Mr.

Time, I'll call to order the special work session of the Clearwater City Council for July sixteenth, twenty twenty-six, and we'll move to item two point one of the agenda.

Good morning, Mayor Council Tiffany Macris, Human Resources Director.

So this morning, um, before you will be the four finalists for the as the candidates for city attorney.

They are each waiting by us, standing by in the next room in the conference room.

So each this morning is prepared to give you a five-minute presentation on how they would see their first year as the new city attorney.

At which point, once they're done with their presentation, the floor is open for any follow-up questions you may have.

And um question I have for you is would you prefer to see them in alphabetical order this morning?

I think that'd be fine.

Okay.

And so with that, I would be happy to play escort to go get them and bring them in and out and just let me know whenever you're ready.

Very good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And then uh then we'll see what the if the council has any questions for you.

SQR just uh mentioned that you wanted about five minutes on the first year.

Yes.

Uh thirty days are going to be uh intense assessment of the city attorney's office, all its staff individually, uh, as well as make contact and develop trust with the uh CM, the ACMs, and all the department heads, and figure out exactly what's the most effective way of delivering legal services to the city.

Uh days thirty to ninety.

Uh we're going to be going into a little more detail.

Uh starting an audit legally of the city, starting a review of the charter, ordinances, policies, procedures, rules, uh to see where there may be any landmines.

Uh where there aren't any landmines, we leave it alone, unless it's uh wordsmithing.

I've yet to see land use ordinances that couldn't be tightened up with a little better English.

Uh the balance of the year is going to be looking forward to projects like downtown and any long-term goals that may be uh before the uh commission uh council.

And that's it in the sum.

All right.

Any uh questions from the council?

Mr.

Edmund.

I'll go ahead, Mayor.

Yeah.

Uh thank you.

John, nice to see you.

Thank you for joining us again.

Uh enjoyed our conversation yesterday.

Apparently, we had so much fun, you're back for more.

Glutton for punishment.

I like to hear it.

Oh, and so you know, I went through security, so I'm safe for now.

Very important.

John, when you and I spoke a little bit yesterday, um, we talked a little bit about uh the importance of culture and internal culture, not just throughout city staff but city attorney's office.

Um you highlighted important to you uh three words uh mission first, people second, and self third.

Can you share with the the rest of us a little bit deeper about that?

Well, as they say in a separate habits of uh highly affected people, uh you know got to bring first things first.

Uh first thing is making sure that in this case uh my mission.

Well, perhaps it might be I don't believe I shared it with everyone, but if I can just take oops, sometimes paper and pencil look better.

If I can just take a few moments uh in case I missed a couple of you on the uh mission statement that I had drafted tentatively, let's see, where did that go?

Never find it when you need it.

Oh, there we are.

My goodness, I've got so many notes here.

Hold on.

Well, we'll rattle it off roughly from from memory.

But the the mission of the uh city attorney's office, the purpose of a mission statement is often misunderstood.

And it's a gap filler, it's a brief guide to the conduct and the general objectives that you want your people to operate under.

If I'm not available, or they don't want to bother me every five minutes, it's going to tell them what to do.

And in essence, uh the mission statement I have for us is to better the governance of the city through sound legal advice, uh, through following the law, through following ethics, through non-discrimination by label, and that way we know where we're going.

Uh that part I do.

We still have to establish values and uh vision statements that the staff can buy into in the city attorney's office.

Thank you.

I'm done, sir.

Thank you.

Okay.

Any other questions?

I have I have one.

Um, you know, uh it's from your experience.

Uh you've had you've had a lot of experience in private practice and serving municipalities out of your private practice and then doing other things.

How do you feel that that uh would uh be valuable to you in serving as our city attorney that private practice experience?

People don't think of uh public employees that are lawyers as bureaucrats, but they are.

I take an entirely different view of things while at the same time having dealt with and studied bureaucracies, but I'm gonna be looking to operate in a different fashion.

In the corporate world, uh nowadays we have the concept of legal operations, where you're gonna run it like a business, you're gonna return value.

And that would be the primary difference here, in addition to having an independent eye uh from being outside of being a regular employee uh of a city uh recently.

And that private practice also is mine, is very broad.

And we call it city attorney, but it's some cities in the state call it general council, and it's a general counsel position, which means you've got to know a little bit about everything.

Uh if you don't know a field, at least on the surface, uh you can't begin to advise.

If you know the procedures and the methodologies used, whether in a particular discipline or a particular field of law, uh, you can develop the answers, but you need that framework.

And I think that broad framework I have, and to try and bring business sense uh to the city attorney's office.

Everyone goes, well, it's costing us money, it's a bit of overhead.

If the city attorney's office is run correctly, it brings value to the city.

Value in terms of reputation, value in terms of saving funds.

And uh the other question is uh we I mean it's been in the news frequently that uh all municipalities in Florida are under budget pressure currently.

And uh how how would you you already alluded to a little bit that you do an analysis of the legal department on the front end, but how would you uh approach helping us, helping the entire city uh operate our legal department cost effectively and efficiently, and what kinds of things would you look at to do that?

Well, on a day-to-day basis, unless it's a rather minor issue, uh I would be training my staff and root cause analysis, and it could be something as simple as the Japanese five Y, Shakespeare asking why this happened and if that happened, why and why, and get to the root of the problem and provide that information to the CM and to the council, so that we have, in essence, in the legal aspect, uh, a center for lessons learned.

And people talk about institutional knowledge.

Well, that's the old concept.

Now it's knowledge management, and we'd build up a body of that.

So if some of my staff leave, a Russian satellite crashes and kills me, and I can't perform anymore, we move on.

Uh so that's one of the things just on a day-to-day basis.

Um, in terms of department heads and this council, I would probably on a quarterly basis meet with you and ask you two questions.

Number one, what are your top three priorities?

And for each of those priorities, what are your top five tasks?

I take those 15 data points, go home and think about it and say, where are there obstacles that I can clear ahead of time?

