Session to begin at 10 a.m. at City Hall
At 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 9, a special meeting of the Sarasota City Commission will be held so the board members can conduct interviews with representatives of the three firms chosen this summer as finalists to handle the search for a new city manager.
The session will be held in the Commission Chambers of City Hall, which stands at 1565 First St. in downtown Sarasota.
The meeting is to last no later than 2 p.m., according to the formal notice that City Auditor and Clerk Shayla Griggs issued on Sept. 3.
During an Aug. 26 discussion, which was part of another special meeting, most of the commissioners appeared to lean toward a Tampa firm, MGT. However, they ultimately agreed that they wanted to conduct interviews with each firm via Zoom.
The other two firms are Slavin Management Consultants of Norcross, Ga.; and Sumter Local Government Consulting of Atlanta.
The commissioners spent time debating aspects of each company’s proposal.
As Commissioner Kathy Kelly Ohlrich put it on Aug. 26, “For me, the main reason for interviewing them now is finding the fit, who fits best with us.”
City Attorney Joe Polzak — who has been working with Griggs, at the commissioners’ behest — to oversee the details of the hiring of a firm — agreed with the decision to schedule interviews with all three candidates. “You’ll probably have one standout in that process, and you can select them.”
Then Griggs proposed to conduct the interviews in public. She and Polzak recommended that each firm make a brief presentation, followed by the commissioners’ asking questions of that firm’s personnel.
As she did in advance of that Aug. 26 special meeting, Griggs also recommended that the interviews take place during a special meeting, “so you guys can provide [new] direction [to staff, if that is the desire after the interviews].”
“I like that format,” Ohlrich responded in regard to how the interviews would be conducted. Then she asked whether the they should be held in-person “or by electronic means?”
Griggs said that city staff could enable the firms to appear before the commissioners via Zoom. Even so, she made it clear that the public would be welcome to attend.
(Former City Manager Marlon Brown retired on Oct. 15, 2024, amid the city’s recovery from the 2024 hurricane season. Although the commissioners agreed last year to have the Human Resources Department hire a firm to handle the search for Brown’s successor, concerns about the lack of transparency that ensued during that process prompted them this spring to start the search anew.)
Ohlrich told her colleagues, “I’d like all of them to utilize the same format, not have somebody here and others by Zoom because there’s an advantage [to in-person discussions].”
“I get that,” Griggs replied.
“That’s fair,” Polzak said.
Moreover, Mayor Liz Alpert noted that the city would be expected to pick up the expense of the firms’ sending representatives to Sarasota, if the commissioners wanted to conduct in-person interviews. She added, “You can get a feel for a person on Zoom.”
Further, Vice Mayor Debbie Trice proposed that each commissioner prepare a list of questions that would be asked of the three firms and provide those to Griggs and Polzak. They could consolidate those questions and perhaps reword them, Trice added.
Any questions submitted would be part of the back-up materials included in the agenda packet for the special meeting, Griggs pointed out, after Ohlrich questioned whether having those prepared questions would be counter to the board members’ goal for the process to be transparent to the public.
Polzak did note that the firms would be provided the questions in advance.
Trice also stressed that she wanted to make sure the commissioners did not give “softballs to one firm and hard questions to another firm.”
When Griggs asked whether Trice was proposing standard questions for each firm, Trice told her that was correct. Trice did acknowledge, nonetheless, that the board members would have follow-up questions prompted by the exchanges.
Griggs further noted that she and Polzak could consult with the city’s Human Resources staff, to learn whether a standard set of questions exists. “We also want to make sure we’re asking the appropriate type of questions and not asking anything inappropriate,” Griggs pointed out. “I want to make sure we’re doing the right thing on that aspect, as well.”
Referencing Griggs’ earlier remark, Ohlrich said that perhaps “reaching out to HR would help us make sure we have the answers to all the important questions from all of ’em.”
As it turned out, only two of the commissioners sent her a list of questions, Griggs told the board members during their regular meeting on Sept. 2. Those are included as backup materials for the Sept. 9 agenda.
Mayor Alpert also sought clarification on Sept. 2 that none of the commissioners would be precluded from asking questions of each firm on Sept. 9.
“You obviously will be free to ask questions [during the interviews],” Polzak replied.
Olrich said, “I think during an interview like this, the spontaneity of asking and answering questions can be very revealing.”
The Agenda Request Form for the special meeting next week includes the following schedule:
