Good morning.

Welcome to this February 4th special city commission meeting.

It's going to be an exciting morning and afternoon.

So I will call upon Commission uh City Auditor and Clerk Griggs to read the invocation.

Um those who can stand, please.

Heavenly Father, we affirm our faith in thee.

We seek your divine strength, wisdom, and guidance in the deliberations that affect the lives of each of the citizens of our community.

In that name we pray, amen.

And Vice Mayor with the Pledge?

I used to flag of the United States.

Thank you.

Um Ms.

Griggs, are there any changes to the order of the day?

No, ma'am.

Okay, thank you.

Um the next item on the agenda is public comment, and uh I'm gonna ask Niz Griggs to read the pledge of public comment.

Thank you, Mayor.

We may disagree, but we will be respectful to one another.

We will direct all comments to issues, we will not engage in personal attacks.

Thank you.

We have two uh uh speakers who have requested um Martin Hyde and Steve Martinucci.

If you want to join us up here.

And the usual routine name, whether you're city resident, and uh if you're representing anyone other than yourself.

Indeed.

Well, my name is Martin Hyde.

I I don't live in the city.

Uh dare I say I'm a representing citizens generally.

The reason I'm gonna put this stuff up on the Omo, because I don't believe you know this.

And it goes to the theme of what you're gonna do for the rest of the day.

So what we're looking at is a list of a select list of county employees.

Now there's your first column, and it shows you what people make there.

$284,000 a year is the salary for the uh the county administrator.

Now we come on to the next column, the hidden column.

The contributions for the FRS for that same county administrator.

Ninety-eight thousand one hundred and twenty-four dollars a year.

Um then look at the next column.

$34,974 to the $280,000 a year guy that's getting a hundred grand a year in pensions towards his health care.

If you would like not the bottom line here, the last line.

What I am going to reiterate slowly, calmly, is that the reason the school board is in massive financial trouble.

Jonathan Lewis desperado situation over there.

The county is about to engage in its next budget workshops, and is also in desperate financial trouble.

I would go so far as to say that your woes are less great than theirs.

But the problem that you've got that I've said on multiple occasions, is the proverbial tail wagging the dog.

The point is, you shouldn't have to be the parent.

They should be giving you the whole truth.

So no more 260, 270 grand a year.

Let's call it what it is.

400,000 plus a year.

Forty percent is approximately what it costs on top of salaries when you incorporate all of the benefits.

If you want to know why you ran out of money, it's because you're looking at one number and you're not looking at the whole number.

The key here is not the management speak and the word salads they give you today.

It's the feeling of whether they're going to be truthful with you.

Because if they're not.

Thank you, Mr.

Hyde.

Mr.

Martinucci.

Good morning.

Steve Marchinucci, resident representing myself.

Good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, and everyone.

In regards to the current city noise ordinance revisions, I have had the opportunity to discuss the topic with the Sarasota Police Department.

And some concerns and recommendations were mentioned.

First, for most people, the current noise ordinance is very confusing and complicated to understand.

There are both references and requirements pertaining to decibel levels and then plainly audible levels.

It is difficult to distinguish which ordinance, if any, is applicable, so the ending result is not to do anything.

As a possible consideration, could the noise ordinance be written with more clarification so that it is easily understandable and simplifies the criteria?

Could the plainly audible criteria apply for situations other than vehicular noise and music, for example, including residential areas?

Second, when it comes to measuring the sound decibel levels, there only exists a small number of approved metering devices available to the SPD.

The limited amount of officers specialized in using these devices need to have prior training and then be specifically requested to arrive at the scene of the potential violation.

Because of this, sound level measurements cannot be easily taken when an officer arrives for a noise complaint.

As a possible consideration, since every officer is supplied with an individual work iPhone, does an iPhone app exist where the officer can take accurate sound level measurements at the scene that can determine if a potential violation exists and then have it usable in a court of law.

The NIO SH sound level meter application provides professional grade accuracy within 0.5 DBA.

And the decibel X app offers professional measuring, calibrations, and other features, including video and screenshots.

Lastly, it was discussed that the noise ordinance violations are generally not enforced due to the red tape, legal issues, and court resistance that exists.

During a court proceeding, the officer is required to know all of the technical data and science concerning DBA and DBC specifications, the differences, and the measuring methods.

When an officer uses a laser or radar speed detection device, they are not required in court to explain the science and technical theories of how the unit functions.

This duplicity is demeaning and discouraging for an officer as well as counterproductive to the effectiveness of the noise ordinance laws.

As a possible consideration, I do not know the solution for this issue, but only that the issue does exist.

I would believe that it would need to be discussed and addressed at a legal and judicial level.

Why would noise ordinances exist and then not be enforceable?

Thank you for all your time, understanding, and consideration.

Thank you very much.

We have now reached the main uh section of our agenda.

Um, and each of you has an sheet with interview procedures.

Um if you take a minute to read them over and I would appreciate a move a motion to approve that procedure or some if there's any need to amend that procedure.

Mayor, could we have a few minutes to read through this memo before we make a motion on it?

Thank you.

Thank you.

I move to accept the interview procedures as presented on the one page hand up.

Oh, sorry.

Moved by the vice mayor, seconded by Commissioner Batti to approve the interview procedures, which I will now read for the actually just real quick, Miles.

Can you just do a quick screenshot on the LMO of the procedures for the public view real quick?

Yeah.

And and I will read them also.

Well, maybe not.

Okay.

Oh.

He's about to put them up.

But never mind.

That's okay.

Okay, but we have a vote on the motion.

Yes, sorry.

Go ahead.

Um go ahead and your buttons.

So that's a motion to accept these procedures for for our discussion today.

Yes.

Yes.

All right.

And it passed unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Um the statement I've got to read for everybody is good morning.

We will now begin the interview portion of the city manager's selection process.

I will have the city auditor and clerk.

Oh, I'm going to read the process for the interviews.

Okay, sounds good.

Okay.

To ensure a fair and transparent and consistent process, the city commission will conduct candidate interviews using the following standardized format adopted just now by the commission.

Interview format is the sequence of the candidates to be interviewed was determined at random.

Each candidate will receive a three-minute opening statement.

Each candidate will receive equal interview time.

Commissioners will ask questions in ten minute allotted time, but can reserve their unused time after the other commissioners have had their allotted time.

And we will use our request to speak buttons to determine the order.

After all interviews have been conducted, the commission will decide.

Um it's we say whether to have discussion at this time.

And question guidelines, questions must relate directly to job-related qualifications and professional competencies, including leadership experience, administrative and financial management, policy implementation, intergovernmental coordination, public communication, ethical decision making, prohibited question areas include questions must not address personal or non-job related matters, including protected characteristics, medical conditions, or private personal information.

Yes.

But if you don't mind, Mayor, just for the record, I would like to announce the times of each candidate, if you don't mind.

And also I have the city attorney put that on.

And in one twelve, they are not viewing the live stream of this session.

No mayor.

Correct.

And also too, just so for the record, we will um as we are a little bit behind, so we are allowed at each time, but Troy Anderson is supposed to be at 11 a.m.

We will have a lunch break from twelve to one, which will probably be in now twelve fifteen till twenty.

Um one p.m.

is Carrie Freeling, Harry Black, Kamar Brown, and Chris Rodriguez in that order, noting that the times may be just a little bit behind now.

So that's just for the record.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um so we will we're waiting for to welcome Troy Anderson.

Come on down.

So we are welcoming candidate Troy Anderson.

Thank you for being here today and for your interest in serving as city manager in for our community.

And as soon as you get settled, you may begin with your opening statement, which will be timed for three minutes.

Wonderful.

First and foremost, thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to be here today and to be considered for the next city manager for the city of Sarasota.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to come and visit this great city.

And so thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Vice Mayor, and the rest of the commission for giving me an opportunity to be here.

So with that being said, let me uh again kind of tell you a little bit about myself.

My name's Troy Anderson.

I am I'm gonna start with a little bit of just personal late 40 something, right?

Uh married, my wife and I are gonna be celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary this year.

We're really excited about that.

We have a 20-year-old daughter who's off at college doing some really amazing things, so uh really proud parent moment.

Um I've been involved in local government for 20 years now.

Um particularly over the last eight years, uh, have been performing at some of the highest levels uh at some of the largest communities across the nation.

Um I'll get an opportunity to tell you a little bit more about that here in a little bit.

But um really looking forward to that next chapter in my life, right?

Um have uh again have served at some of the highest levels, uh particularly kind of in that number two position, um, kind of in that co-pilot passenger seat uh position, have seen the day-to-day operations, have learned how to uh interact and communicate not only with the governing body but uh uh also with the community and help them realize their their vision and then ultimately carry that out in a in a uh a way that uh is can be transformational.

I and so really looking forward to the opportunity to possibly continue to serve in my capacity as a public servant.

That's truly deep down inside uh where I believe my role and my responsibility is as a public servant, uh, and really look forward to uh the opportunity to continue to serve in that capacity for the city of Sarasota.

So with that being said, I I'm absolutely open for questions and uh would love to tell you a little bit more about me.

So thank you very much.

Um we will begin with uh questions from the commissioners and I'm looking for my script, and I'm waiting to see somebody buzz in that they want to go first.

And Vice Mayor Ulrich.

Well, I'll jump in.

Um Troy, it's been very nice meeting you and learning more about you.

Thank you for putting your hat in the ring on this.

Um so my first question is how would you integrate a strategic plan throughout the organization, and by that I mean the city operations, from the commission all the way to work units with measurable goals.

Thank you for that question.

Uh I think that at the heart of uh the policy and for the future of a community and of a city, right?

Is it strategic plan?

That's the roadmap, right?

That's the that's the community vision, uh, not just for short term, but for long-term goals and objectives, right?

It starts at that strategic plan, it starts at that comprehensive plan.

Uh, where are we as a community and an organization?

Where are we going over the next five, ten, twenty years?

Uh so I think that at the heart of a lot of day-to-day operations and execution, it begins with that strategic plan.

Uh that strategic plan is developed, right, uh, in concert with community and community engagement.

It's the community that helps drive the ideas and the opportunities and the challenges that really memorialize that strategic plan.

It's the governing body that establishes that policy and ultimately adopts and endorses that strategic plan.

That's the roadmap for the city manager and the organization and a lot of our community partners to implement and to carry that out in a in a meaningful way.

I think to your point, the performance measures are key to any really good plan.

Seeing a lot of communities adopt plans and put them on a shelf, right?

No good plan goes without implementation, right?

Implementation is the key to carrying out any good plan.