I'm sure you've all experienced when you have a project and it's building momentum, and then you hit a roadblock, particularly those annoying legal roadblocks.

Well, I want to try and anticipate that.

In terms of the other aspects of legal operations, uh I'm going to be looking very closely at outside council costs.

Uh I here I'm shooting in the dark, but I'm just laying out the way I would run it.

Uh, there has to be clearly established goals, a strategy, a budget, and there has to be very close monitoring of attorney fee bills.

I've in the past extensively litigated attorney fee issues uh before the court, and I would bring that knowledge to the city to keep those particular costs down.

Another technique that I might use is sometimes instead of bringing them in to do the whole work, you bring them in simply to advise.

I would much rather pay a senior partner five, six hundred dollars an hour than 350 an hour for an associate that many times doesn't know any more than anybody in the city attorney's office.

So there needs to be a balancing there.

When we bring them in to advise, they'd be working with a particular assistant city attorney, so we would land up getting education, more bang for the buck that way.

In terms of developing expertise or costs for the city attorney's office when some technical issues arise, uh, if we have any moderately long-term issues, then I would certainly go to some free assets.

And we've got a lot of universities and colleges around us.

Uh there are a lot of people working on their master's thesis and their doctoral dissertation.

Well, they're looking for data to help them.

We've got a lot of data, and we can possibly use those folks.

They get the laboratory, so to speak, in the data, we get their advice, and it's not simply somebody in an ivory tower alone.

They have a you know, a committee of two or three professors that are going to review the methodology to see if it's correct.

So becoming innovative and seeing what's out there, particularly in times of budget crunches.

And I'm afraid to say I think they're going to buy the uh those particular tax cuts.

It's just a good thing you rely less on advalorum taxes in a lot of municipalities.

But we're still gonna have to tighten our belt.

And of course, I'm gonna look at everything the city attorney's office does.

How can we streamline workflows both in the office as well as things outside of the office?

Contracting for the city, code enforcement.

Uh I'm a big systems and process management guy.

And I'm gonna be looking at all these flows and what's the most efficient.

Now, please understand me.

I'm not I'm not coming in as a bull in a China shop.

We're not doing everything revolutionary.

It's going to be incremental change.

Let's try this.

Does it work?

Fine.

It doesn't work, we move on to the next alternative way to handle it.

Uh Thomas Edison said when uh when somebody uh asked him, well, you said you've uh you tried 10,000 times and failed uh on inventing the light bulb.

And he said, No, I just found 10,000 things that didn't work.

And so there's a value even in failure.

And the city attorney can't be afraid to innovate within the bounds of the law, within the bounds of practical business knowledge.

Then again, I'm not so sure that a city attorney shouldn't, as I do, subscribe to Harvard Business Review, subscribe to uh MIT Sloan Management Review and get cutting-edge techniques and systems and ideas that are to be applied to the city.

City attorney's office should be run like uh an in-house corporation council's office that's high powered.

All right, Councilmember Alburn.

John, um enjoyed the time spent with you yesterday going over a bunch of questions.

Um I wanted to bring this up.

Uh how do you um how do you plan to uh uh communicate with the council and how often that depends upon you?

Uh I expect to have frequent contact with you, not simply routinely scheduled meetings, probably at least once a week, of course.

But if something pops up, I mean, you are the representatives of the people of this city.

Uh I know a heck of a lot, but the more I seem to learn, the more totally ignorant I feel.

And I've only been on this earth for a few years.

So drawing upon all of you, uh, it's not simply being partners with the CM and the ACMs in running the city, it's also partners with you in terms of you know, you express the uh political will of the people, and I want that input.

Now I'm not gonna call you on every little thing, but I think you may find a lot of times when you're thinking of something, I've already thought of it and I picked up the phone.

Uh I prefer phone contact first, uh email second, uh texts I just detest.

Uh litigated those issues in public records, and at one point in time, just so you know, I I I stand up to to everybody and will stand up for you as a counsel.

Uh about a dozen years ago, I invalidated the entire public records retention system in the state of Florida.

I was defending a public official, and that was one of the issues.

So I if you uh if you can't win on the facts, you change the rules.

And you know, I break the law all the time by getting laws invalidated, or trying to talk to public representatives and get the laws changed in that fashion.

So those are those are some of the things that I would be doing.

But it's going to be fairly consistent, except when I'm on vacation, and I may cut back a little bit.

But I've I just came back from vacation a couple of days ago.

I had to deal with several public officials that had questions.

And I'm available all the time, unless I'm well, even if I'm in the gym, I've taken plenty of calls on the elliptical.

So it'll be constant and continuous communication.

Uh, but I like it verbally, it's more personal, plus you don't have the additional issues of public records retention and creating that.

Um I take it also because you can get a little more depth and understanding as opposed to just emails, which are okay, but texts, something's flying right out of your head, and it forces you not to pause a lot of times.

And so, from a human engineering point of view, uh that's why I don't like text, in addition to the problems with the uh records retention.

Although, could I ask you a question?

Do we have a bring your own device policy in the city, or do we have, or does the city provide phones?

City provides phones to the council.

That's safe, thank goodness.

Okay.

That answer it?

Yes, thank you.

We would just get people to use those to contact us on those and be it's always an uphill battle, but we do the best we can.

So well, it's always tying a rock to a screen and tossing it through the window for if necessary.

Unfortunately, we need personal devices as well.

So okay.

Any other questions?

I I was uh I was gonna ask uh you to share your mission statement because I thought it was a great thing, so but you you beat me to it, so just try I misplaced the hold on.

It was so con it was so concise.

So I just wanted you to share it today.

But you beat me to it, don't worry about it.

Because I I spent a lot of time on it, actually.

Uh oh, maybe I stuck it under here.

It's all right.

Oh, no, I found it.

I had it labeled, I had it labeled under it's the culture stupid, which is taken from James Carville.

I may not agree with him politically, but in terms of issue identification, culture is very, very important in the city attorney's office.

But here was the mission statement.

