Mayor urges colleagues to be prepared to pare list of 36 semi-finalists
At 10 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 10, the Sarasota City Commission will conduct a special meeting during which the members expect to choose six finalists for the position of city manager.
Mayor Debbie Trice discussed the session during her routine remarks to her colleagues after they completed the other items on their Feb. 2 regular meeting agenda.
She had emailed City Auditor and Clerk Shayla Griggs and City Attorney Joe Polzak the previous evening, Trice said, with questions related to the process.
In that email, The Sarasota News Leader learned from a review of the city’s public email folder, Trice asked them the following:
- “When do we anticipate receiving Sumter’s recommendations?” Trice was referring to the Georgia consulting firm that is handling the search for the city.
- “I suggest we consider and/or prepare for the process of going from 36 semi-finalists to 6 finalists next week. I plan to come to the Feb. 10 meeting with a ranked list of my top 10, figuring that will accommodate whatever system we use to choose the Finalists.
- “I believe that you were going to find out what items Sumter included in its ‘Background Check,’ and request that they provide some subset of that on all the finalists. I would hate to vote on our final choice only to have that person ‘fail’ the background check. I doubt the second-choice would happily accept a subsequent offer from us knowing they were not our preferred candidate.”
Griggs, who was not present for the board’s regular meeting on Feb. 2, responded late the same night, letting Trice know that she planned to follow up with Sumter “regarding background checks and have an answer [for Trice].”
During the Monday meeting, Trice reported that Griggs had told her that, on Feb. 5, the commissioners should receive Sumter Local Government Consulting’s recommendations regarding the semi-finalists the board members had selected.
The mayor stressed to her colleagues, “We have the challenge of going from 36 [candidates] down to six finalists. … I was going to suggest that we at least have a sense of who we, as individuals want on the list.” Her goal, Trice added, was to make the selection of the finalists easier during the Feb. 10 meeting.
Further, on Jan. 27, Griggs had emailed the commissioners to let them know that Sumter had begun uploading to the designated city webpages the video interviews that its staff had conducted with the semi-finalists.
This is the link to the city webpages with information about the timeline for choosing the new manager, along with the candidates’ resumes: https://www.sarasotafl.gov/Department-Pages/Information-Technology/City-Manager-Search.
Whittling down the list from more than 80
During a special meeting on Jan. 13, the board members arrived at their list of semi-finalists.
Warren Hutmacher, owner and principal of Sumter Local Government Consulting, discussed with them that day the initial candidate review score sheet that the firm had developed.
“It attempts to be objective,” working from the information and materials that he and his staff had obtained from the candidates, he noted. The goal was to assign the maximum number of points, he said, to the attributes that indicate the greatest likelihood of their success in serving as the Sarasota city manager.
However, Hutmacher continued, the scoring “does not take into account soft skills, [and] it does not take into account other non-objective measures.” Thus, he acknowledged, “It is not perfect.”
He and his staff assigned the largest number of points to candidates who had more than 10 years of experience as a city manager, he pointed out.
In regard to education, he continued, Sumter gave 15 points to anyone who had a master’s degree and 10 points to those with a bachelor’s degree.
The firm did add a category to reflect service as a city manager in a municipality with more than 50,000 residents, Hutmacher noted, “to try to reflect a little bit more carefully” the challenges that managing a city the size of Sarasota would pose.
Nonetheless, Hutmacher said, “I believe there are folks from smaller cities that can step up and do an exceptional job for you.”
Further, taking into consideration a suggestion that Vice Mayor Kathy Kelley Ohlrich has stressed, he pointed out that Sumter had awarded extra points to those candidates who had earned ICMA membership, as the process to achieve that is an extensive one. (On its website, ICMA explains, “The ICMA Voluntary Credentialing Program recognizes professional local government managers who through their education and experience, their adherence to high standards of integrity, and their commitment to lifelong learning and professional development are deserving of the credential.)
The Sumter staff also assigned extra points to individuals who had city manager experience in coastal communities, he said during the Jan. 13 meeting, though he acknowledged, “We also recognize there is a difference between being on the coast in California and being on the coast in Florida …”
Yet another consideration, Hutmacher noted, was whether a candidate had experience in management in a community that is a major tourism destination.
Of the 85 names on the list prepared for the commissioners that day, he said, 37 had been identified in the top tier of Sumter’s recommendations.
To that list, Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch added the following names: Tony Palermo, Demetra McBride, Tanja McCoy, Jarvis Sims and Stephen Menard.
In a Feb. 1 email to the commissioners, City Auditor and Clerk Griggs wrote that six of Sumter’s recommended candidates had withdrawn from consideration: Kelcey Young, Christopher Ricci, Mike Cassidy, James Gleason and Adrian Jones.
A snapshot of the semi-finalists
The remaining candidates from Sumter’s Tier 1 list are as follows:
- Thomas Thomas of Bloomington, Illinois, who was city manager of Compton, Calif., from March 22 to July 2023. He also served as city manager of Unalaska, Alaska, from March 2018 to May 2019.
- David Vela, city manager of Odessa, Texas, from June to October 2025. Prior to that, he was city manager of Sweetwater, Texas, from June 2016 to May 2025.
- Tim Gleason of Davenport, Iowa, where he has been the interim city administrator since November 2025. He was the city manager of Decatur, Illinois, from May 2024 to October 2025.
- Yvonne Kimball, who was city manager of Morro Bay, Calif., from August 2023 to July 2025. She was city manager of Jackson, Calif., from August 2017 to July 2023.
- Lynda Boswell of Temple Terrace, director of finance of Port Arthur, Texas, since October 2023. Boswell was the interim chief finance officer for Fulton, Missouri, from March to June 2023.