So first and foremost, the first step is creating that strategic plan, developing that plan, making sure that everybody's on the same page, both within the organization, all the way down through the work units, right?

Understanding what the long term, short and long term goals and objectives are, and then our responsibility, city manager and folks within the organization is to implement those those strategies and those tactics.

How are we getting from point A to point B, right?

And so we communicate that.

We keep that fresh in the minds of folks within the organization each and every day, right?

We we use that strategic plan in our budgeting process.

We use that strategic plan to again carry out the day-to-day activities and we use those key performance indicators.

We use those measurables to determine how are we doing as an organization, how are we doing as a community?

Are we achieving the goals and objectives that are that are set forth?

We can use those data points, we can we use those measurables to make adjustments, right?

Do we need to do we need to deviate our plans?

Do we need to shift uh energy and focus into other efforts?

Um again, all with uh uh a data-driven sort of analysis uh to assure that we're we're executing and we're delivering on that.

So uh to your point starts with that strategic plan, it starts with that that relationship between the city manager and the elected officials, forging and bonding that relationship, making sure that we're all on the same page as not only a community but as an organization, where are we going?

We're gonna lay that out, we're gonna memorialize that in that strategic plan, and then we're gonna refer to that each and every day as we're carrying out and executing and delivering uh on those goals and objectives throughout throughout the process, from from again, budget to carrying out the interactions that we have each and every day with folks within the community, we're gonna continue to refer back to that plan and make sure that we all know and understand what we're striving for.

So if the plan itself doesn't have measurable objectives in it, uh the city commission gives the city manager a strategic plan without measurable objectives in it.

How does the manager go forward and get them in to the work unit level and above?

I think uh that the first and foremost we can look to industry standard best practice, right?

What are other communities of ours similar size and demographics?

What are they doing, right?

Um there's a lot of really good associations out there, so depending on whether it's public safety or infrastructure, right?

Depending on the conversation that's being had, we can look to uh industry standard best practice.

What are other communities doing?

Uh what are those measurables?

And then what I recommend we always do.

Uh we also know that that's not a one-size-fits-all approach, right?

We have to take those those measures.

We have to take the that industry standard best practice, and we have to make it uniquely uh Sarasota, right?

We have to custom tailor those to make sure that we're also uh respecting the local community and the interests of the local community.

So absolutely, that's our role uh within the organization is to try to bring to the governing body options and that that institutional knowledge and understanding about some of the industry standards best practices.

Uh we'll will custom tailor those uniquely to Sarasota.

Um so if that strategic plan doesn't already establish what those performance measures are, we can bring those before the governing but assure that there are mutual alignment of interests, making sure that those are the key performance indicators, that those are the performance measures that we're going to use to determine success.

One of the things I like to do early and often is identify what success looks like, right?

I've visited with a little uh with a few of you all a little bit about a big covey fan, right?

So seven habits begin with the end in mind.

What are we trying to accomplish, right?

And uh so if we're all in agreement on the measures and where we're going, uh then we can refer back to those early and often and make sure that we're staying on track.

Great.

Thank you.

I'll reserve my three minutes and 15 seconds.

Okay, Commissioner Alpert is next up.

Well, that's surprising.

Okay.

Um of the things I was gonna ask you was about the Stephen Covey principles and how you apply them to your leadership.

Yeah, um again, we kind of visited.

Yeah, so uh appreciate that opportunity.

Uh there's a lot of really good habits uh that I think have really uh formed me, both uh as an individual personally and and uh also professionally.

Uh I mentioned one a little while ago, right?

Uh begin with the end in mind.

Uh the seek first to understand, then to be understood, I think is one of the most underlying habits that I try to exercise each and every day in in my in my professional walk, right?

That means a lot of listening.

Um I think it's incredibly important, especially for the next city manager over the first you know, 90 to 180 days, uh it's gonna be a lot of listening.

Uh it's a lot of uh understanding from uh the governing body, uh what the what the priorities are, what the goals and objectives are, but also listening to the community, right?

What is the community telling us?

Um how are we how are we receiving that information in a meaningful way?

I I had a mentor early on in my career tell me about um kind of a similar philosophy.

Uh put yourself in somebody else's shoes, right?

That we all come from different backgrounds, we all come from uh different walks in life, right?

So understanding the community, understanding how we've arrived at where we are today is critical to uh being able to then respond to uh being understood, right?

And I think that's the second half of that uh uh that habit, right, is once we understand where people are coming from and we can meet them where they are, uh we can also communicate better, right?

And so communication is key between the organization and the elected officials, the the organization and the community, uh communication is key, uh, how we communicate, when, where, why we communicate is critical to the success in the delivery of our our programs and services on a daily basis.

So I really like uh see first to understand then to be understood.

Another really good one is um uh is synergize, right?

Um and uh and that is an opportunity for us to work with folks in the community working side by side, that leads to a lot of things like public-private partnerships within the organization.

It's all also an opportunity to break down silos, right?

And work interdepartmentally uh across departments to achieve those same goals and objectives.

Uh for example, you know, we we talk about public safety, and a lot of uh in a lot of minds people hear the term public safety and they immediately go to uh sort of police and fire, right, or emergency responders.

Um but even things like our roadway infrastructure, our utility infrastructure leads to public safety, right?

And so uh if we can have a common language and we can kind of tear down those silos and we can work across departments, uh we can we can achieve synergy.

Um I think the last habit that uh uh I really try to uh embrace is uh to sharpen the saw, right?

And that is uh on a personal level.

Um I read books and opportunities to better improve myself as an individual.

I want to be the best possible version of myself as an individual first and foremost.

Um but then that also leads into uh that professional sphere, right?

How are how are we as an organization on the cutting edge?

How are we sharpening the saw, uh being the best possible version of us as an organization, of us as a community, right?

Uh that can also trickle down into how we are supporting staff, right, and the various departments.

Uh does do department heads and do staff, even down to uh you describe kind of the work units, right?

Do they have the tools and the resources that they need to be the best possible version of themselves?

Um I think that um uh marries well with uh sharpening the saw.

Um but there's some other really good ones in there, but those are the three that I kind of have personally embraced and tried to apply in my professional uh life as well.

So thank you.

I appreciate that.

Um my next question is just kind of talking about if you can uh relate any experiences that you've had where you needed to shepherd through a project or an initiative that was somewhat controversial.

Yeah, so probably the one that uh uh comes to my mind is uh a recent effort uh within my uh my current role.

Uh we have and it's not unique to the community in which I'm in currently.

It's it's a si it's an issue that I think is confronting city uh cities across the nation right now.

It's um this proliferation of homeless mental health and substance abuse that we're seeing across the nation.

Um we have uh we we've tried to be very proactive in how we respond to it.

Um we over the last several years have tried to glean from that industry standard best practice looking at uh alternative models out there than the traditional you know, is it is it a shelter, right?

Uh is it a program, is this a service?

And so we were um uh we are fortunate enough to have an opportunity to understand kind of a more holistic approach to responding to folks who are unhoused and maybe experiencing mental health substance abuse, uh worked closely with uh some of our community partners.

City recently acquired uh a former elementary school that uh the school district was shuttering, uh, and we have been able to convert that into uh a campus environment where uh folks that are experiencing uh homelessness or mental health or substance abuse uh can come and uh not only seek housing, right, and um sort of that roof over their head, but also seeking those programs and services.

We know probably a lot of communities across the nation are challenged with taking folks in who may be unhoused, then trying to connect them with programs and services, but they're not in close proximity.

Oftentimes we're having to turn them back onto the street, right?

And so this was an opportunity to to bring those other community partners under the same roof and uh actually have a warm handoff for individuals, right?

Uh, rather than turning them back out on the street, uh literally maybe walking them down the hallway in such a way that we can connect them with uh the programs and services that that they need.

Um and then the last part of that uh model, right, is then to have housing, uh, some transitional housing on site as well, right?

So now I've I I've come to a campus, I've come to a facility, um, I I've received the sort of immediate needs that I might need.

Um I've I've connected with a case worker to surround myself with the programs and services that I need.

Um, and then now I'm finding that that housing uh opportunity to really find stabilization and really turn the trajectory around.

I say all that in the context of as we were introducing this model uh into this new neighborhood.

Um there were a lot of neighbors that were concerned about uh a population that was perhaps being introduced into that neighborhood, right?

And so we had a number of community meetings.

We had a number of town hall meetings uh where we where we listened to to residents and we received their comments and their feedback.

We heard their concerns, um, and then what we tried to do was be very intentional about trying to respond to some of those uh concerns, right?

So we made improvements to the physical environment uh on campus to try and to respond to some of those neighborly concerns.

Uh so we made investment intentionally within the physical environment, but we also uh continued to engage community partners, right, to make sure that the folks that were coming to the facility that were coming to the campus uh would be engaged and would perhaps not want or need to interact with the neighborhood.

And so uh it was pretty controversial, uh, but I think that uh through open and honest and transparent communication uh with the community.

We've been able to forge uh a number of those relationships.

I know there's a couple of neighbors I've actually frequented myself personally and and visited their home, visited their their property, and right, and we specifically talked about building a wall here or or building a fence there, right?

And so I've I've been able to uh really get to know some of the neighbors in the community, and I think we've overcome some of the challenges.

So thank you very much.

It's my time.

Thank you.

Commissioner Ahern Koch.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Alfred, for asking that question.

My my first question to you was describe a highly contentious situation in your community and how you handled it.

So thank you for that.

My next question is the most dis difficult decision you had to make and why it was difficult and what the result was.

Well, that's a that's a good one.

Um probably some of the most difficult decisions that I've had to make, and maybe it wasn't just one, but um it it has been periodically opportunities to uh advance within kind of the public administration and and the public service role, right?

That um oftentimes uh we who are public servants are presented with uh opportunities to to advance in our careers and and in our pursuits.

Um and sometimes that means leaving behind uh friends, uh sometimes family, right?

Um I can tell you uh to kind of build upon this a little bit, right?

That um in my time in Omaha as as I was contemplating a departure from Omaha to my current employer, right?

Um we had some really good momentum going on in the community, right?

We were part of I was part of some really exciting initiatives, right?

From from capital investment into the community to uh transformation of our downtown, and um so for me, as I started thinking about what that transition was going to look like, uh it was incredibly hard to leave behind uh a lot of the relationships that I had built over the years, right?

And knowing and understanding that I I might not be able to continue to work with these individuals each and every day.

Um I think for me that the decision to uh relocate and and pursue uh other opportunities was probably one of the most difficult decisions uh me and my family have probably ever made at the end of the day.