The mission of the city attorney's office is to improve the quality of governance through trusted legal counsel, principled judgment, and unwavering fidelity to the public interest and the rule of law.

Notice we're not going blah blah blah, nitpick, nitpick, nitpick, we're efficient, lawyer stuff.

No, this is something where they know what direction I want to take the office in, and in my absence, uh how they are to govern themselves.

But in the end, my job is to help all of you, because as a charter officer, also responsible to the people, even though I'm only appointed rather than elected.

So hopefully that's giving you a little bit more insight into how I would be operating uh with you uh for the next few years.

Vice Mayor.

Yes, sir.

Thank you, John.

Thank you for being here again.

Um it was good to get to know you a little bit yesterday.

Just uh one question, and that is what do you believe is the single most important responsibility of a city attorney, and how would you how would that belief shape the advice you provide to this council?

I believe in a governing body-centric city attorney's office.

Uh you're the focus in the same way as when I'm in the courtroom in a jury trial, the witnesses come and go.

The law comes and goes.

You've got the jury there, and you're in essence the my jury.

Uh, and so I'd be focused entirely on you.

That is my number one mission.

Um, some of you asked yesterday, you know, well, what if there's some friction or whatever between the council and uh the CM?

Well, my she's employed by the city too, directly by you.

I'm directly by you.

You come first.

Simple as that.

That's general order number one.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Okay, well, thank you, John, for coming in today.

Appreciate your if I'm done, then by your leave, I'm gonna take my four-hour trip back home.

Okay.

Look forward to your uh decision.

Good to see you.

Thank you very much, and it was a pleasure meeting all of you.

Have a great day.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Good morning, yeah.

Uh at the beginning, it's your chance.

You've got five minutes just to share with us whatever thoughts you'd like to share with us.

So again, my name is Um Owen Kohler.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here today.

Uh I enjoyed the interviews yesterday.

I learned, even though we know each other, I learned some additional things about you, and I hope you learned some additional information about me.

In terms of the first year in the office, I really want to focus on three things.

One is provide stability at the state or at the city attorney's office.

Two is to bring two new council members up to speed, and three is just to keep things moving along.

Now, for the first one, in terms of stability, the city attorney's office, I think, for about 20 years has been operating under about 11 employees.

That's full-time positions.

Six of those are attorneys.

So you'd have one city attorney and you would have five other attorneys.

Since I think October of last year, um we have been having vacancies.

We currently have two vacancies.

And I think that's probably the most pressing need at the city attorney's office is to fill those vacancies.

What I like to do is when I hire, and we hired somebody early this year is really do it by a group or a collaboration.

I do seek input from the other attorneys.

Um I listen to it, and it and it does uh change what I want to do.

Um, I think that's important because you know what I this what I look for is not necessarily what's on a resume, I look for the fit, and I look for the fit within the office and the fit within the rest of the city.

Now, the second thing I want to focus on is get two new council members up to speed.

So there's going to be two that are going to be departing later this year, and we're going to have two ones that are going to come in later this year.

Um that is going to be very important because the two new council members are going to need to learn uh potentially issues of state law, you know, chapters 112, chapter 119, chapter 286, and others.

They're also need going to need to learn about the city charter, the city code of ordinances, and the development code.

They're also need to learn about just city policies and procedures and processes, and just how council does meetings in Clearwater.

They're also going to have to learn about just the big uh city council items.

And that's going to be the third topic I want to focus on, and what I would do in the first year is keep things moving along.

Um, you know, what my goal would be is to provide a seamless transition for the new members to come on and also seamless transition if I'm selected to go forward with everything as planned.

And there's a lot of major projects going on.

Um there's the redevelopment of a spring training facility, there is construction downtown, there is a potential P3 project, and there's also a very important litigation matter involving the CRA.

All of that is going to be coming due uh this year or within the next year.

And um certainly if I'm selected, I'm gonna focus on on those matters.

The advantage I have is I've been here since 2018.

I'm familiar with all the increments of these uh matters, and um and and those are the three things I would focus on in my first year.

Thank you.

Right.

Uh questions from the council.

First, Councilman Rowbrin.

Owen, I um we spent some time yesterday, and I didn't answer, I didn't ask you this question.

Okay, and I'm probably the only one up here that has been have seen you through two interim times as uh interim city attorney.

And um you didn't put your name in last time, but you're putting your name in this time, and uh I guess my question is uh so you're ready to do this as the as the city attorney now.

Yeah, absolutely.

So when I got hired in 2018, I was working for Pam Akin.

She had been here for about 27 years.

She had also been an attorney for uh the city of Tampa for seven years uh in the late 80s and in the early 90s.

Um you know, at that particular time, um I was happy where I was at.

I was also relatively new at Clearwater.

I've been there for about three years.

Um I like my role as the lead assistant.

Uh but here we are today in the 2026.

I am ready to go.

I'm interested in going forward, and I think I would make a great selection.

Thanks.

Okay, somebody else.

So um last yesterday was more conversational, right?

We already have a working relationship, so it wasn't formal at all.

It was more of a discussion back and forth and sharing of ideas.

So I kind of wanted to give you an opportunity today to answer our actual formal question, and that would be as our city attorney, you often will advise council on matters involving influential organizations with significant public interest.

How would you maintain independence while preserving productive professional relationships with all parties?

Well, you know, in terms of providing advice, you know, what I have to do is I have to rely upon some type of legal authority.

That would either be going back to the city charter, going to the code, uh, going to court decisions, going to some type of statute.

And certainly when I would explain a decision, that's what I need to do.

It can't just be my opinion, because that's what I think.

It needs to be, well, this is what my legal opinion is, and and here's why, and lay it out.

I also think it's important to give uh a sufficient detail so somebody would understand exactly the the rationale of what I'm trying to present and say more manino.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

I like thank you for coming in today.

Enjoyed our conversation.

I definitely did learn some uh things about you I didn't know.

Um I thank you for sharing those.

My first question to you uh was the first item that you covered, and and it was why is stability in the city attorney's office important.