- Randy Robertson, who was city manager of Aberdeen, Md., from 2016 to 2020 and city manager of Cordova, Alaska, from 2013 to 2016. He has held interim positions since 2021, he pointed out, so he could “assist with medical care for [his] mother.”
- Robin Gomez, who was city manager of Madeira Beach from Dec. 20, 2021 until Sept. 10, 2025. Gomez was city manager of Clarkston, Ga., from Jan. 7, 2019 until Sept. 17, 2021.
- Carl Geffken, manager of the City of Fort Smith, Ark., from May 2016 to December 2024. Geffken was the chief operating officer and executive director of Children and Youth Services of Berks County, Penn., from March 2012 to April 2016.
- Colin Donnelly, the Capital Improvement Program administrator for the City of Dania Beach from September 2019 to October 2024. Connelly was the assistant city manager in that Florida city from December 2006 to March 2019.
- Harry Black of Stockton, Calif., 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.
- Andrew Butterfield, city manager of New Port Richey. Butterfield served as chief of staff and deputy county administrator for Manatee County Government from 2023 to 2024.
- Charles Gable of Gettysburg, Penn., who has been manager of Gettysburg Borough since May 2014. He also has been administrative manager of the borough’s Storm Water Authority since July 2019.
- Christopher Hobby of Peachtree City, Ga., who served for 21 years as city manager of Bainbridge, Ga. He has been the assistant city manager of Peachtree City, Ga., since 2024.
- Dan Wendt of Vandalia, Ohio, who has been assistant city manager of West Carrollton, Ohio, since October 2024. From February 2021 to July 2024, he was city manager of Vandalia, Ohio.
- Emilie LaGrow of Paw Paw, Mich., who has been manager of the Village of Cassopolis, Mich., since February 2015.
- Joseph A. Gaa, who has been the city administrator of Washington, Iowa, since August 2024. From September 2023 to February 2024, Gaa was the city administrator of Marshalltown, Iowa.
- Ricardo Mendez Salivida of Miami, who was assistant city administrator of West Palm Beach from 2020 to 2021. He was chief operating officer and chief financial officer of Harrisburg, Penn., from 2012 to 2013.
- Pietro Scalera, administrator of the Village of Bloomingdale, Illinois, since September 2014.
- Charles “Chad” Morris, manager of Milton-Freewater, Ore., since May 2024. From 2001 to 2024, Morris was deputy city manager of Niceville.
- Kemarr L. Brown, who has been deputy city manager of Homestead since February 2025. From May 2024 to February 2025, Brown was assistant city manager of Homestead.
- Robert Fowler of Mentor, Ohio, who has been assistant city manager of Mentor since 2022. From 2017 to 2022, Fowler was the city administrator of Norton, Ohio.
- Steven McLaughlin, who has been the county executive of Rensselaer County, N.Y., since January 2018. From January 2011 to December 2017, McLaughlin was an assemblyman in the New York Legislature.
- James K. Harriott Jr. of Sarasota, who served as a department director with Sarasota County Government and county engineer from March 2007 to October 2014. From October 2014 to April 2021, he was deputy manager of Alachua County.
- Karie Friling of Orland Park, Illinois, who 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.
- David Wulf, a rear admiral in the U.S. Maritime Service, who was deputy superintendent of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, in Kings Point, N.Y., from 2023 to 2025. Wulf also was the intermittent acting superintendent between 2023 and 2025. From 2021 to 2023, Wulf was deputy administrator of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
- Michael G. Leahy, who was secretary of information technology and a member of the Governor’s Cabinet for the State of Maryland from 2017 to 2023. From 2014 to 2017, Leahy was city attorney and chief legal officer of Annapolis, Md.
- David Freeman, who was chief of management services from 2024 to 2025 for Newport, Va. From 2023 to 2024, Freeman was acting assistant city manager of Newport; that stint followed his service as assistant to the city manager of Newport from 2017 to 2023.
- Tarik Rahmani, chief financial officer and interim deputy city manager of North Miami Beach since 2024. From 2022 to 2024, he was deputy city manager of Carson, Calif.
- Christopher Rodriguez, assistant city administrator of the District of Columbia, in Washington, D.C., since Sept. 17, 2023. He 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.
- Troy Anderson of Wichita, Kansas, who has been assistant city manager of that municipality since August 2022. From February 2018 to August 2022, he was deputy chief of staff for the Mayor’s Office of Omaha, Neb.
- Michael Jensik, a senior consultant with the Walk the Talk Foundation since June 2025. Jensik was global head of security for the Brinks Co. in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area from August 2023 to June 2025.
- Tony Palermo of Port Charlotte, who has been the assistant community development director of Fort Myers since July 2017. From September 2002 to July 2017, he was the senior planner with the Lee County Department of Community Development.
- Demetra McBride, who has been bureau chief of the Office of Sustainability and Environmental Management for Arlington County, Va., since April 2018. From November 2016 to April 2018, McBride was manager of energy and environment for the Environmental Initiatives Division of Los Angeles County.
- Tanja McCoy of Dania Beach, who has been director of Development Services for the City of Lauderdale Lakes since 2024. From 2023 to 2024, McCoy held the same position in Cocoa Beach.
- Jarvis Sims of Stockbridge, Ga., who was the manager of Greensboro, N.C., from May 2023 to February 2024. Sims has been a technical assistant coordinator with EnDyna since June 2024. That firm’s LinkedIn account says EnDyna “supports [the U.S. Government’s] cybersecurity, defense, occupational safety, clean environment and public health missions.” It is headquartered in Tysons Corner, Va.
- Stephen Menard of St. Augustine, who was senior program leader and strategic adviser for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from July 2009 to September 2025.