Uh it was also a great opportunity for new challenges and new opportunities, and and more importantly, new relationships, right?

Um I was talking to one of the groups last night uh and one of the questions was it in your sort of professional bio, what would you hope that people would say about you, right?

And I uh my immediate response was uh the relationships and the people that I have met along the way, right?

Um and the fact that the communities that I've been a part of, I'd like to believe I left in a better place than when I arrived.

And so, but sometimes change is hard.

Uh sometimes uh uh we need to move on to new opportunities and new challenges, uh, and that's sort of where I'm at in my life right now, uh looking at that next chapter.

And so um probably gonna be confronted uh with that same challenge here again soon, right?

Of leaving behind friends and family, um, but hopefully getting an opportunity to embrace new relationships.

So thank you.

Um my next question is that um you know your experience has been in Kansas, Texas, Missouri mostly, which is very, very different from Florida.

How do you parlay that to Sarasota your experiences there?

Because we're very different, we have very different challenges.

Yesterday when you and I spoke, you talked about um the culture where you are in Wichita, being that parking should always be free, it's part of their DNA.

Um we have things that are part of our part of our DNA here.

How are you going to assess and adapt and and transition what your experiences in the past to Sarasota?

Yeah, so um I think one of the differentiating factors that I I might bring with me compared to possibly some of the other candidates is uh the fact that I I have served a number of different communities throughout my career, varying size and demographics from from some of the largest cities in the nation to some of the smaller communities, right?

Um and uh I have quickly been able to relocate, learn and understand the culture, learn and understand the rules and regulations by which we operate.

Um I have served in Missouri, Texas, Nebraska, Kansas, and again very quickly was able to adapt, was was very quickly to forge relationships, better understand the culture, um, bring along those experiences and that education, that industry standard, right?

But then turn that into a best fit.

How do we introduce uh change in such a way that it's a it's a best fit.

So I I think in my uh professional affiliations, right?

Uh you look at ICMA, you look at uh American Planning Association, uh the the challenges and opportunities that Sarasota facing are not entirely unique to other communities across the nation, right?

Um we we Florida is uh addressing trying to respond to things like property tax relief.

Uh Kansas has gone through the same thing, right?

Uh so from the state down, I think we're seeing some uh I think you see it in Oklahoma, I think you see it in Texas, I think states across the nation right now are trying to respond to uh property tax relief.

Uh I think that's uh something that we're we're all kind of closely monitoring nationwide, I think is one thing.

Uh culturally um Sarasota is uh a unique community in the context, very tourism-based, right?

Very tourism performing arts uh based, uh arts and culture.

There's a real sense of culture here.

Uh early on in my career I was fortunate enough to serve for uh the city of Branson, Missouri, right, which is also a very similar type of community.

And uh there's a there's an underlying uh resident population that provides a workforce, right, to uh a very transient uh visitor population, right?

And so how do we know and understand and balance uh not only the the economic engine that is sort of to tourism and what that brings to a community, but also respecting uh the folks who live, work and play in that community as well.

So uh I've been fortunate to uh have had the experience of seeing a little bit of both, right?

And so I think for me uh I think I found and demonstrated an ability to quickly relocate, quickly adapt, forge relationships, um, and and take my background and my experiences and custom tailor that to what's appropriate and what's a best fit to that community.

And again, I think that uh the communities I have left have been better than when I arrived, and so hope that maybe that's an opportunity here in Sarasota.

Thank you.

Uh my last question is um, you know, as you you look around here, you can see the way this is designed, and it it's designed for us to look up to the public and remind us all the time that our job is to serve the public.

And um how do you propose uh um making sure the public is informed about what's going on in the city, communicating with our public.

Um a lot of times people want to feel part of the process.

They just want to feel informed and part of the process.

How are you going to ensure that so um first and foremost, uh I think it needs to be intentional.

It's gotta be intentional, right?

We have to make intentional effort to go out and meet people where they are.

Um I think it needs to be part of a comprehensive communication strategy and a communic communication plan, right?

That that we're going to engage and we're going to engage often.

Um I think a city manager needs to be visible and accessible and approachable, right?

And so uh those are those are beliefs that I I would bring with me uh to that role, and I would hope that um you know my my leadership philosophies, right, are to lead by example uh and that I would hope that uh encouraging my folks, uh the department heads and folks within the organization, right, to uh to get out, to get out often, engage with people, um, kind of telling some folks yesterday, right?

I I still think the most powerful form of advertising is word of mouth, right?

So that there's no social media campaign, we'll do those things, right?

There's no print out we'll do those things, right?

Uh, but it's the human interaction, it's the face-to-face interaction.

How are we, how are we being intentional about getting out and and getting out into community and being part of community and listening to those voices.

Um there's programs and and things that we can employ, right?

Of assuring that we're uh engaging neighborhood associations.

There was a great presence last night at the community from neighborhood associations, uh, and so uh engaging neighborhood associations, uh taking town halls on on a tour, right, to to garner different parts of the community and and hearing from different voices, right?

Um but I think it has to be intentional.

Uh I think it has to be part of a comprehensive communication strategy and practice, but I couldn't agree with you more.

Again, coming back to I feel like I'm a public servant at heart, um, and I couldn't agree more that that we serve the public.

It's it's the public that um uh helps us uh form the vision uh of the community and where we want to go.

Thank you.

It's my time.

Thank you.

Commissioner Batti.

Thank you, ma'am.

And thank you, you know, sir.

And yesterday we had a great conversation.

And the one thing that uh you know took from it in respect it was the fact that you left your hotel and you know, walked the city hall and got, you know, got to uh get a feel of the city and and uh you know what it could possibly be like to live here.

So to piggyback off the commission's question yesterday you had the opportunity to to meet with uh a number of members of our community from those various conversations you know that you had, did you find uh uh common theme or say concern um from uh from those questions and and um from those conversations that uh you might you know be able to bring your experience from the various places that you've uh you you've worked in and visited and been to to help you know maybe address address them, you know, because as you said, there were a lot of people from the neighborhoods, and uh you know, we take you know the the well-being and the quality of life in uh neighborhoods and here in the city overall, you know, very serious, you know, to keep with the quality of life of everyone here.

So how would you say go about maybe addressing any of those common themes that you may have heard yesterday?

Yeah, absolutely.

Um thanks for that question.

Uh yeah, just to expound on kind of uh the intro there, yeah.

I had the pleasure of uh walking from the hotel yesterday over to City Hall, um about a 15-minute walk.

It was kind of brisk.

Um that's okay.

That from coming from the Midwest, uh that's normal for this time of year.

But uh what I found amazing was um folks were out and about, right?

They were walking down the sidewalk.

And I and I think what was more telling even than just seeing people out and about, right, was they they looked at you, they looked you in the eye, right, and they smiled and they said good morning, right?

There was this opportunity to engage, and so I thought that was amazing just in that that 15-minute moment to really see I think what makes Sarasota unique, right?

Is it's the people.

Um following up with the second part of that conversation, yeah, had some great conversations last night.

I think some of the common themes were balance, right?

How do we continue to sort of preserve and protect um the neighborhoods and the way of life, the quality of life as you describe it?

How do we continue to balance that with progress and growth, right?

That there's a balancing act between those two.

Um I I think one sort of main theme in particular that I over the last couple of days that I've heard probably more often than not is just housing and the challenges associated with housing, uh more specifically uh housing, housing affordability, right?

Um I I try to kind of differentiate the conversation a little bit, right, between sort of affordable housing and housing affordability.

Um housing uh affordable housing for us means something uniquely different, right?

It's it's that it's that subsidized housing.

Um and the sustainability of that uh can be a challenge sometimes, right?

With dwindling uh dollars that are put towards subsidizing housing.

That's where I think that uh there's some real opportunities is in that housing affordability conversation, right?

Of how are we continuing to uh present opportunities to create a variety of housing types, right?

From single family residential uh to two-family to townhouse to multi-family residential to you know high density residential.

Um so varying housing types across varying price points.

Uh I've heard a lot about some of the initiatives, really love some of the initiatives that you all are working around, density bonuses, um, trying to achieve some some housing, uh attainable housing units, right?

I think I heard some 2,000 units have been created over the last several years that are that are attainable.

I I tip my cap to uh the governing body and the community for trying to achieve that that variation in housing type and housing price point.

I think that we'll continue to bring some of those uh industry standard best practice models uh but also kind of making sure that we're still trying to preserve and protect that balance between uh neighborhoods and um the environment that the those neighborhoods are a part of, making sure that we're not compromising things like green space, uh heard a lot of uh uh commentary around issues associated with stormwater management, uh floodplain management, right?

Heard a lot of commentary around issues associated with stormwater management, floodplain management, right?

And so we could talk a little bit about even though there was a question a little while ago about my background and my experience in kind of Midwest, right?

Early on in my career, uh I obtained my certified floodplain manager certification.

Um as you're as you're testing for that, right, you have to not only understand inland waterways and uh sort of that flow, but you also have to understand coastal flooding and and surges and how that impacts and so how do you start creating more resilient uh communities, whether they're coastal or whether they're inland.

Um in practice, I was I was in Omaha during the 2019 floods, right?

Missouri flooded and uh the Missouri River flooded, and both Nebraska and Iowa were devastated, right, by flooding.

And so how are we responding in those moments?

How are we uh planning and preparing and make making for more resilient communities?

Those are some of the common themes that I heard throughout uh the conversations with the community.

And I think my background and my experiences complement those conversations well.

Uh I I think leaning on industry standard best practice, making that uniquely Sarasota is how we start to uh build trust and transparency within the community uh and really achieve uh a long-term vision for this community.

Uh excellent.

Thank you for that.

Um and so you know you spoke about you know your experiences in other places and that being the common theme of uh affordable housing or housing affordability from your experience in different places do you see where you might be able to say come in and implement any of those practices that you may have had in in other places.

I mean, you know of uh housing affordability is plaguing the the nation, you know.

So um is there anything that you that you've uh noticed other places that you may be able to implement here or bring to our city.

Yeah, I think that there are some opportunities, again, only having scratched the surface of uh the efforts and the initiatives that you are all working through right now.

Um I now have a uh some experience in land banks, right?

And so not sure I haven't heard a lot about land banks um locally, right?

It hasn't been a conversation yet.

I'm I have to imagine there is one.

Uh not really sure uh kind of the role that they're playing, but there are things like land banks uh that can help uh bring pat properties uh back into productive reuse.

Uh so that's maybe one tool in the toolbox that we might be able to kind of look at again uh with without knowing the breadth of all of the initiatives and the efforts that you all are working on.