So I thank you for touching on that.

So I had to dig a little deeper for you and find another question.

Um but what I do want to ask you is when you and I um discussed um a little bit about the team concept and it being one city uh and one team.

We talked a little bit about collaboration and the importance of it.

Can you talk a little bit about why collaboration is important?

Um I I think it's important for many different aspects.

So the way that the city is structured is the uh city manager has the vast majority of the responsibilities of the city.

She reports directly to city council.

Then we have the city attorney's office and that reports also directly to city council.

So certainly I think it's important to have a good relationship with the city manager and the city manager's office as well as the other departments.

Um what I do when I give advice is it it's advice.

Um if somebody has some type of goal or some type of item, um, I will look at it from a legal standpoint, and there might be two or three or four different paths to take it.

I will lay it out that way, um, and I will provide that particular device.

Um I also seek input from the people I'm talking to.

So sometimes it may be something to where, well, the law or something is preventing you from doing this, but you know, maybe you can do something else and provide some type of alternative.

Um, you know, I don't necessarily like to give advice and say, well, this is just how it is because I'm the city attorney.

Uh I don't know if that's a uh a good practice at all.

It's more working with parties and coming with some type of uh mutual agreement or some mutual understanding.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Oh, and thank you again for yesterday.

I appreciate uh your participation in stepping up to the plate.

Um, same question for you as I'll probably have for all the candidates.

What do you believe is the single most important responsibility of the city attorney and how would that belief shape the advice you provide to these this council?

So again, it is you know, the city attorney reports to city council, so by all means, and it's not just necessarily one particular council member, it's all five.

Um so it is to provide the legal advice to city council.

It is if we get if I particularly if I get requests from city council, it is to uh look at that um as a whole, um and and make sure that council is aware of all the risk associated with matters.

Um make counsel is fully informed on all particular matters, um, and I think that's what be the primary role.

Thank you.

Um I have just have a couple things.

One um uh alluding to what was just said about collaboration.

Um, you've been with the city a long time, you've been so I think one of the advantages of that is you know shouldn't be in surprises at this point for you.

You you already know uh what the issues are and and um at the same time you've been here for for a while, so uh you're you know, as you pointed out, you're very comfortable working with uh not just folks in the city attorney's office but throughout the city.

Um do you see that as a challenge in remaining independent from uh from the other that you know the city manager side?

No, I mean not at all.

And in the last, I think since probably February, uh myself and the city manager and the city's manager's office have a I think a pretty good relationship.

Um, you know, I I think sometimes you the the offices need to somewhat stay in their lane.

So for instance, I focus on the legal aspect, and the city manager would focus on goals and and implementing things, um, and that's really how it is.

And you know, I would give uh her legal advice and her team legal advice and and focus on that.

Uh but no, I don't see any issues.

Um I think the collaboration is good.

I think you certainly need to have a city manager and a city attorney work together for common goals.

Um but but you you acknowledged in our meeting that you know not just your predecessor in this position you're applying for, but uh his predecessor.

Two offices don't always agree, and you you and haven't, you know, for years and and has remained independent for but you know, for good reason, or sometimes where it's not just uh it's not just city managers, that somewhere a department or whatever, uh, that they're just the the alignment just isn't the same, and and um you've you've observed that over the years, and you continue that tradition that we've had for years of having an independent office.

Absolutely, yes.

Uh the second thing is as uh you know, we talked about um you know, and you alluded to it first about uh filling the staff and and um and and it's well known that budget is a significant challenge for municipalities, county governments throughout the state of Florida right now with unknown revenues coming in or what may come in, so cost efficiency is important, and I think you've started talking about that.

Could you explain just the public and just for all of us, just um what things you would do to manage the costs that just are naturally incurred by the city attorney's office, including the way you said organizing the staff.

Right.

So you know there's there's six attorneys in the office, including the city attorney, and each one of them have really a area of responsibility.

Um we have a litigation attorney, um, we have a police legal advisor who sitting to the far left of you, uh, there's somebody that does land use, there's also somebody that does labor and employment law, which was was how I'm operating now, and then also somebody that's uh involved in public works, real estate construction, things like that.

Um so you know, I think the goal is to make sure that the office runs efficiently and to reduce outside counsel when possible.

And certainly there are cases that come into the door that should for the most part be handled internally, such as uh car crashes, such as slip and falls on sidewalks, and certain 1983 actions in federal court involving uh false arrest or unlawful search or seizure or something like that.

Those are the matters to to handle internally.

Now, in the last year, we the city attorney's office has gone to the outside council budget, probably a little bit more than normal, but I think that's just because of the circumstances.

Uh so I I think a goal is is to limit that, and one of the things that can be done is maybe add some more litigation experience in the office, which would reduce outside counsel.

Um couple other things would be just potentially add some more flexibility with the employees' um schedules and work hours and things like that, which certainly I would look at in the future.

Thank you.

Okay, anything else?

Well, thank you for coming in, good morning.

How are you guys?

Doing well, good to see you.

So uh each each candidate begins by just sharing uh you have five minutes to share with us whatever thoughts you want to share.

Okay.

Well, um, when I'm prepared for this hearing, thank you for inviting me to the city.

I've really enjoyed our time uh meeting and talking together.

Um you have a great city, and uh I I'm hopeful that uh you will select me as your next city attorney.

Um should I become the city attorney?

Um just wanted to give you uh an idea since we've already talked about uh my qualifications and my background, um, just what I would plan to do as the city attorney going forward.

Um I think the key is to observe everything initially within the city and and identify potential changes going forward, um, determine what resources are needed to get the work done appropriately, what maybe it needs to be readjusted, you know, things that don't need to be readjusted, things that need to be the same.

Determine what resources are needed to get the work done appropriately, what maybe needs to be readjusted, you know, things that don't need to be readjusted, things that need to be the same.

I will focus on open communication within the departments, uh within the legal department itself, and then also uh open communication with staff to make sure that everybody uh has a direct line and uh finally uh most important communication with the council so that uh you know what's going on, uh there's no surprises.

