Five candidates remain in running for position
With interviews of the finalists for the Sarasota city manager’s position scheduled for Feb. 23 and Feb. 24, the City Commission “expects to extend an employment offer to one of them” on Feb. 27, Mayor Debbie Trice noted in the city’s Feb. 13 newsletter.
An open house for the candidates has been planned from 5:30 to 8 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 23, at the Robert L Taylor Community Complex in Newtown. That facility stands at 1845 John Rivers St.
“The open house will offer residents the opportunity to meet the candidates and talk with them about issues, priorities and the future of Sarasota,” a formal city notice points out. “Five stations will be set up with each finalist moving between stations to talk with attendees.”
As the commissioners agreed during a special meeting on Feb. 10, they will conduct one-on-one interviews with the candidates on Feb. 23, with up to one hour allotted per finalist.
Then, on Tuesday, Feb. 24, at 11 a.m., “the City Commission as a whole will conduct interviews with each candidate in the Commission Chambers,” the formal public notice says.
A special City Commission meeting has been scheduled for 1 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 27, “at which time the City Commission is expected to extend an employment offer,” the notice adds.
Although the board members had whittled down their list of semi-finalists to six names during their Feb. 10 special meeting, one of those candidates no longer is in the running for the job, City Auditor and Clerk Shayla Griggs told the commissioners during their regular meeting on Feb. 17.
Tim Gleason of Davenport, Iowa, who had been the interim city administrator of that municipality since November 2025, was offered the job on a full-time basis, Griggs indicated.
As Trice’s message in the Feb. 13 newsletter pointed out, “In December, 88 people applied to serve as Sarasota’s next City Manager. In January, your City Commission selected 42 of them as Semifinalists.”
She added, “We believe that any one of them would be an excellent City Manager for the City of Sarasota.
“As you can imagine,” Trice continued, “it was a bit of a struggle to agree on only 6, but after much discussion of the diverse qualifications of our preferred applicants,” the board members selected the finalists below, along with Gleason. They are expected “to come to Sarasota (with their partners) on February 23-24 for interviews with the City Commissioners, to meet members of the staff, to tour our city, and to introduce themselves to you,” Trice added.
The finalists’ written application materials and video interviews conducted by the executive search firm, Sumter Local Government Consulting of Atlanta, are available on the city website, Trice noted.
Troy Anderson
He has been assistant city manager of Wichita, Kansas, since August 2022. From February 2018 to August 2022, he was deputy chief of staff for the Mayor’s Office of Omaha, Neb.
Harry Black
A resident of Stockton, Calif., Black is a consultant with Care Solace since March 2025. That firm “is a technology-enabled mental health care coordination platform that partners with school districts, local governments, healthcare providers, and community organizations to expand access to behavioral health and substance abuse treatment,” Black’s resume says. He also is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, which is headquartered in Washington, D.C.
Kemarr Brown
She has been deputy city manager of Homestead since February 2025. From May 2024 to February 2025, Brown was assistant city manager of Homestead.
Karie Friling
A resident of Orland Park, Illinois, she has been executive director of the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, Illinois, since 2021. Prior to that Friling was manager of the Village of Homer Glen, Illinois, from 2019 to 2021.
Chris Rodriguez
He has been assistant city administrator of the District of Columbia, in Washington, D.C., since Sept. 17, 2023. Rodriguez was acting chief technology officer of the District of Columbia from Sept. 17, 2023 to Feb. 28, 2024. Rodriguez served as director of homeland security and the Emergency Management Agency of the District of Columbia from Oct. 26, 2017 to Sept. 16, 2023.
Another interim city manager
Turning to the plans of interim City Manager Dave Bullock to step down on March 6, Trice wrote in the Feb. 13 newsletter that the new city manager will not be in place then. “That leaves us with a gap of a few weeks when we’d need another Interim City Manager. Mr. Bullock recommended and the City Commissioners unanimously agreed that the ideal person to serve as Interim City Manager is Jennifer Jorgensen, currently Director of Governmental Affairs.
Trice added, “Thank you, Jennifer, for accepting this challenging position.”
Bullock began work in May 2025.
After the last full-time Sarasota city manager — Marlon Brown — ended his tenure on Oct. 15, 2024, Doug Jeffcoat, who had been director of the city’s Public Works Department since 2010 — held the interim position. Jeffcoat had been employed with the city since 1995. He retired in September 2025.
Narrowing the field of semi-finalists
During their special meeting on Feb. 10, the commissioners spent nearly five hours whittling down their list of semi-finalists, so they would end up with six names.
Warren Hutmacher, owner and principal of Sumter Local Government Consulting, was present to assist them in that process.
During the discussion, Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch proposed that she and her colleagues conclude that session with 10 names and then conduct another special meeting “not too far in the future” to pare that down.
She pointed out that that their next regular meeting was set for Feb. 17, so they could add another item to that agenda, involving the vote on the finalists.
Ahearn-Koch stressed the importance of choosing the right person as the next city manager. To that end, she said she wanted to have some extra time to conduct phone calls or Zoom sessions with the 10 people she proposed they place on their list on Feb. 10.
Yet, other commissioners were not interested in making contact with 10 semi-finalists.
When Mayor Trice asked City Attorney Joe Polzak about Ahearn-Koch’s recommendation, he explained that it would be ideal for each board member to make a decision on the finalists by working from the same information. “I don’t know that it’s a legal issue, per se,” he added, “but you’d have commissioners in different positions of information.”
Commissioner Liz Alpert argued against Ahearn-Koch’s proposal, emphasizing that that would be changing the procedure they all had agreed upon in pursuing a new city manager.
“I think it’s a bad idea,” Trice added.
Commissioner Kyle Battie was the only member of the board to agree with Ahearn-Koch. He seconded a motion she made regarding her proposal, but the motion failed 2-3, with Vice Mayor Kathy Kelley Ohlrich siding with Trice and Alpert.
Then, after the commissioners conducted ranked choice voting on the semi-finalists, Trice announced that Harry Black was listed by all five of the board members; Chris Rodriguez, Kemarr Brown and Troy Anderson were listed by four of the commissioners; and Tim Gleason and Karie Friling were listed by three apiece.
Black had a total of 26 ranked choice votes, Trice reported; Rodriguez, 16; Brown, 16; Anderson, 14; Gleason, 10; and Friling, seven.
Ohlrich made the motion to approve those persons as the semi-finalists, and Battie seconded it.
The resulting vote on them was unanimous.