Uh we talked about density bonuses, we talked about encouraging and requiring a certain percentage of attainable housing units.

I think those are some really good steps.

Uh but absolutely I think that once we dig in a little bit deeper and we kind of unpack uh where specifically opportunities exist.

I love the fact that you all are doing uh uh a project right across the street here, an affordable mixed-use housing project.

Mixed use housing is another really good opportunity where you have uh sort of ground floor retail and other things that are helping drive um uh the pro forma within any one particular project that would can then keep rents down, create attainable housing.

I think mixed use housing is is some low-hanging fruit too, right?

Um things that probably you all are already employing, but uh I I think we can definitely dig into the toolbox and and find some new opportunities.

Uh thank you, Ms.

Anton.

I yield, may I thank you?

Okay, thank you.

Um Mr.

Anderson, I I've got a couple of things.

Um yesterday and today, you met one-on-one with the commissioners, you met with senior staff, you interacted with the public, and today you received a guided tour of the city.

So I've got three questions based on your exposure to Sarasota in this day and a half so far and other investigation that you may have made.

And the first one in what aspects of the city or city government do you see room for improvement?

And I don't mean deficiencies necessarily, but where we could do better or improvements to move Sarasota to the next level.

Yeah, so um I think first and foremost it's um probably that alignment, right, between uh the governing body, uh mayor, city commission, that strategic plan, right?

I think there's a real opportunity to really memorialize and update.

I know that the city is going through a downtown master plan update here.

And so I think there's a real opportunity over the several over the next several weeks and months, right, to re really memorialize those strategic plans and then making sure that we are aligning our work product with achieving the goals and objectives.

We can actually get really granular really, really fast, use data-driven uh technology, right, to help us identify specific strategies and tactics to achieve that.

Um but I think first and foremost, I think it's going to be important for for the next city manager regardless to make sure that we're we're all on the same page of where the community is going, short-term, long-term, uh, where are we investing back into the community?

Uh what are those opportunities and challenges, and how can we better align the efforts within the organization within City Hall to make sure that uh that we're achieving those those very specific targeted measures.

Yes.

Thank you.

Um and then from what you've seen and heard, are you a good fit for Sarasota?

And would you elaborate on that?

Yeah, I think as I've kind of expressed here today, right?

I think that uh I think the challenges and the opportunities that are facing Sarasota right now are a good fit for my background and my experiences from the diverse background of communities that I've been a part of to the successes that I've had, right, in relocating and adapting quickly, forging relationships, uh, and beginning to introduce uh solutions in a way that uh that are achievable and measurable uh and and improve the overall quality of life within a community.

So I think my my background and experiences align nicely with uh again the opportunities and challenges that Sarasota is facing currently.

We talk about housing, uh we talk about um you know emergency preparedness uh and resiliency, again, experience.

Um then again, more importantly, just uh that opportunity to really help a community uh understand what it is that that they want uh to see accomplish, right?

So as a as an urban planner and as a planner by background in trade, right, that we we know and understand how to engage community, we know how to understand how to sort of extract kind of the wants and the desires of the community and then really put those into practice.

And so I think my background and my experience, my diversity across uh communities uh is probably gonna what set me apart from other candidates uh and I think would complement uh where soda uh Sarasota is at today and and where we could be in the next five, ten, twenty years.

Thank you.

And then I don't want to say final question because I may have some time left.

Uh over and above managing day-to-day operations, what one thing, a new initiative or a change, are you likely to bring to the commission to consideration for consideration and you know elaborate on that?

Yeah, I think that uh had a a lot of opportunity to get feedback over the last 24, 48 hours, right?

Um I think the one thing that maybe hasn't been talked about uh is just continuing to forge relationships with other intergovernmental agencies, right?

How do we continue to forge and foster those relationships with the county, continue to forge and foster those with the state and our state representatives, making sure that Sarasota continues to be the center point of conversation, right?

Uh whether it's from the state down, whether it's from the county, uh how are we continuing to assure that we have a seat at the table and that our voice is being heard with other governmental agencies uh across the county and across the state?

I think is one thing that uh as I've heard from folks in and around the community is something that we can uh possibly continue to invest our time, energy, and effort in is aligning those interests uh and making sure that we're all because at the end of the day uh the folks who live in Sarasota, the folks who work and business are um are also folks within the county and folks within the state, right?

And so we have common interests uh and so just making sure that we're aligned on those, I I think is some initiatives that I think that we could really uh begin to have a conversation around of how do we forge and um and really secure that bond with those other community partners.

Okay.

Thank you.

I see I have three minutes and fifty seconds, but I will end this and uh commission the vice mayor has three minutes and fifteen seconds.

I do, thank you, Mayor.

Oh, so we talked strategic plan.

Let's talk budget.

Okay.

Um will you describe how you go about preparing a budget each year?

Uh what your guarding guiding principles are for that, what expectations you set for departments ahead of time?

And can you address including measurable goals for departments within the budget itself?

Yeah.

Um great question.

Thank you for that.

Uh so again, I've had the pleasure over the last several years to develop some probably the most complex budgets, right?

Um, and have been at every single meeting and been part of the process uh during the entire process.

We know that these budgets takes uh they take months to develop, right?

Uh first and foremost, I think it is uh engaging community, right?

What what are the interests and desires of the community?

Number two, how does that align with that strategic plan from a budgeting perspective?

What are the things that we're doing?

What are the programs, what are the services, what are the capital investments that we're making, how are those aligning specifically with that strategic plan with those goals and objectives again.

We can really enjoy the process over the last several years of specifically aligning.

We we had a budget retreat, right, with the elected officials.

Uh we were addressing uh some of the local issues and challenges that the that the council had uh extended to staff, and we established very specific strategies and tactics on how we were going to start responding to some of those community issues.

Uh have a community survey that comes out every year.

It's a national survey platform, so we know that we can also use that against peer cities.

Um as we look at those metrics and then we look at those measures, right, uh where there's opportunities for improvement, uh specifically in the areas.

Uh so for example, one of the uh measures is public safety, right, and crime prevention.

So what are those things that we're doing?

And here's all the measures that uh tell us how we can better perform in crime prevention.

How are those strategies and tactics that we're identifying and the budget that we're allocating to those resources doesn't necessarily have to be uh police or fire, right?

Could be uh initiatives within housing community services, right?

Providing housing uh can lead to uh public safety and crime prevention, right?

And so how are we thinking outside of the box about how each of the departments are contributing to those again, those overarching goals and objectives of the community, that strategic plan.

Uh but being very intentional, uh you had talked about uh expectations, right?

And so uh I think it has to be communicated early and often.

Um we need to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars.

First and foremost, uh these are taxpayer dollars, right?

And so we need to make sure that uh as we are contemplating budget, um, that we're being good stewards of taxpayer dollars, that we're employing programs and services that are efficient and effective.

And those are some of those measures too, that as we continue to monitor our progress and assure that we're delivering quality prop programs and services, things like efficiency, things like effectiveness are our measurable results that then we can kind of continue to come back to year after year.

Thank you.

My time is up, and so is yours.

Well, I already go off, thank you for letting me finish.

So I had like three minutes and fifty seconds, and after you respond to my final question, you will have five minutes for your closing remarks.

So my question actually is please answer whatever question you wish we had asked.

That's a good one.

Processing that here for just a second.

Give me a second.

Um probably the one question that uh maybe wasn't asked that maybe here's an opportunity to uh some of my leadership philosophies, right?

Uh we've we've talked a little bit about sort of the day-to-day operations and execution, right?

Uh I differentiate a little bit between sort of um uh leadership and management, right?

Uh heard of described one time, love it that management is the science, right?

Leadership is the art.

Uh and so I I think that one of the things that we'll continue to have to look at over the next several weeks and months, right?

Uh is being provided with the tools and the resources that they need uh to be the best possible versions of themselves.

Um, from a leadership philosophy, right?

I alluded to this a little while ago.

Um believe very strongly in leading by example.

Uh but at the same time, uh described a little bit to you all, right?

That uh I think it's an incredible team here, right?

That uh had an opportunity to spend a little bit of time with them yesterday.

Uh we kind of laughed and joked, and that there really seemed like some really good team camaraderie, right?

And that was great.

And so, how do we continue to develop that team to make sure that it's it's these folks who are out and about each and every day who are kind of carrying out the will of the commission and carrying out the will of the community.

Uh how how do we continue to lead them and make sure that they feel empowered uh and that they feel as though sort of the their voice is heard and they have the ability to go out and carry out and execute uh on those programs and services uh at the highest level, right?

That Sarasota is poised to really be um a leader across the region and across the state in the coming years.

And I think that comes with a team that is highly talented, highly skilled, highly proficient, they have the tools and resources behind them, uh, and they have the support of administration, they have the support of uh city commission and the community.

And so from a from a leadership perspective, right?

We oftentimes we talk about city management, but at the same time, uh I think there's an opportunity to to be a community leader, not only within the organization, but out in the community.

Uh touched a little bit briefly on things like making sure that the city manager is out and about and approachable.

Those are all just qualities, I think, of a good city manager, good city leader.

Um and so I think that also is something that I would be focused on uh early and often.

Great.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

So you um have five minutes for any closing remarks you'd care to make.

Yeah, well uh again, thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to be a part of the process.

I have thoroughly enjoyed um uh getting to know each and every one of you a a little bit more, uh coming to this fine city and and seeing uh the assets and the jewels I I heard it described earlier today, right?

That that is Sarasota.

Um and so I'm incredibly grateful and I'm uh incredibly honored to be considered for this position.

Uh I think it I think it could be a really good fit, right?

I think it could be uh uh an opportunity again to create stability within that city manager's office and within the organization.

Um I think my background and my experience, um, my successes complement again kind of where the the city is at currently today and and uh and and where they plan to be in the in the future.

And so at this point in time I'm incredibly thankful to be part of the process.

Thank you so much for giving me, and I I look forward to the opportunity to possibly uh serve as the next city manager and get uh to serve and work alongside each and every one of you.

So thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Anderson, uh for your time participation, and we really appreciate your interest in serving our city.

Um so we actually now have a lunch break.

Yes, so I guess we will what resume at what 10 or 115?

We will one fifteen.

Well, we'll zoom at one fifteen.

Thank you very much.

Welcome back to our um February 24th special city commission meeting.

And before we proceed to interview our next candidate, I did want to announce that we will have a 10-minute break between uh candidates number two and three and then four and five.

So we'll have a 10-minute break after the next two candidates.

So I'm going to welcome candidate Carrie Fryling.