Uh we're all on the same page.

Um and then over time, uh it's important to continually re-evaluate and I don't I like to reevaluate every day.

I mean, it I don't think you have to wait to the end of the year to reevaluate what's going on, what needs to be fixed.

Um, and then also you can determine what's working and find ways to keep things working that way.

And uh finally the last thing that that I would do uh would be to continue training and make sure everybody's trained.

I mean we all know how how much this uh local government has changed, even in last year.

Uh so training is very important.

So that's a summary of of what I'm looking I would do in the beginning, and I'm happy to answer any questions that the council might have.

Right.

Councilmember Tishega.

I enjoyed our um our our um our time last yes, I did too.

It was fun.

Yeah, uh we're quite engaged.

So um I did have one question that I did not have time to ask you, and that is when local local government is often asked to make um very difficult decisions involving legal risk.

And so, how do you help elected officials understand those risks while still allowing important community projects to move forward?

Yeah, uh so as city attorney, you're not gonna uh have someone that's going to um in any way try to tell you what to do.

What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you legal advice and then I'm gonna give you the options, and what happens with those options is uh the risks and the benefits so that you have all the information in your mind to to make the appropriate decision.

Umrew, welcome back.

Hey, thanks.

I as well enjoyed our our time.

Um not just uh a formal oral argument or discussion.

Um we had uh kind of a conversational uh personal and and professional.

I I enjoyed our time together.

Uh one thing you and I discussed, and I recognized it uh in your your temperament is uh even keel we discussed, and why do you think that temperament is important in a city attorney's office?

Well, I I mean I kind of view the city attorney as someone who's kind of like the base or the rock of the of the staff, someone that can uh come into a situation.

There's lots of times when you have these frantic situations.

The last thing you want is uh someone that's gonna overreact.

You need someone that's going to analyze it in a calm manner, determine what the next steps are to get get the city through uh the process.

And um, you know, I'm not the kind of attorney that uh is going to be a flamboyant uh aggressive attorney.

I'm going to be who I am, which is someone who is uh calm with an even keel demeanor and enjoys working with people.

Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

Councilman Raw Britton.

Good to see you again, Andrew.

Good to see you.

Oh so you had a lot of experience.

You've got 20 years' experience as a uh an attorney.

Yeah, and uh 25 now.

Come on.

And uh county and city attorney and um representing many different municipalities.

Um I guess uh I'm just gonna ask this because you answered it yesterday, but I think it's a good one to uh have everybody here how do you intend to uh communicate with council and how often?

Yeah, so communication, I think is really important.

With my staff, there'll be a weekly staff meeting with council, it's as much as they need it, but um depending on their schedules, I'd like it to be weekly as well, and with the manager also weekly.

I think it's important to just even if even if you don't have anything to talk about, you can sit in a room and kind of get to know each other a little bit.

Um I've done this in my past jobs, and um, and it's been very successful to create relationships, trust, uh, and and also uh then there's never uh you know confusion, or if the there is confusion, it's only gonna last a week because you're gonna have that meeting.

Yeah, thank you.

Yes, thank you.

Good to see you again.

Thank you for your time.

I appreciate you being here.

Um, same question for you that I've asked the others, and that is what do you believe is the single most important responsibility of a city attorney, and how would that belief shape your advice to this council?

Okay, so uh I think the city attorney's role is not to be the city manager, it's not to be the city uh commission, city council.

Uh what city attorney's role is to provide uh legal advice, and by providing that legal advice, uh protect the city, uh the city as an entity from uh harm or making a mistake, but in the end it's it's providing the legal advice and providing the direction that that the city council can go or the city manager can go, and then it's up to the policymakers and the manager to decide um how to uh proceed.

I I'm never gonna be the one that's gonna tell any of you what to do, but I'm gonna tell you if you do this, this is what's gonna happen.

And and I think that's that's a role I'm very comfortable in.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Well, I have two questions for you.

One is um, you know, you've you've had a lot of um county government experience.

You've been city attorney in another city um in uh Iowa.

But uh, but also you were fishback dominic, and you had a chance to uh to work as really outside council for a number of cities.

Yeah.

How how did that experience help you, or you feel like it would help you as being our city attorney, being outside council and and uh representing uh a city from the outside?

Yeah.

So yeah, I've been very fortunate to have a lot of experience with varied communities.

I worked in South Florida with um Weiss Soroda, and I've worked um on the coast here with uh person Cohen and Mooney, and I worked with Fishback Dominic, uh, which is Central Florida, you know, that the amount of cities that I've been exposed to in different processes in different counties, Miami Dade County, you know.

Um I've worked with uh with the keys um and so I've had a lot of experience, and I think the thing that really helps with that experience is I've been exposed to different things rather than just being pigeonholed into one position where you do the same thing every day in the same area every day.

I've had to uh I say I'm an inch deep and a mile long, I had to do almost everything at some point in my career.

And the real benefit to the city is I mean, local government, there's always something that no one's ever seen.

Senate Bill 180 is something nobody had ever seen, but I've seen most of it, and and it allows me to be creative when we have a problem.

I'm gonna be able to come up with a solution that can I can reach to that um experience to come up with creative solutions to problems that maybe someone that hasn't been around the state, hasn't experienced all these different cities, um, wouldn't have that that that experience and that knowledge.

And the other question I have for you is um you know you and I talked yesterday about uh the budget pressure that the municipal and county governments are under in state of Florida right now.

Um how would you uh approach keeping minimizing the cost of the the law department for the city of Clearwater and managing litigation and all that to try to uh keep the uh the cost to the to the taxpayers as low as possible.

Yeah.

So umce again, you know, uh it may be a challenging time coming before us, I think for everybody in the state of Florida whose uh local government, including special districts, and anybody that's reliant on uh property tax.

Uh so uh I have two views on that.

One um once again, there's a lot of financing mechanisms out there, and those should all be evaluated.

I mean, there are a lot that maybe have fallen out of favor with local government, and maybe those are some that maybe we tap into.

