Battie first to call for new effort
Thanks to a 3-2 vote on a motion that Sarasota city Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch made on May 5, the city’s search for a new manager will start all over.
This time, at the suggestion of Commissioner Kyle Battie, the Office of the City Auditor and Clerk and City Attorney Joe Polzak will lead the process, the commission majority agreed, though City Auditor and Clerk Shayla Griggs pointed out that she will need assistance from the city’s Human Resources Department director, Stacie Mason.
Though both Griggs and Polzak acknowledged that they have no expertise in coordinating such a search, they said they would comply with the will of the commissioners. As Griggs put it, “I will do whatever I’m told to do.”
Commissioner Kathy Kelley Ohlrich joined Ahearn-Koch and Battie in the majority in approving the motion.
Ohlrich noted that while she saw “Ms. Griggs sort of grimace” when Battie proposed the shift in the handling of the search, “having the other two Charter Officials lead the effort might be a straighter line and a cleaner approach to the whole process.”
Later, Ohlrich added, “I like the idea of hiring a consultant to assist the city auditor and clerk and the city attorney.”
Mayor Liz Alpert and Vice Mayor Debbie Trice expressed strong opposition to the proposal for relaunching the search. Trice said more than once during the commission’s regular meeting on May 5 that if, at the end of interviews of the finalists chosen from the current list of candidates, she and her colleagues felt they still had not found the right person for the position, then they could begin the process anew.
Trice also emphasized that the commissioners would be losing more time in selecting a new manager. Further, she pointed out, “Adding non-professionals [into the search mix] I think is probably not going to be any better than where we are now.”
Ahearn-Koch has been advocating for weeks for a new start in the effort to replace City Manager Marlon Brown, whose retirement was effective as of Oct. 15, 2024. During both a workshop and a special meeting on April 11, she and other members of the board, for example, stressed their concerns about the lack of transparency in their pursuit of a new city manager.
During the May 5 discussion, Battie addressed that topic, as well, citing the “complete and utter lack of transparency” in the process, noting that that issue “was at the heart and root of all of this.” In starting over, Battie continued, the commissioners can say, “ ‘We are going to be as comprehensive and as thorough as we possibly can and we are going to be as transparent as we possibly can …’ ” That, he added, “is the best practice.”
He also was the first commissioner that day to advocate for a fresh start. “The commission,” he said, has “to take back the process. … We have to gain the confidence of the people we have been elected to serve,” he stressed.
“I think it would be important for us to acknowledge that we, as a body, need to lead this process,” Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch added. “Through nobody’s fault, the process was leading us.”
Battie also told his colleagues, “I don’t feel comfortable with our staff … choosing their boss.”
Ohlrich concurred with that statement, calling it “a very valid point. Helping out is one thing,” she added, but leading the charge — I think that’s dangerous turf.”
Mason of Human Resources pointed out that she and her staff had handled a multitude of employee searches in the past for the city. “We’re never going to choose our bosses,” she emphasized, by recommending or choosing candidates.
Later, she said, “I’ve been in HR for 25 years and hired hundreds of people.”
Mayor Alpert told her colleagues. “I don’t see how having the HR staff involved means that they’re making the decision on who the city manager would be. … They are not choosing anything. We are completely in control of who we choose.” Shifting that work to two offices with no expertise in such an initiative and no processes to engage in such work, “I think … would probably make it worse,” Alpert added.
Moreover, Alpert pointed out, “I don’t see how starting over gets us ahead anywhere.” That indicates to the public and to candidates that “we don’t know what we’re doing,” she added.
After their vote on the motion, Mason did tell the commissioners, “I’m happy to pass on historical documents [to the city auditor and clerk and city attorney]. We’re teammates with all of our departments.”
Ohlrich also suggested that information about three search firms be provided to the commissioners; then they could choose the firm to do the work, instead of the Human Resources Department’s selecting the firm.
Ahearn-Koch did include in her motion the direction that, during a special meeting already set for May 12, each commissioner discuss the criteria that she or he has for the new manager before another search firm is hired.
As The Sarasota News Leader has reported, the firm that Human Resources Director Mason hired last year to handle the search — Colin Baenziger & Associates — formally withdrew from the initiative, offering a statement to the commissioners in an April 21 email. Written by Colin Baenziger, the email said, “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.”
During public comments to the commissioners on May 5, city businessman Martin Hyde characterized that action thus: “They fired you.”
On Sept. 17, 2024, the firm submitted its proposal for the search, a city document shows. Through a public records request, the News Leader learned that a Dec. 30, 2024 city purchase order listed payment of $35,000 to Colin Baenziger & Associates. The description said, “service for an executive search firm to hire the City Manager,” with the funds coming out of “Contingency.” The purchase order added that the invoice status was “Fully Paid.”
Baenziger & Associates was the same firm the city used to find a new manager in 2012.
‘Not only confused but disgruntled’
Following a presentation that Mason had provided about a tentative timeline that would conclude with the hiring of the new manager, Commissioner Battie talked about the board’s April 11 special meeting discussion. “That, he said, “was one of the first times since I’ve been on this commission that I walked out of here totally and completely not only confused but disgruntled. It left me with, like, no confidence in the process …”
He added, “This process seriously needs to be dismissed, dismantled and totally obliterated.”
Battie did acknowledge that a number of people were afraid that the commissioners would lose all 44 candidates still on the list that Baenziger & Associates had provided them. Yet, he continued, “Sarasota is a key player not only in the state” but also globally. That was all the more reason, he indicated, that the commissioners should not “shortchange ourselves and, more importantly, not shortchange the citizens” of the city and just settle on someone from that list.
If people who have applied for the position are that interested in becoming Sarasota’s city manager, Battie added, they can reapply for the job.
Then he brought up the proposal that, if possible, the search process be taken from the Human Resources Department and turned over to the Offices of the City Auditor and Clerk and City Attorney, because Griggs and Polzak are Charter Officials, appointed by the commissioners. That would give him more confidence, Battie said, and he felt the members of the public with whom he had spoken would have more confidence in the process.
Commissioner Ohlrich noted that the City Commission “had no part in hiring” Baenziger & Associates. Instead, Mason and her staff were involved with that.
Referring again to his feelings after the April 11 special meeting, Battie said, “I almost felt that we looked weak as a commission, as a body, and ineffective. …”
Moreover, he pointed out, “We can’t absolve ourselves of any responsibility in this whole thing. We have to … own it, because we allowed it to get to this point … and it behooves us to take it back.”
The first to respond to his remarks was Vice Mayor Trice, who told her colleagues, “I actually think it is worthwhile moving forward” with the steps that Mason had outlined. “We do have, in my opinion, several good candidates” on the list, with background material on them that had been provided by Baenziger & Associates.
Trice added, “I would hate to lose them because we start from scratch,” which, she noted, likely would extend the search process by three or four months beyond the timeline Mason had indicated. That tentative timeline included the possibility that the City Commission would make its hiring decision no later than its second regular meeting in August.
In regard to Battie’s suggestion that the Human Resources staff be removed from a new search process, Trice stressed, “Our Human Resources Department are professionals; our Procurement Department are professionals.” (She further noted that the Procurement staff would be involved in the process of hiring a new search firm.)
“We’re going to have to have staff involved in the process,” Trice emphasized, “if we want the job done correctly.” The City Commission, she added, should not turn to the city auditor and clerk and city attorney and tell them to set up the process.
Referring to Battie’s remarks about how he felt after the special meeting on April 11, Commission Ohlrich said that she, like him, “felt shocked at the disfunction here in this room. … I don’t trust that the path we’re on will lead us to the best city manager for the City of Sarasota.”