Thank you for being here today and for your interest in serving as city manager for our community.

And before you begin your opening statement, I just wanted to let you know that the process that we've adopted is that each one of us will have 10 minutes in which to ask you questions.

So you can gauge that.

So you may begin with your opening statement.

You have three minutes.

All right.

Well, good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioners.

I want to first start by thanking you for inviting me to visit your beautiful city.

It's been quite an enjoyable two days.

I feel like I've had the opportunity to really start to have some good understanding of what your city is all about, the DNA of it, the people, and all the wonderful projects that you guys are working on and our priorities.

So a little bit about myself is I've been a public servant for over 30 years.

I'm very proud of that.

I believe in servant leadership.

I was very fortunate to start my career, my foundation, my career as an urban planner, and I was able to do that in my hometown of Peoria, Illinois.

I've served my career in the state of Illinois.

And I learned a lot for those that decade that I was with the city of Peoria.

I did a lot of work in economic development and community development, neighborhood revitalization.

And then there became a time where I needed to continue to move up in my career.

And if you know anything about Illinois, there's a city called Chicago.

And that tends to be where a lot of people live.

And so I spent the rest of my career in raising my family.

And I've spent, you know, the most part of my career leading council manager, former governments, cities of various sizes, various challenges, various opportunities.

And every role that I've held progressively has provided an opportunity for me to expand my leadership skills, my mentoring skills, and make a difference in the lives of the community and the residents that I've served.

And I have I love my job.

Thank you very much.

And now we, our commissioners will ask questions, and I'm waiting for someone to weigh in, and it's going to be our vice mayor.

It's nothing like our big waters land trust.

Is it?

Well, there's some similarities, but there's also quite a bit of difference.

So would you explain what that's all about?

Yes, absolutely.

Um, as you know, Chicago is a very dense, highly populated region.

And one of the things that our state um developed back in the early 1900s was forest reserve districts.

We are countywide organization.

Um we are completely separate from when you think about Sarat Sarasota County, you have the judicial system, you have the jail, you have you know the recorder deeds, you have all those functions.

In our state, those are separated.

Um, and so that is not the area that I oversee and that I I lead.

What I am responsible for, and our agency is responsible is for all the open lands that are the throughout the entire DuPage County.

And whether and that's not just open lands, but it's also restoration.

Our job is to acquire, protect, preserve, and restore all the the natural areas as well as connect people to nature.

We also oversee all the culture community centers, museums, some of those tourism attractions you think about that you have here are under the umbrella of the Forest Preserve District.

And we also offer over 500 programs as well.

We do store regional stormwater projects who try to correct the mistakes of the past, and we are able to use it in the right way by restoring wetlands and creating more wetlands to address the issues of stormwater.

We have our own police department as well.

So we're very independent and very autonomous from those other county functions, but we also work very well with them because we are regional organization and we do serve a million people, and so we have competing priorities through that as well.

So that's the summary of what our organization is.

And so you said there were many communities within DuPage County.

How do you overlap or not overlap with municipal government in your county?

Well, we um there is a lot of overlap.

We have to work with all 75 of the communities in DuPage County.

Um very in different sizes, and also there are diversity of different characteristics for every one of those cities.

Um our lands are scattered throughout the entire county, and they um exist sometimes within some of those other cities as well.

And we're working on regional stormwater projects, or we're working on, you know, we have some museums, we have three golf courses that we oversee and we manage.

We also are responsible, ironically, for all the landfills that are closed in DuPage County, so I have to manage those too, and we're turning them into recreational opportunities.

Um we work very closely.

We have a council of mayors and managers in DuPage County, and then we have our overlapping Chicago Metropolitan Council of all the governments, and we are actively participate in those as well.

So there's daily interaction with other city managers, there's daily interactions with county officials, there's daily interactions with the regional planning agencies throughout the Chicago region.

It might seem big, but it's actually quite small when you get in there and start working.

Thank you.

Um so I'll keep going.

Um what cut what's your budget like?

We have a budget, we just approved our budget is 155 million dollars.

And the majority of that actually ironically is put back into capital reinvestment.

Um we um we have, as I said, about 500 um employees.

So obviously our personnel services, which is salaries, benefits, pension, that takes like a big chunk of our our budget.

But what's unique to us is that actually, if you were to look at the breakdown of our budget, we actually are doing a significant reinvent investment in capital projects and very large capital projects.

That was intentional because it was tied to an adoptive master plan by my board, and they've been very good at staying focused on getting that plan done.

Um a couple years ago in 2024, um, we um actually went to the voters via referendum.

If we're gonna raise our property taxes, we're required to go to referendum.

And we were losing ground.

We were representing about um at one time in 2006 were about two cents for every dollar collected in terms of property taxes, and over time that shrunk to about a penny, a little over a penny.

And one of the things that we are struggling with is how do we balance our operating against our capital needs, as you know, costs continue to go up.

And so we actually um the board decided that they were going to put a a referendum on the ballot to see whether the the residents of the county be willing to slightly increase that.

And actually, we prevailed at a 63% approval rate two years ago.

And I believe the reason we prevailed is because they saw that the benefit that we provided to the county was very important to the quality of life of our families who live there.

We are the ones that protect the natural resources.

We're the ones that take care of things.

We're the ones that protect the environment.

We're the ones who do the stormwater regional projects.

And we also, I believe we we prevailed because we we walked the talk.

We did what we said we would do, and we are very transparent in how we did it.

Well, congratulations on that additional one penny.

Yeah, we got so now we're back up to two pennies.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, so you mentioned master plans.

Let's pivot to strategic plan, which is not unlike a master plan.

How do you go about integrating a strategic plan into the organization from the commission all the way to the individual work units and include measurable goals in that?

That's a good question.

We are actually in the process of updating our strategic plan right now.

The last strategic plan that we did at the district was in 2014.

Then in 2019, we did a very, very focused capital master plan.

And now we're going back to updating our strategic plan.

We're in about we're about six months into it.

The way I look at developing uh strategic plan is like uh the um the legs of a bench, okay, four critical things in order for that strategic plan to be able to stand and survive.

It's input from the commission, is input from staff, it's input from the residents, and it's input from the businesses.

And you have to make sure that all those different um stakeholders are actively engaged in developing the vision, the purpose.

That's very important.

It took us three months right now just to figure out what our vision statement should be for the next 10 years.

You have to be intentional.

And it has to be unique to the community that you serve.

Um, and so that's the and you and you have to be transparent.

So, you know, you have to make sure that the information is out there that you're having the public meetings.

They can't come to you here.

You have to go to them where they are at.

And so we're in the process of doing that right now.

It does have to be achievable.

I believe in SMART goals.

You know, they have to be strategic, they have to be measurable, they have to be achievable, they have to be realistic, and they have to be done within a certain time for you.

That's basically what SMART stands for, right?

And so if you have that as a basis of your strategic planning, even your master plans you put together.

If you can't say that you can accomplish each one of those categories, then your your plan's not going to work because you're not going to be able to measure it against real data.

There's a difference between collecting statistics and having data that you can make good decisions on.

And so your strategic plan has to have the data collected that then can make good decisions on.

It's not how many building permits did you issue in a year.

That's a great number to know.

But did you issue them within 24 hours?

What was the customer service rating when that you got back when you asked them to fill out a customer comment card?

How did we do with issuing those?

That's what I'm talking about when you're measuring success.

So if your electeds present you with a strategic plan that doesn't have any measurable components to it, what are you gonna do?

I'm gonna tell my commission that we need to keep working on the strategic plan because we need to have those.

Thank you.

Uh I'll I'll reserve my one minute and eight seconds.

Okay.

Commissioner Alpert.

Welcome, Carrie.

Um of the things I wanted to mention while I have you here, is I thought this package that you gave us was really really quite good and very impressive.

And the fact that you um presented a uh a vision for Sarasota specifically, and um and spelled out some different guiding pillars for Sarasota.

So I thought that was um uh extremely uh thoughtful.

So tell us about what your I know I know you did some driving around, Sarasota, and um what your impressions are, what you you know, what you thought about is you know what you saw that you thought maybe uh needed to be done or or um you know whatever your impressions were.

Well, I did get in um on Sunday early intentionally, and I spent the entire day driving throughout the community as I shared with you all individually yesterday because I really wanted to get a sense, not not of where streets are or major landmarks.

I wanted to get the sense of the identity of your city and the uniqueness that is within that.

And I did get a sense of that, and I got it also last night going to the community meeting as well, which I thought was very helpful for us to attend.

Um the way I would describe your your first of all, your community is absolutely gorgeous, and you have so much to be proud of.

You really, you really do.

And I could see why so many people want to come here, not just live, but snowbird here, or um have a visit.

But what I really think that in just the short period of time that I've been here is that you have communities within communities inside a larger city, and there are unique needs for each one of those communities and neighborhoods, and there's enormous amount of pride in each one of those neighborhoods with that unique character.

And I think that that speaks to a lot of what maybe someone who's just coming here for a vacation will never understand.

But the people who live here and the people who work here, your staff, and you as elected board members, you do understand that.

And so I think that's great opportunities, but it also presents some very unique challenges too, because you can't make everyone happy.

And if if you have a money tree down here, please let me know where it is because I'd like to take a few seats back with me.

And so it is it's a difficult challenge.

But um, that is really the biggest thing.

You have beautiful beaches.

I walk the beach because I'm from Chicago and I love this weather right now.

I'm sorry that I brought cold weather to you guys.

But um, it's not about the beaches, it's not about being a tourism town.

It's important, it drives your revenues, it allows you to do things, but it's about the people in the neighborhoods.

That's what it's about.

And that's what I took away when I drove through.

Thank you.

Um, you know, in talking about the organization that you lead now or the you know, the entity.

Um can you tell us about the communities, the you know, municipalities that you have that you've led during your career, and with that, you know, were there any um initiatives or projects that you had experience with that were controversial, but you were able to shepherd them through.

I see the we only got six minutes here.

So okay, so I'm gonna just pick um I'm gonna pick one in Orlean Park, okay.

But I would tell you you can't be a city manager, you can't be a community development director and not deal with controversy on a daily basis because you're impacting the lives of your residents.

Um but there was one, and I I shared this with I think a few of you yesterday privately, is you know, in Orland we were building a downtown from scratch.

Um I included a case study in the packet that I gave all of you to um to review, and I was the project manager.

It was my baby.

They said, Carrie, go do this.

And we had spent years acquiring all the land.

It was a brownfield site.

We had to uh remediate it.

We had to relocate tenants, businesses, um, we had to put all new infrastructure in our water, sanitary sewer, detention.

