressed, that was one of her top priorities for the firm: to “actively source candidates.”
Ahearn-Koch added, “If they sourced them, they sourced them for a reason, and so they should have that information already.”
Moreover, she continued, some of the applications had cover letters, some had just resumes, and some had both. She made it clear that she had expected both.
“We’re aware of that, as well,” Griggs replied, referring to herself and City Attorney Polzak. “That’s what [the applicants] submitted.”
She planned to ask the Sumter staff about that situation, Griggs added.
“I’m not sure how I feel [about the applicants at that point],” Ahearn-Koch said. “I’m just throwing that out there.”
Mayor Trice remarked that two of the resumes indicated that those candidates were just high school graduates.
Commissioner Alpert then brought up the issue of recommendations from Sumter. “We aren’t experts on resumes,” she pointed out, a comment with which Mayor Trice agreed.
Griggs reiterated her earlier comment about the firm’s plans to provide its recommendations to the commissioners on Jan. 7.
“We’ll make sure they indicate what work they did to generate those recommendations,” Polzak said.
That was all the more reason, he added, that he and Griggs felt the cutoff date should provide the Sumter staff sufficient time to make recommendations based upon all of the applications that had been submitted.
“When we meet with Sumter on Tuesday,” Trice said, “every single application should have gone through their promised level of review.”
“And I believe you all will get that,” Griggs told her.
“So far,” Vice Mayor Ohlrich said of the Sumter staff members, “They’re doing exactly what we directed them to do. Exactly.”