Uh, but also more directly to your question.

You know, you have to evaluate what is necessary in your department and in the in the city and what maybe isn't necessary anymore when faced with a budget crunch.

And do that in a fair way that benefits the benefits the citizens.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Council?

Thank you, Mr.

Maiber.

Thank you all again.

Good to see you.

Thank you.

That would be hilarious, too.

Oh yeah.

We'll work on this process next time.

Yeah, for sure.

It's like they're coming into a wedding of what is your walkouts.

What's your walk-up on?

Or walk inside getting to the pattern spots.

Yeah, right.

I like that.

We learn a lot by that.

Nick Nicole, why did you pick Taylor Smith?

I have a couple options.

Yeah.

My name's Nicole.

I like the card.

Folks, we are live here, so just remind everybody that all is being heard.

So just reminder.

Silence.

Morning, Mayor.

Permission to approach the dais and just read everybody.

You may, yes.

Thank you.

Good to see you again.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Mayor.

All right.

So each each candidate has five minutes to share with us whatever you want to share, not just with us, but with the public about yourself, or and this is your opportunity to do that before we have some questions for you.

Very good.

All right.

Well, thank you very much for having me.

Council, Madam Clerk, City Administration.

My name is Camilo Soto.

I am an attorney and an urban planner by both education and uh and training.

I have a history with Clearwater.

Um I worked over 10 years with the city attorney's office.

Uh worked with uh with Pam Aiken and Mr.

Horn.

Um rest in peace, Mr.

Horn.

Um, with respect to my history with Clearwater, um, I tended to focus a lot on the land use and zoning side of things.

I collaborated with some amazing people uh as it relates to Imagined Clearwater.

It's amazing to see the implementation of that taking place today.

The um joint East Library that is now over on the SPC campus on Drew Street, was also very involved in the crabby bills and I guess the original marina redevelopment.

I understand that the marina is going to be redeveloped yet again.

Um after leaving Clearwater, I worked in the private sector for some time, and I'm currently an assistant uh assistant county attorney with Manatee County.

Um the reason why I'm here.

I think Clearwater is at a very key inflection point in the development of its city.

Um it's not a knock, but the beach has been quite a focus for a long time, rightfully so.

It's a very amazing tax revenue generator for property and hotel bed taxes.

Um but it's it's it's great to see Imagine Clearwater, the US 19 redevelopment uh plans taking place and fruition.

It's amazing to see cranes in downtown Clearwater.

Um with respect to the US 19 area.

Um with respect to the US 19 area, uh I know there's a lot of excitement with the Phillies potential redevelopment plan of their area where the where the Threshers play.

Um there's also a pending 25 acres that will become available under an RFN from Pinellas County.

Um and I know there's an immense uh pride uh from this council uh as it relates to the Bay Care Bay Area, Bay Care Area Sound pavilion.

What your choice is today, all the candidates that you've seen before you are all incredible candidates with incredible um backgrounds.

Otherwise, we wouldn't we wouldn't be here as finalists.

But what distinguishes me from the candidates is that I have an urban planning background.

I have a history with the city of Clearwater without necessarily being tied down to any particular issues.

I've gone off and seen what the private sector is, what the public sector is in in different areas.

Um my skill set and lived experience, my lived my lived experiences distinguishes me significantly.

So I have an appreciation for what Clearwater is, and I look forward to being able to collaborate with this city council and future city councils in figuring out what it could be or how it could be done.

With that said, I bring uh I bring a lot to the table, I think, in my opinion.

Um I'm bilingual as well, and I I don't tend to use my my Spanish as much as I I wish I could in my professional life, but to the extent that in some way, shape, or form with the newest sister city, Ishmid Gilban, I could be associated in some way, shape, or form, or whether it's it's attracting maybe a more diverse um set of investors and siphoning a little bit more off of Miami Dade County.

A lot of Latin American investors tend to gravitate towards that area and don't maybe realize the abundance of value and amazing things that are over on this side of the of the state.

So, you know, to the extent that I can I can be of help on the legal side of that, I would I would love that.

Um I have over 18 years of uh local government, Florida legal experience.

I'm very collaborative and independent.

Um I think my my track record shows that and so your decision today, I think, based on what we've I guess had our one-on-ones, really is grounded on what seems to be a collective desire for a team approach or a team-oriented individual in this position.

Someone that is both independent and again a team player.

It's gonna be a pretty interesting line to straddle because you know the the city attorney does represent the city council as a whole.

Um, and then it's the city of Clearwater as a whole, one Clearwater that is the entity that that basically responsible for all these things.

Umone with legal creativity.

And so I think all those qualities are what I bring to the table.

And public service to me is is a very important calling as it is to all of you in our one-on-ones.

You always talked about the citizen taxpayers being at the front of mine.

I agree with that.

Um, but I also enjoy local government work so much.

There's never a dull moment.

We touch upon every whenever my kiddo asks me initially, what do we what do we do as local government attorneys?

I tell them, uh, what we don't do is prosecute criminal cases, defend criminal cases, don't deal with family law, and international law.

But pretty much everything else is is expected out of a city attorney.

And so, based on my experience, my track record, I've proven to be an independent, experienced attorney, and I'd like to be able to bring that culmination of qualities to the city of Clearwater to help in its next phase of development.

That is all.

Okay, questions from the council.

Councilman.

Thank you.

Miller, nice to see you.

Likewise, uh, thank you for joining us.

Uh, enjoyed our conversation uh yesterday, learned a lot about you, um, and I appreciate your time.

Um I commented to you that a couple things that I noticed within the first couple minutes.

I'm sure nobody uh here would disagree was your energy and positive demeanor.

Um that's contagious, and I I appreciate that.

One of the things I noticed when you and I kind of closed the book and on the formal side before we just kind of diced back and forth completely random topics.

Um you identified the word collaboration.

I think you said it today once, but you and I went back and I think we counted six different times.

You use that word throughout all my uh silly questions for you.