It was grounded by a metro train station, which is one of our commuter stations that goes into the city.

Um we put a new park in, and we had invested, we we tiffed it, we had invested all this money, and we were finally ready to go to the private development community and say, okay, come with us and partner with us to now build this downtown with this, consistent with the vision that our community had created.

And you know what happened?

The Great Recession.

And we had really sunk probably 50 million dollars in infrastructure into this, and we're sitting there now looking at each other saying, okay, now what are we going to do?

Because the housing market had fallen out.

One of the things we wanted to do was plan for people, not cars.

That was a whole that was like literally the all we would say it every single day.

We are going to plan for people, not cars in our downtown.

And so we're like, what do we do?

And so we had the first phase of the project ready to go.

We had a developer out of Chicago who was going to come in and do that mixed use first phase, and they came back and they said, we can't do this.

We don't, we don't know what's gonna happen.

And so we had to make some really difficult decisions.

And one of the decisions we made, and it's in the slide in there, and it's it's about mitigating risk, right?

Sometimes um local government has to step in when no one else will, right?

We have sometimes we have to do the difficult things because no one else is willing to raise their hand and say, we're gonna do it for you.

And so we did.

We made, we worked with our board, um, our mayor um offered our we brought in some great consultants, and we said, okay, if we really want to get this next project to happen, we're going to have to finance it ourselves.

And we did.

We became the bank.

It was our property, we had invested 50 million dollars in resident taxpayer money, and we were not going to allow it to fail and go into the hands of a private developer who could do anything they wanted in our downtown.

And it was extremely controversial.

We actually had a ton of public meetings at our community civic center, and I shared with um I actually shared with you.

Um I had to be escorted by the police to my car after that meeting.

And um it was a political courage vote that the board made.

It was unanimous vote at that time.

We had a mayor 24 years, and when he took the vote, he said, um, I'm doing this because I believe it is in the right interest of this community, and that means that I'm no longer the mayor anymore.

He goes, so be it, because I want to do what's best for Orland Park.

We did it.

We entered in the agreement, we held the title, we financed it, we we were we provided the mortgage, and within a year we were sharing in profits.

We mitigated the risk, so if it went bad, the the land and the project would return to us.

We have 100 per c percent control, but we also said if we kick this out of the park, developer, you're gonna share in the profits, and we did, and we made money on that project.

And the mayor ran in four years, and no one ran against him.

Thank you for that.

Um I'm gonna go.

Two minutes and twenty or four seconds.

All right.

No commissioner Batchie, you're uh thank you very much, thank you, Mayor.

And uh thank you again.

It was uh uh a pleasure and uh wanted to meet you yesterday and uh have great conversation with you.

And um, you know, and you know, saw you engage in last night with the the residents.

Um I'll conversation yesterday, you know you you you mentioned, which I respect that you got out and uh visited, you know, the different communities and uh um districts in Sarasota.

Um you talked to me specifically about District One and uh how you spent a great deal of time there.

Um I just wanted to get your in you also mentioned about a tale of two cities, yeah, you know, communities with you know, with in the and within uh a city.

So based on your visit and your time the time you spent in district one, you know, what were your takeaways?

What what do you what did you see?

And especially and this is another part of the question as well.

Um you talked about the brown field that you that you try and build a downtown on in um where you live, and we have a brown field in District One that uh that we're trying to get developed and and you know remediated and and uh and so on, and you know what uh principles or or ideas do you have to get in such a thing, you know, accomplished.

Well, first I can I'll touch on the brown fields.

I do have quite a bit of experience in dealing with brown fields.

Um, as I mentioned, um at DePage County, um we oversee seven landfills.

They're all closed.

We do not have control of all of them.

There's still the waste management and a few others still are responsible for doing the closure out, and we work with the United States and the Illinois EPA and those things.

Um I'm very familiar with um landfills or brownfield redevelopments and mitigating the risk and protecting the public, particularly water supply sources, which is critically important.

Um but um in Peoria, when I worked as well, Peoria is very similar as we talked yesterday, Atil, two cities as well.

Peoria isn't located in central Illinois, it's about a population of 120,000 people, and it's along the Illinois River, and we had a very extremely very affluent, very wealthy neighborhoods with Caterpillar Incorporated was the headquarters in Peoria until a few years ago when they moved to their headquarters to Chicago.

So you can only imagine the wealth that we had in the city of Peori, but we also had extreme poverty.

We had areas that had been neglected for years, and needed significant amount of social resources and and services, jobs, decent, affordable, safe housing.

Um I would and that's my hometown, you know, that's where I grew up.

I went to high school there.

And so I was um I worked in neighborhood services, I worked for code enforcement there, you know, we put a lot of programs in place.

Uh and the reason I mentioned this to you, Commissioner, yesterday, the tale of two cities, because in some ways Sarasota is a tale of two cities.

You have these enormous, beautiful pockets of ultra wealthy, and you also have areas that are in great need of reinvestment, capital investment, social services, jobs.

And so the the question is how do you balance those competing needs, right?

And how do you serve both of those constituencies, right?

And you get and how do you get both of those constituent to admire and respect each other and understand that we're all in it together?

We are truly one community.

You're not two separate cities, you know, and that is a challenge.

But when I drove, I intentionally spent a lot of time in your district because I wanted to understand it because there's so much rich history there, and there's so much opportunity there as well.

And um, even at the community meeting last night, when I talked to some of your constituents specifically, I could see the pride and you know the bank that just opened and some of the things that are trying to get done there.

And so it's it's not easy to do, but I do have experience in dealing with that, and it's really trying to get the entire community to understand that, yeah, you might need something, but you might have to give a little bit for this, and vice versa, because that's what being a community is all about.

And how do you project that as leaders in your community for them to understand that?

Yeah, you might live in a 15, 20 million dollar home, but there's people who are making $13,000 a year.

How do you blend that together in this beautiful tapestry that makes Sarasota what it is?

And so that everyone can have a good quality of life here.

Excellent, excellent.

I'll yield for right now.

Exactly.

Commissioner Aaron Cut.

Yes, thank you.

Um, I was curious about how, you know, as you have so much experience, which I love in uh forestry management and uh environment uh and green space and that's you know something that we all appreciate and and and love and value so much here.

But with that comes the reality of growth and development, uh not to mention property rights in the state of Florida.

Um what do you foresee the the challenges in dealing with that here?

Uh it's a big one.

And what's your advice and how how do you plan to manage our discussions on things like that?

Well, you know, I feel like the fact the last five years I've been at DePage County has been um has been transformational, and I have learned uh a more higher appreciation of natural resources and mother nature, and um and and the importance of that as it relates to the to development as well.

I mean, one of the things that we have all learned is is that there's a reason wetlands are so important, and when you develop an area and you get rid of wetlands, you're gonna have flooding problems, you know.

There's a reason why invasive species need to be removed and natural and natural um plants survive when you're having flooding or storming or fire because they're intended to be there.

So I feel like that has been like almost like the icing on the cake, because you have to remember the most the first 27 years of my career, I was doing economic development.

You know, some people would say you were doing the opposite of what you've been doing the last five years, but it's really about balance, right?

It's about protecting those important areas and knowing that they're off limits and standing firm on that when you have a developer who says, you know what, I really think I'd like to build here because the views are beautiful, but we don't need this detention over here, and let's let's do something here.

And and you as leaders of the city, it's your obligation, your responsibility to say no, no, we're not going to allow that to happen.

But um, you know, I believe in smart growth.

I believe in making sure that you are planning for the future, whether that's a subdivision, there's a right way to plan a subdivision, there's a wrong way.

Um I believe in natural detention, I believe in bioswells, I believe in BMPs, all those things that you know 20 years ago, no one was caring about those things.

They were just building as quickly as you could.

Chicago, no different.

I mean, there, I would tell you in DuPage County, they are 95% built out.

Um that's a scary thought, right?

And so we are urgently in the in the process of acquiring as much land as we can right now to preserve that because we know in the next decade it will be gone.

Now, I work very close with all the other towns.

I mean, I used to be city manager there.

They knew me.

So when they heard I was going to DePage County, like Carrie's going to be a going for being a city manager, and I've already worked with them.

They were my fellow colleagues and professionals.

Everyone, every city manager in Chicago region, we all know each other.

And so sometimes I have to sit across the city manager in a community because they want to come in and they're like, hey, can we use this 50 acres over here?

And we're like, no, we can't, you know, it's a class four high value preserve.

You cannot do it.

Now when we can work with them, we have done so many regional stormwater projects.

We have terrible flooding issues in Chicago area.

And we have been able to utilize our open lands to help with that balanced smart growth because you can put wetlands in.

You can do things.

We have we have removed dams.

We have remeandered creeks and rivers.

And by doing that, it actually allows for higher capacity storage for stormwater, which helps these communities.

We all, their residents are my residents.

Their constituents are our constituents.

We're all we're all on the same team.

But sometimes we have to tell them no.

But sometimes really what we try to do is say, we can't do this, but we can do this.

We call our golf courses, we have three of them, not golf courses.

We call them golf preserves.

There's a reason for that because we are not just playing golf there.

We have trails, we have natural areas, we have bird habitat, we have the flora and the fauna.

That is their home.

We welcome them there, but we also welcome you to play golf.

So I don't see it as one or the other.

I see, it's you can do both, and you can do both well.

Okay, thank you.

Um talk to me about budgeting.

Uh you know, our our city budget is top of mind for for all the municipalities and counties in Florida.

Um we're watching what's happening at the state very carefully.

Um, and we ourselves, you know, we're hit by three hurricanes and an unnamed storm and had to pivot for that.

So uh what are your thoughts on our budget process and um and moving forward?

What what are best practices that you would recommend?

I have a lot of experience in budgeting.

Actually, when I first started with the city of Peori, my first um after I became a manager management analyst, I went into the finance department, I was their CIP coordinator and I was also their finance analyst.

My job was to work with each and every department to create their budgets, and my job is to work with the board.

I had 11 um council members there to identify their priorities for the C five-year CIP.

So I I learned my foundation there, and from there I just continue to grow it.

Um budgets are difficult, not just in the state of Florida, there's less revenue, period, right?

There's less money coming from our state, there's less money coming from the federal government, there's less grants available.

Um I am very much aware, and I think the entire country is very much aware of what is pending in at your state capital right now.

Um I heard it on the Chicago news.

I heard it yesterday when I was getting ready to come and meet with you guys, it was the top of the story what's happening.

I don't have a solution for you because I don't know what the outcome is going to be.

