During regular meeting on May 5, city commissioners to discuss next steps
On April 21, 10 days after the Sarasota city commissioners spent approximately five-an-a-half hours discussing their frustrations about — and what some of them stressed was a lack of transparency in — their search for a new city manager, they received an email from the principal of the firm they had been using in that search.
Since April 11, Colin Baenziger of Colin Baenziger & Associates wrote that he and his staff had been “reviewing the city manager search process to date. It is our conclusion that the approach we presented in our proposal, and the Commission’s expectations for how the search would proceed, were not and are not in alignment. That is unfortunate and not at all what we would have anticipated. We have had great success in the past with our approach, and we expected to obtain the similar results for the City. Had we known the Commission expected something different, we could have altered our approach at the beginning so we would have been in alignment. We now believe, however, that time has passed, and under the circumstances, we feel it is best that our firm resign from conducting the full search.”
Baenziger continued, “That said, we do not want to leave the City in an awkward position. Consequently, we offer the following,” he added:
- “Firstly, we conducted a search for candidates for the City and produced a list of approximately 51 candidates. We have been paid for that work and believe that list to be the property of the City.
- “Secondly, we also produced background reports and have been paid for them. We believe that material is also the City’s property.
- “Thirdly, we have completed on additional candidate report. It is attached, and its cost will be included in our original fee.
- “Finally, we will produce reports for any additional candidates the City desires at a fee of our costs plus 20%.”
Baenziger then wrote, “We believe that with the above described assistance the City can complete the search using its own staff (which we found to be very capable).
“Finally, we have enjoyed working with each of you and sincerely wish you all the best in the remainder of your City Manager Search!”
In the city’s public email folder, The Sarasota News Leader found this April 22 response from Vice Mayor Debbie Trice to interim City Manager Doug Jeffcoat about the firm’s decision: “I am shocked and extremely disappointed that [Colin Baenziger & Associates] was able to resign, and that staff was unable to persuade them to complete the job they were hired to do.”
She then asked Jeffcoat to schedule time to speak with her “to discuss where we go from here.”
Such a discussion for the full City Commission is part of the agenda for its regular meeting on Monday, May 5. That has been advertised as New Business, immediately before the final opportunity for the public to offer comments to the board members and prior to the commissioners offering remarks to each other.
The meeting will begin at 9 a.m. in the Commission Chambers of City Hall, which stands at 1565 First St. in downtown Sarasota.
The Agenda Request Form for the item, submitted by Human Resources Director Stacie Mason, references Colin Baenziger’s email and adds that since the firm is willing to “support staff if the process moves forward,” she has proposed reviewing “the framework of the process moving forward and [discussing] the timelines that have now shifted.”
Nonetheless, Mason did point out, “If the Commission wishes to go a different direction, motions should be made to provide staff with clear direction.”
The PowerPoint presentation included with the agenda item notes that the commissioners voted on April 11 to schedule a special meeting to winnow the list of remaining candidates for city manager to a group of semi-finalists. That session has been planned for May 12, from 1:30 to 5 p.m.
“On that special meeting agenda,” the slide says, “staff are to provide all the active candidates for the commission to review and choose from. This will occur at the meeting by having each commissioner state the candidates’ names [for which] they are requesting the backgrounds.”
The next slide proposes the subsequent steps:
A proposal to ‘open up the applications’ for two weeks
During the period for commissioners’ remarks as part of their regular meeting on April 21, Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch told her colleagues that she had “been asked a lot about the city manager search,” and someone had “suggested that we open up the applications since we’ve had a couple [of people] pull their applications …”
That person also had suggested that the City Commission allow new applications only from city residents and those who live outside the city limits in Sarasota County. Perhaps Sarasota County Government or city government employees might be interested in seeking the position at this point, Ahearn-Koch continued.
Since the prospectus that Colin Baenziger & Associates had advertised called for applicants to have had local government management experience, she pointed out, “I believe that there are probably candidates in our city, our city government, our city proper or even the county that may have applied that didn’t …”
Moreover, Ahearn-Koch said, “I would like to see applicants that are more familiar with Florida and with the challenges that are facing us, not only with hurricanes, [but also] with climate change, with the weather events that are happening” and with stormwater issues.
Ahearn-Koch was alluding to remarks that Sarasota County Public Works Director Spencer Anderson made during a March 28 joint meeting of the City and County commissions. County staff has proposed returning management of the city’s stormwater system to the city, because new developments in the unincorporated areas of the county need more attention. The two local government bodies signed an agreement in 1998 that put the county in charge of the city’s system, Anderson noted on March 28.
During the special City Commission meeting on April 11 regarding the city manager search, Commissioner Kyle Battie questioned why so few Florida residents had applied for the position. He was absent from the April 21 discussion, as he had to attend a family funeral.
“I wanted to gauge your reception on opening up that application process for two weeks, or something like that,” Ahearn-Koch told her colleagues on April 21, “to allow some folks in our own community to apply.”
Initially, Mayor Liz Alpert agreed to the proposal. However, she stressed, “I don’tagree with limiting it to the city or the county.”
“My ultimate goal is to open it up again,” Ahearn-Koch responded. “I’m glad to hear that you support the idea.”
Then interim City Manager Jeffcoat pointed out that, during their special meeting on April 11, the commissioners took a vote on whether they wanted to proceed with the process. The result of that vote, he emphasized, “was to continue the process as it is.”
Jeffcoat added, “I’m going to be looking for direction here in regards to a motion if you want to start the process over, because opening this back up is starting the process over.”
“Could we continue the process as-is and open it up?” Ahearn-Koch asked him.
“No,” Jeffcoat told her. “I don’t see that happening.”
When she asked him why not, he responded, “Because you’ve got a process in place,” with applications having been submitted. “If you’re looking at opening it back up,” Jeffcoat continued, “you’re starting the process over again.”
After he made those remarks, Mayor Alpert said she would not be in favor of starting the process again.
At that point, Vice Mayor Trice noted that if individuals “had confidence in their ability to do the job, they would have applied and convinced us that they could do the job, even if they didn’t have the requisite experiences.”
Commissioner Kathy Kelley Ohlrich added, “There were people who did not have the requisite experiences who did apply.”
When Ahearn-Koch tried once more to persuade her colleagues to open up a new application period — just for two weeks — Alpert told her, “I think that means starting the process over. I think we’re too far down the road to be doing that.”
Trice stressed that, on April 11, the commissioners agreed “that we would continue the process as is with all deliberate speed, but if we didn’t find the person we wanted to hire as city manager, then we would start the process all over again.”
Ohlrich expressed support for that approach.
Yet, Ahearn-Koch continued to argue for a new application period. “We need to hire the best person for this city,” she emphasized. “Right now we’re limping.”
As Alpert started to suggest that Ahearn-Koch’s persistence indicated that Ahearn-Koch had “somebody in mind,” Ahearn-Koch interrupted her to counter, “I’m not saying that at all. Please don’t put words in my mouth.”
After several more minutes of debate, City Auditor and Clerk Shayla Griggs cautioned, “We didn’t notice this, so we are going down a little bit of a rabbit hole.” She was referring to the fact that the agenda for the regular meeting that day contained no item regarding the city manager search.
“We need to be careful,” Griggs added.
“It would need to be an agenda item,” Alpert agreed with Griggs.
“It’s pretty clear to me we do not have consensus on this, and we can’t vote on it anyway. So what are we talking about?” Ohlrich said.
“Maybe we can put it on the next agenda for discussion and then have a proper discussion about it,” Ahearn-Koch responded.