Can you uh dive a little deeper into why collaboration is so important to you?

Well, I I mean I think as a city attorney, uh it is important because I want to be able to protect the city of Clearwater's interests as a whole.

Uh the better the relationship that I have with uh city administration and the various department heads, I think gives us the better the best chance, the best opportunity to to do all our respective jobs.

Um additionally, Clearwater was very, very fortuitous in the fact that Mr.

Horn was city manager for 20 plus years, Miss Aiken, 27.

That level of continuity is established on collaboration.

Um and so to the extent that I can even walk in those footsteps to any degree would be amazing.

And so I I think collaboration is key to an effective city attorney.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Council Martesheda.

It's nice to see you again today.

Um I know yesterday we spoke about a lot of things, but we didn't have the opportunity to delve in deeper into the into this particular uh subject.

So Clearwater occasionally faces matters involving organizations, institutions, or stakeholders that generate intense public attention and strong community opinions.

And as future city attorney, how would you ensure that your legal advice remains objective, independent, and based solely on the law, regardless of the parties involved?

Several times I think with with all of you at some point, I I did acknowledge my phrase I leave the politicking to the politicians.

I think that's very, very important in my role as a city attorney.

Um in order to maintain objectivity and consistency.

Um I think it's important to uh be well researched and know what the basis is for the legal opinion that I'm providing.

My legal opinion will not and should not change based on the political winds of change or political winds that are whipping up in Clearwater.

And so I think that maintaining that objectivity is key while also obviously managing and and being creative where I can as a as a city attorney and and bringing novel ideas that maybe other local governments are doing.

Uh, not necessarily here in this country and maybe elsewhere.

But I agree that objectivity and and consistency and accuracy is prime importance.

One last thing.

Um City of Clearwater isn't the only locality that is dealing with a polemic, let's just say institution or a corporation.

Uh in Manatee County, uh there exists mosaic, mosaic uh phosphate mining.

Extremely large operation.

Um, and there are folks in that community that intensely dislike what mosaic does, no matter what it does.

Um I've worked with uh my counterpart at Mosaic, or I've worked with obviously the county, uh county staff, and by virtue of my collaborative objective um accuracy-minded approach to the law, we were able to put forward um a master mining plan and a um uh uh land use um a land use agreement uh that wound up um dissolving a development of regional impact that Mosaic had.

Um by virtue of that, we were able to kind of clean up a lot of things in that um and so I wouldn't have been able to do that, no, you know, absent being able to collaborate, being able to be independent, being able to maintain to to what is legal and what isn't.

Um and and I know folks, you know, when they get angry, um, you know, to the extent that I can and am able to, I'll listen.

Uh but I I won't let that sway uh again the politics to the politicians.

Thank you.

Councilman Rowry.

Oh, Camillo, good to see you back here again.

You've had a a lot of experience with Clearwater.

You've been our assistant city attorney here for what a decade.

A little over 10 years, yes, sir.

Yeah.

Um what do you see as the uh our biggest challenge today?

And you're talking about a legal challenge, potentially.

Yeah.

Um so I I think of um three big ones.

Um I think one big one would be um I know the downtown has uh downtown area has its own section in the land development code.

I think that the downtown area would also benefit significantly from potentially a very collaborative, uh collaboratively creative uh created master plan.

I think that would allay a lot of concerns and and um and basically higher the more collaborative that we can get with all stakeholders uh involved in downtown Clearwater, the better, to the extent that we can put a roadmap uh showing how downtown is going to develop with all these stakeholders, the better.

Second, the other concern that I see is um home rule has kind of been abrogated quite a bit from from Tallahassee on down, and so SB 180 um continues to be, I think, a very concerning uh has a very significant chilling effect until it's fixed.

Um I think that's that's concerning as well.

Um, and the pending uh potential of property tax cuts uh via amendment three, I think is also possibly probably problematic.

Um but I think um as we as we tend to say in in local government world, we adapt and we go forward.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Vice Mayor.

Yes, thank you.

Camilla, good morning.

Good morning, Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Um same question that I've posed to everyone else.

Um what do you believe is the single most important responsibility of the city attorney?

And how would that belief shape the advice you provide to this council?

The single I think the single most important quality is being accurate legally and being able to distill the reason or the logic behind a legal opinion in as simplified as a way as possible, whether that's to city employees, um administration, council, or even the citizens.

I think that's that's a singularly important uh component to being a city attorney.

Thank you.

Uh Council Member Teshager, do you have okay?

Uh I just have a couple things.

Uh one is um, you know, you've had a a little bit of private practice experience here recently.

Uh is there anything that uh maybe being outside of uh local government um working in private practice that uh has helped you or think thinks you know helped you would help you make uh become a better city attorney for the city of Clearwater.

Um I think uh in terms of things that could help me.

I was exposed to a uh uh different style or a different area of the law that I had uh been exposed to previously.

I I did, for example, some construction law related things, but mainly oriented towards bonding when I was here at the city of Clearwater.

So I think I've expanded that breadth of um of constru knowledge of construction law, uh construction defect uh litigation defending that.

Um but I think from an overall perspective, um there are things in terms of um, I guess measurements of efficiency that I think um I've I understand that uh that maybe billables aren't the best way to measure how legally accurate someone is.

I I really enjoy being able to dig in and to research and really understand a good legal issue, and sometimes you butt up against the reality that we can't necessarily bill that to a client.

So that was maybe a negative, but I I think it's a incredibly important thing to be able to have that opportunity to research an issue.

Um and then to the extent that um that I can bring some of that positivity and some of those things that we've done maybe at other local governments um in terms of maybe cutting down going more digital with a lot of the the products that we use, um not necessarily spending so much on on textbooks that are potentially collecting dust somewhere on a shelf.

Uh a lot of things are digital now.

So I think there's efficiencies of scale that could potentially be um maybe applied here.

Yeah.

Well you've you've already started answering my second question, which was just with the budget pressures that all local governments are under uh now in the state of Florida.