But I do know if this does go forward, then not just you, but every community in Florida is going to have a problem financially.

Um, and so the question is, what do you do to prepare it?

Well, you start preparing now.

So if I were to come in, I would immediately start looking in that budget.

Your biggest expenditure is public safety.

You know, you can't cut public safety.

So what else is left?

And so you you've already you already have addressed your fund reserve issue because you did raise your property tax increase and you had to go into your fund reserve to to pay for the the effects of hurricane, and you're still paying for those things.

So I applaud you for doing that because raising taxes is never easy, right?

And so hopefully you're going to start stabilizing and build those funds back up and you won't have to touch them.

In the meantime, I would look at, you know, first of all, what are we spending our money on?

I believe in high performance organizations.

I said this repeatedly last night at the community roundtable, and some people probably didn't know I was talking about.

But are we delivering the most efficient services we can for our residents?

And I always believe there's room for improvement for that.

So that was one thing I would look at.

I would look at really, okay, if this does happen, what does it mean really to our money?

And are there other opportunities to perhaps adjust other revenue streams?

But you're not going to be able to make up everything that you could lose if this does go through.

So it's going to be a dual approach.

It's going to be okay, let's look at how we operate.

Are we efficiently providing those services?

Are there savings there?

Are there revenues that we can tweak and increase if this happens?

And this and lastly, I hate to say it, but what services can be cut?

I mean, when you're faced with something that perhaps might be coming down the road to you, um, I don't know what other options you have.

You have to look at all three of those.

Thank you.

I'll reserve my two minutes and three seconds.

Okay.

So before yeah, between yesterday and today, you've met one-on-one with us, you've met with senior staff, you've interacted with the public, and you took a guided tour of the city this morning.

So I have three questions based on this exposure to Sarasota and other investigation that you may have done.

And the first question is what aspects of the city or our city government, where do you see room for improvement?

And I don't necessarily mean deficiencies, but where could we do better, or what improvements could we make that would bring Sarasota to the next level?

Is that question number one and all that?

Okay, I was gonna rhyme on down.

Okay, we'll do one at a time.

Yeah, all right.

So these are not critiques, these are not criticisms.

Um but just a couple things that pop in my mind real quick is you know, and I asked uh I asked some of these questions yesterday is you know, your downtown area, you you're doing a great job on it.

Um I think there's some disconnectivity in terms of branding and wayfinding, like really understanding like when are you when when are you one community neighborhood and you're transitioning to another, and when are you in the downtown?

Um I think having a uh a comprehensive branding wing finding for the entire city would be very helpful.

Um that would be one thing that I kind of jumped out at me when I was in the downtown area.

The other question is, and I don't know it, but you know, I know one thing that's very important is it is much easier to retain your small businesses than to go out and recruit new businesses.

And so one of the things I was I would like to know more about, and maybe you have this do you have a strong business retention program?

Are you going out?

Are you doing interviews and business retentions visits every single with your small locally owned mama pops?

I'm not talking the back the big corporations, not that they're not important, they are, but they can survive much easier than the small mama pops can.

And what are you hearing from them?

Are you surveying them?

Are you saying what you know rate how we're doing serving you?

What can we do better?

And where do you see yours, where do you see your company going in the future?

When I was in the city of Puri, we created a business retention visit, and we did 200 visits a year, and it was all data driven, and we reported back every single year to the board the results of those things.

And you know what, those businesses really appreciated that.

And if we knew that someone was looking to relocate or close down, we were there to try to help them so that didn't happen.

That's just one of my ideas.

Um, you know, small business assistance, and you have a lot of these beautiful little small businesses everywhere.

And how do you how do you help them as much as you can and understand what their needs are?

So that those are kind of just a few of the things that kind of just popped out at me.

Great.

Thank you.

So my second question is from what you've seen and heard, are you a good fit for Sarasota?

And would you elaborate on that?

Well, I wouldn't be here if I didn't think I was.

As I mentioned in my opening statement, um, I'm not I'm not looking for a job.

Yeah, I wasn't in the market to to this I feel was fate, you know, in a way that you came to me and I saw it, and I was like, I did my research, and I I I know Sarasota, I've been here many times.

I you know I have family not far from here, and so it wasn't completely alien to me what your beautiful city was about.

Um I've sat in that chair, I've sat in the big chair for eight years.

I've done it at a city in a city manager role, and I've done it at a countywide regional Chicago role.

And so I know what it feels like to sit in the chair, and I know what those challenges present to it, and I know um I'm comfortable in the chair.

And so if you're looking for steady, experienced, trustworthy leadership where someone who can mentor your staff and help your staff, your staff is your most important resource you have.

It's not the money, it's the staff.

Um, then I think I'm the right fit for you.

Thank you.

And then over and above managing the day-to-day operations, what one thing, whether it's a new initiative or change, are you likely to bring to the commission for consideration?

Well, I I really want to get in on the strategic planning because I am a big proponent of plans, plans that can be implemented, not put on the shelf.

And I really want to work closely with this board to understand what are the priorities for the next five to ten years, what are achievable, and how do we prioritize it?

So when we go to a neighborhood meeting and they ask you for something, and and you can say, listen, we've adopted this strategic plan.

These are our pillars, these are objectives.

This is not the what you might want right now, it's not in it.

That doesn't mean that we don't care about it.

It doesn't mean that we don't want to consider it, but you have you have to stay focused on your priorities.

So that would be, you know, extremely important.

The other thing that I mentioned is high performance organization.

I have been trained in a yellow belt and a green belt and lean six sigma.

And you I know you used to be in the private sector with IBM, and actually IBM actually is one of the leading corporate corporations who introduced the whole concept of this.

Government can be high performing as well.

And what that takes is what it really means is creating teams can evaluate processes.

Um development is is stepping back and observing and watching how you do things so that you can evaluate it and then you can process it and you can make changes, and then you can evaluate those changes.

We did that in Orland Park.

I'm doing it at the Forest Preserve District of DePage County right now.

And so that is something that I feel as part of my management philosophy that I would ask you to allow me to bring that here and employ those tools that I've learned.

Thank you.

Um and I guess I will reserve my three minutes and fifty seconds, and uh Commissioner Albert, you have got two twenty-nine.

Thank you.

Um this is uh uh a question that um you know is important uh to me because staff is important to me, and I know you appreciate staff.

So what techniques have you found to improve employee morale and keep employee engagement at a high level?

In my current position as executive director, that has been one of my primary focuses was the development of our culture.

Um I was somewhat naive when I came to DePage County because you know, I mean, they the backdrop, I mean, we got beautiful forests and wetlands, and I'm like everyone's gotta be super happy there, right?

I mean, they gotta be like the most higher highest overachieving, and if they're watching, you are but what I what really surprised me when I got there was that that actually there there wasn't a sense of internal community, there wasn't a sense of we're all in this together.

They were very silent because we're very spread out.

I mean, literally, in a day, it can take me two and a half hours to drive from one of my complexes to another.

That's how big the county is.

Um, so I really have focused on internal culture.

Um, the first thing I did um when I started there was because we're so spread out and we have so many employees that I did um Fridays with Carrie, and I just said, okay, I'm gonna block off my Fridays, half-hour uh increments, any employee who wants to come and meet with me one-on-one, come in.

And I wasn't sure everyone would sign up, and there was a list waiting.

And I did it for the for almost the whole year that I did that, and it really gave me the opportunity to connect and start to hear what the needs of our employees were.

So since then we've done a lot.

So we created a leadership development cohort group.

We've trained them.

I've sent 50 of my employees to the Midwest Leadership Institute in the Chicago area, so we are investing in that.

We created an employee safety committee because we do a lot of dangerous things.

Um, and I was worried that we weren't taking employee safety as seriously as we should, so now we have a committee.

We have a well-being committee as well that's been formed.

Every one of these committees is made up of people from all the different departments at every single level.

And and so those are some of the things we we've done.

Um I started I Notice Awards where we have these little slips, and you can give them to your fellow colleagues, and then you you say, Hey, I notice you did this today, and then you bring them to my office, we put them in this big jar, and then we draw them out, and they they get these prizes every quarter.

We do employee breakfasts, we do employee holiday.

And okay, all right, okay.

With my time out here, yeah, and so um and I have heard from our staff that they they they see the change that that we've done it.

And the thing is, it's not me doing it.

I don't sit on any of those committees, and I intentionally haven't.

Because it can't be Carrie's initiative.

It's got to be the organization's culture because when Carrie does leave someday, I those things have to continue to happen.

It can't, and so that was intentional.

I I laid the foundation, I gave them the resources.

I said, I can remove barriers for you, but go do this.

Find out what you guys need amongst yourselves.

And plan accordingly, and let's do it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I'll go next.

Okay.

Nobody else has signed up.

Vice Mayor, you've got uh a minute.

I do eight seconds.

A minute and eight seconds.

Um so you know, you're the first person whoever stopped when that buzzer ran.

The very first.

Well, I can follow rules.

Congratulations on that.

Um I have so many questions about centralization versus department-based programming, a more on strategic plan, more on the budget.

But I'm gonna ask you this question.

Okay.

Would you explain how you use performance measures to help manage city government using data for decision making, monitoring performance, and reporting to the public.

Yes.

Well, um, there's a lot of examples I can give.

Um I'm going to actually um go back to when I was with Orland Park, and we were implementing high performance organizations.

We were sending people to get their um belts, their green belts.

And so what we did was we um we identified eight projects across people eight projects across.

That was very intimidating.

We did identify eight projects across the the city that we thought that we had the ability to make improvements on.

And so I'll give you an example of and one of them was in development services.

So you know, you get a little leery when they're gonna come in and look at you.

And so when we had um when we had a process where we needed to understand, and this is gonna sound a little bit weird for you guys because you probably do you have salt down here?

Probably not.

For our roads.

So, you know, we no, not the kind to eat, the kind of put on the roads.

So, you know, we got sand for flooding.

Yeah, so we were we were experiencing you know we you know we ordered tons of salt every single year for winter.

Um, and you know, we had just um we had store solid uh stores uh uh salt storage barn, but we realized that we were going through it really quickly, and we were keeping half in you know, in the middle of winter, if you weren't out of salt, you're gonna pay a premium for it.

Or you go to your neighbor and you bank to share.

Um and so that we knew something's not right with our our salt.

The other thing was in development services, um we we issued building permits and we were getting complaints about um the process.

It was very convoluted, it was taking too long, um, there wasn't good customer service.

And so those are just two examples of um a green belt project that we put together.

