The Clearwater City Council held a special meeting on January 27, 2026, at 8:00 AM in the Main Library Council Chambers to deliberate and select an executive recruitment service to fill the vacant City Attorney position. After reviewing three proposals and hearing public comment, the council unanimously approved SGR (formerly SGR Consulting) to conduct the search.
This time we'll call to order the January twenty-seventh twenty twenty-six meeting of the Clearwater City Council. This time we'll move to item two point one on the agenda. Executive recruitment services for city attorney. And uh and I see that we've been provided with three uh proposals. There are any uh comment you'd like to make on these three that we've received, or just morning Tiffany Macris, HR director. Um Mayor, just the three that you've received were from SGR, Major Lindsay in Africa, and S. Renee Narlock and Associates staff did reach out to Baker Gilmore, and they went for sponsor. Okay. But um interesting what the other council members thoughts are on these. Um it goes to either an RFP or something similar to that. Um I believe two of these are under fifty thousand anyway, um, so it wouldn't necessarily be a concern, but I did see that one of them is over fifty thousand. And so um if you ended up choosing the one that was over fifty thousand, I don't see a problem with it legally because our purchasing code provides an RFP exception for impractical purposes. And we've had staff come forward several times with other other items that are impractical, and to the mayor's point. If you were to treat this as a formal RFP, not only would you lose a lot of time, but the question is who would sit on the RFP committee, right? Are are all five of you going to sit on the RFP committee? How would you manage that with sunshine with schedules and things like that? So, at least from my perspective, if the council chooses to move forward with one of these, which you're not obligated to do, but if you choose to move forward with one of these, I think it comfortably falls within the impractical exception for procurement, and I do believe you could make that selection today if you choose to do so. If you choose to do so, I do believe you should open it up to public comment because that would be a proposition before the council. But from a procurement perspective, I believe you could choose any of these, or you could choose someone else entirely, and I think that would be fine. And whoever we choose with these three, that uh they work directly with the five of us. They meet with us individually at the outset to get our own thoughts. Uh certainly staff will help you know communicate administratively and gather things that is needed as requested by the consultant. But I I really hope that this is the five of us engaging directly with whoever we hire somebody to just make sure that it's our decision at the end of the day. Um so and I and I believe SGR to do that. So council member Alberton. Uh yeah, just thinking back on how we did this last time. Yeah, uh we hired a company to do a national search, and they went through all the um this is for the people that probably weren't here before. They go through all the uh people that respond to their search, and they come up with I think it was five you know, different people they they thought were the top ones, and then they bring it to us. But in the interim, we did meet individually with the with this with the company that was doing it, so they can get what kind of an idea what we're looking for, and um, and then they go out for the search, and then they put pretty much distill it down probably to five, four or five, and they bring that to us, and then we do the interviews and then come up, you know, a discussion, and then come up with uh who we're who we're gonna pick. Um I'm fine with SGR. I've read them read them all. I don't have an issue with that. Uh looks like they've done a lot of uh this type of RF, you know, uh thing. So uh I think if we get started on it, it's gonna take a while for to get the RFP out and then to get all the proposals in, and uh, and then of course talk to us, and then when they do get that, they will distill it down to four or five and then bring it to us. So it's gonna be a time, it's it's gonna be a little bit of time to get all that done. Yeah, I think that's the advantage of moving pollways, it's to put an out take that additional time, and we've already accepted the resignation of the city attorney and have moved forward. Someone in um getting ready to lose someone in the interim, so I think that's important. So okay, Councilmember Cotton. Yeah, thank you. Apologize for my tardiness. Um, thank you to staff for uh doing the work and getting those other proposals uh for us. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for getting us um SGR's proposal. And you know, I looked at this proposal like I look at uh everything else based on its merits, and then it's fit for clear order. Um of the companies are qualified, and I think we could see that when we were going through the paperwork and each of the three proposals, um very unique. I think we can all see the just distinct differences too and nuance, you know, from price to what each one offers from bringing to the table and the approach in which they would approach the five of us because I agree with what the mayor is saying as well. This should be uh uh an effort that that we're heading up to make sure that this role is is set by the right person that this council puts there for the best for the city. Um, you know, we manage an executive airport, uh working marina, world-class touristic beach and downtown redevelopment. Um we have major business relationships with utility companies and professional sports teams. So, you know, this role is an extremely important role to fill, and and I think that we have to get it right in doing that.