What um you mentioned a couple just now, but uh are there any other ideas that you have for how you might approach organizing the legal department, uh managing litigation and claims in a way that would keep the cost of uh the legal services that the law department provides to our uh to our city uh keeping that cost down as low as possible for taxpayers.

Sure.

Well, mayor, I I think I very first thing that I would do is I'd sit down with with the city attorney staff and kind of figure out what everyone's strengths and weaknesses are and figure out what things we could do to maybe put you know folks with various strengths in the positions to be as efficient as possible in in completing their tasks.

And then kind of longer term just seeing where in the budget, I would obviously collaborate with all of the staff to see where we can find efficiencies of scale.

Are there areas where we we don't necessarily use or can be an alternative, less expensive option or area to explore, like I just mentioned the books and digitization.

AI, I think is another area that is quite exciting.

Um but it should be one of many tools in a toolbox.

Um my experience with AI, it's it's a the way I use it, is a it's a really incredible jump-off point.

Um maybe the implementation of AI, if it isn't already implemented in some way, shape or form, could bring some efficiencies of scale to the way the legal department operates.

Um and then finally, I I think it's it's important to check with uh the department heads, the various department heads to see what uh what could be changed or what they like about the current operation of the uh city attorney's office and see where we can maybe improve in other areas that they they call out.

Um so I think being new and coming coming with fresh eyes, I think we'll give an opportunity to to whoever's in this position to even Mr.

Mr.

Kohler to you know basically do that.

Okay, any other questions from the council?

Well, thank you for coming in and uh and speaking with us today.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um, with uh what did we with that we've heard uh from all four candidates and we've had their um their opportunity to answer our questions.

So uh tonight it is 11.1 on the agenda.

Uh the agenda item is discuss city attorney candidates and next step.

So uh we can certainly talk about it if we want to at this time.

Uh but uh we do have it as the last agenda item of the agenda items for business uh on tonight's agenda to discuss and give our own thoughts and collect those then.

But it's really uh also now.

If you know if any of us want to talk about the candidates, we can do that here.

But uh, but it is on tonight's agenda for us to talk about it.

Personally, I'd I have some uh thoughts I'd like to gather and and some things that you know I will discuss today.

I'm gonna take a closer look at these candidates that uh presented today, but uh but others may discuss it if you want to.

So council member Albert?

Yeah, well we can save it for tonight, but I just wanted to make a comment on the job that they did.

They gave us some great candidates.

I mean, each one of these had strengths in their own way, and um I really appreciate them coming in.

And it's always hard.

I just want to say this for the record.

When there's somebody from the city running with everybody else for everybody to come, yeah.

I know it's difficult for them, you know, to know that there's somebody that could have a more of an advantage, but uh I really appreciated all of them, John O Andrew and Camillo, all to come in to uh to speak and enjoy that.

And we could talk about our thoughts on each one of them tonight, that'd be fine.

And uh, we're gonna have public comment as well.

Yes, yes, yeah, because we're yeah to be made before the motion is.

We're giving correction to staff.

Yeah, very good.

Um yeah, Councilmember Manito.

Mayor, thank you.

Yeah, I I agree I'll save um individual comments for this uh this evening, um, but just kind of briefly just wanted to touch on the the process uh that we went through, um, appreciate uh all the work staff did uh facilitating this, um appreciate uh yesterday and how it was managed and everyone was efficiently escorted around and knocking on doors to lead the little ducklings everywhere they needed to be.

So thank you for that.

Um appreciate the consultant uh in the process and uh agree with council member whole heart that they did give us uh a lot of information and every every bit of information we needed from from videos to questionnaires to resumes to to backgrounds to the opportunities to spend an hour uh with each individual, which um seemed like at first was going to be a long time, but before I know it, I was getting the five-minute knock on the door uh and and time was up.

Um and I I greatly appreciate that.

As far as the the candidates, they definitely put um good candidates in front of us.

We saw that that today, uh, really enjoyed our time yesterday and today uh to hear a little bit more from them on a personal level, but all without a doubt, uh experienced, professional, uh knowledgeable, uh, all with no questions are able to be successful, uh, whether in the city of Clearwater or wherever they continue um to serve.

There is one thing I was um slightly disappointed about, and I think we I don't I don't believe the consultant made the decision.

I think the diet made that decision, but I think we had an opportunity to recognize the important of culture and to uh identify that we recognize the value of of development and growth in internally with our staff, and I think leaving uh Mr.

Middich off of a top five, uh I think it was a mistake.

Um he was definitely whether he was below five or not, to have somebody in house and to give them that that opportunity to be a part of the process to learn to experience and give them that personal growth and development, uh, I thought should have happened.

Um I was disappointed that it didn't.

I know he took it, uh he took it well and took it in stride and continues to do uh a great job, but overall uh appreciate uh everybody in the process we went through and look forward to making a decision and find that stability that we've discussed so much in the city attorney's office.

Thank you.

I think we moved into item three, which is perfectly fine because that was the next agenda item, but uh this is council comments, so anyone else have something to share.

I just want to concur with a lot of what has been said by um right uh impressed with the candidates and the whole process.

It was new to me, and I I thought it was a very good process, and I appreciate all the candidates that came forward.

Okay.

Um we moved item four, closing comments by mayor, and again to echo what's already been said.

Uh thank you, Tiffany, and for helping us and working with the consultant to steer these through.

I agree that uh we we had uh you know we really had five candidates that I thought were outstanding presented uh to be presented, and then one withdrew.

But the four that I spoke with, and I think we're we're outstanding candidates.

And uh certainly we recognize that when you have an internal candidate, it does make it harder to get folks to step forward.

Uh but I thought even despite that, we had four really good candidates that presented to us.

So look forward to discussing those uh with the rest of the council tonight.

So and then giving uh giving uh our staff direction on the next steps and uh what we want to do with regard to replacing our city attorney.

So with that, uh we will adjourn.

Uh move to item five, and that is to adjourn the special work session of Clearwater City Council for July 16th, 2026.