So we went out and we had people who do not work in those departments come in and we they formed the team, and then they went out and they spent their time actually analyzing the processes, taking a look, stepping outside of the system, evaluating it, doing the research, um putting putting costs, real costs associated to that.

Um and then they came back and they made recommendations for changes on how you could fix those things.

And then we put those changes in process as a pilot project, and then we evaluated that with metrics, real metrics, and and then we actually found out that we could save money.

I mean, we were able to um reduce the amount of salt that was wasted, the way we people were coming to get the salt from the different departments.

I mean, there was real actual efficiencies gain where we were able to actually lower our costs for salt for the building department.

We were able to actually implement we removed some steps, um, integrate different types of reviews, and actually what we ended up doing is go do a whole new building software system, which was very self-service.

So now people didn't have to call in for an inspection.

They didn't have to call to say, hey, where is my building review in the review cycle?

Because they could create their own portal, create their own password, and they could log in, they could see exactly where they were in the process.

So it reduced the number of phone calls we were getting, but it also increased customer service satisfaction as well.

So those are just a couple examples that we did that really did tie back to the budget as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Ahern Kotch, you have what two minutes and twelve seconds?

Yeah, something like that.

Um I this is not uh uh um a go at you, but um when you were talking earlier about uh business and the b business retention programs and and and all of that.

Um we do have some some programs, our legacy business program and some other things to help support our businesses.

Um however, there's a bill right now going through to get rid of the um business tax, which funds our economic development department.

So these are our challenges that we have to deal with.

Um so we'd love to do more, but maybe we won't be able to do anything.

Who knows?

Okay, that was not optimistic, but I'm sorry.

Um my real question is um what is the hardest decision decision you ever had to take uh as a city manager or or or running the organization, the urban forest uh group now.

I think the hardest decision I ever had to make was um when you're dealing with economic times and you know that you have to make some difficult decisions when it comes to the headcount of your organization.

Um, you know, I I was in Orland Park during the Great Recession.

Um and we had to we had to significantly cut our budget, you know, and that meant that certain people were going to have to be laid off.

Um and some of those were people who I cared very deeply for.

Um that was very difficult to do and have those conversations.

Um even when I worked for Homer Glen, um we um you know it was COVID, and we had to make some very difficult conver uh decisions during that too.

We didn't lay anyone off, but you know, we we had to tighten the belt and some of us had to take some unpaid leave time and and things like that.

Um so those are those when when you're talking about human beings, you know, those are very difficult conversations to have.

Um and I don't take those conversations lightly.

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner Batti, do you want to I mean you can pass if you wish.

I I have uh five minutes, 24 seconds left.

What about don't use and anyone is welcome to.

But uh, you know, but just going back to what we were speaking of before about in the brown field.

Um you know, in your experience, are there any um federal monies and and so on uh or grants that you know of that that could help in uh remediation or cleanup of the there used to be.

Yeah, I mean, when we did the Brownford redevelopment um in Peoria along the riverfront, I mean, those were old industrial plants, so there's significant contamination that needed to be cleaned up.

You know, there's a lot of different things you can do depending on what you the intended use of the property will be after redevelopment, as you know.

Residential has a higher standards of cleanup objectives, as it should.

Um but you know, commercial industrial uses, you can cap it, you can do certain things.

Um we worked very closely with um the Illinois EPA on those projects, and we would get grant funding through the Illinois EPA.

I'm not sure how it works with Florida EPA, but a lot of that flow through the federal government to the state, and then we were able to apply for grants and to get that.

A lot of these we could end up with no further remediation letters, which basically means okay, you're done cleaning it up, um, and now you can go develop the property.

Um but I would say in the most recent years, um we the money's not there like it used to be.

It just isn't at the federal level.

And you know, most federal money flows to the states to the local communities.

So that is a challenge.

You know, it's always helpful when you have a development partner who you can identify who can help.

Not that you want them to shoulder the cost of the cleanup, but what you can do is you can TIF a brownfield and you can go ahead and invest up front in those redevelopment remediation costs, knowing that you're then going to have a development come behind that that will generate increment to help pay back the city for those sunk costs.

And we did that in the city of Peori as well.

Okay.

Wow, well, thank you.

I I yield mayor.

Actually, I'm gonna count that toward the going over after the buzzer, and I just have a few more minutes left.

And after my question, you get to do a five-minute close.

And my question.

So my question is uh please answer whatever question you wish we had asked and didn't ask.

Oh, that's a tough one.

Uh I'm stumped.

Um that is a really good question.

So I guess I it's probably more about um I'm gonna flip this a little bit.

Like if I could ask you guys anything, I would want to know, you know, and I did ask you guys this yesterday.

If you left the community, you came back 10 years from now, what would you hope to see?

And the reason I asked that question was because I wanted to understand that there was a common common um issues, concerns, or priorities.

And so I can you can't ask me what I think your priorities should be, you know.

You could ask me that.

And and I tried to, you know, in the brief research I gave you in my portfolio.

Um, but you know, I don't know you guys like you know you guys.

So I don't even know if I got it right in there, you know.

But um, I guess that's the whole thing is is that you know, we're only here for a short period of time, right?

And doing the roles that we do in leadership.

And so I guess the question is is you know what makes you the most proud to sit in the chairs that you sit there, you know, and what do you really hope that you're it's not a legacy.

We talked about you know the difference between legacy making a difference.

But you know, hope you know what do you what do you want to see Sarasota in ten years?

Um, you know, if you could answer that question for me, then I think I can uh I think that I can help you get there.

It's gonna be take a team.

It's not those are not my decisions, but I think I have the experience and and you have an extremely talented, very long-tenured uh executive team and staff team, and so it's something around that, like the future of Sarasota and and what should those priorities be, and you know, it's in for the next ten years.

Thank you.

And um that concludes our question.

So you have five minute uh closing statement that we'd appreciate hearing from you.

Well, again, I just want to thank all of you.

You know, I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I got here.

I mean, it was a pretty intensive process, very thoughtful and well thought out.

And now I understand why, now that I've been here for the last two days.

You have a very beautiful, very complex community.

You have a lot of competing priorities, and you have a lot of things to be proud of.

But you know, you can look at those either as challenges or opportunities.

Are you a half glass full or you're a half, you know, glass empty?

I tend to be the ha the glass half full.

I try to be very positive, even if I'm dealing with a neighbor who's screaming at me.

I I still try to find some positivity in that and try to help them see that too.

So I believe in public service.

I have not wouldn't have done this for three decades if I did not believe very strongly, and I am extremely proud of being a public servant.

I think sometimes public servants get a bad rap, they're called bureaucrats.

And maybe that is a correct tur terminology of it, but really it's not though, because I think anyone who's in public service has to have a passion for it.

And I do have a passion for it very much.

I don't know what the next step in my life is going to be, but I'm excited about what it's going to be.

And I do think I have more to give.

And I would love the opportunity to work with all of you and your staff to figure out what that future for Sarasota is in a very thoughtful and a very intentional way.

And I also like to have fun.

I do have a little bit of a sense of humor if you haven't figured that out.

I don't take myself too seriously.

You know, life is way too short for that.

And so I like to have fun with my staff too.

I mean, they're fun is and and they know it.

Carrie's in the mood to have fun today.

You know.

And so um that's really me.

What you see is what you get.

And and you will get that every single day when I come to work.

And again, I just want to very much thank you for the opportunity and the thoughtfulness.

And whoever you decide your next city manager is, you have a lot to be proud of.

And so again, thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Rich Fryling, for your time and participation, and we really do appreciate your interest in becoming our next city manager.

So thank you for your time, and we will get ready for the next candidate.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, guys.

Hi.

Nice meeting you.

How about you?

All right.

Oh, Harry Black.

Yeah.

Gives us a chance to.

So uh I hope you know I was trying to cut me and Kyle short so we would make up the difference so nobody would go have more time than their hours.

And I was trying to beg his time from me.

And I was like, no.

And Mr.

Harry Black is approaching us, and we will get ready to hear from him.

Welcome, Mr.

Black.

Thank you for being here today and for your interest in serving as city manager in our community.

And just to let you know, after your three-minute opening, each one of the commissioners has 10 minutes for questioning.

So we'll pass that along, and then after the three after the questioning, you'll have five-minute closing.

So you're welcome to start your three-minute opening now.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Mayor, members, mayor, vice mayor, and commissioners.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

Sarasota is not simply a city with a strong balance sheet and beautiful coastline.

It is a community with high expectations, deep civic pride, and a commitment to excellence.

That combination requires a city manager who can lead strategically, manage financially, and engage relationally.

Over the course of my career, including serving as city manager and high visibility, uh complex high visibility environments, I have led organizations through fiscal transformation, strategic modernization, and performance-based governance.

In Stockton, for example, we managed a nearly a billion dollar organization and implemented a comprehensive performance framework throughout Office of Performance and Data Analytics.

That work aligned council priorities with measurable outcomes and improved service delivery across departments, from development services to public safety.

But equally important, I understand that in a city like Sarasota, leadership is not just about systems.

It's about stewardship.

Stewardship of public trust, uh stewardship of financial resources, stewardship of community, of a community's long-term vision.

If selected, my focus would be on three priorities, although there will be many other priorities, but these come to mind immediately.

Maintaining fiscal strength while planning prudently for long-term success and capital needs, enhancing operational excellence through measurable performance standards, building a culture of transparency, accountability, and collaboration with this commission and the community.

So thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

Thank you very much.

And which commissioner would like to go first.

I'll go.

Okay, okay.

Commissioner Alpert.

Okay.

Um your experience uh working as a city manager, what techniques have you found to improve employee morale and keep employee engagement at a high level?

I I think it starts really with the city manager.

Uh uh the city manager has to model and demonstrate certain behaviors because everyone's watching, and so it's an opportunity to impact and to influence the workforce.

So what I mean by that, if the city manager is optimistic, passionate about the work, uh hopeful about the future, uh, and energized, that's going to sort of seed off to staff.

Uh and so the idea is really all the work that we do, the way that we do it is done in the in a fashion that has as a a goal is of organizational cohesion.

So we develop camaraderie excitement and passion in terms of we know what the work is, but we approach it and engage it in such a way we are it's fun.

Uh everyone has a stake in it, so therefore there's purpose.

I think staff and employees they want purpose, they want they want a vision, uh they want to be able to know that they can trust the city manager, they want to they want a city manager who uh kind of gives them hope and excitement about the possibilities and providing the direction and guidance uh uh in terms of how we go about implementing uh the city's priorities that you are establishing I I get that, but that doesn't matter your techniques.

I I get that, but that doesn't, what are your techniques?

Okay, uh full involvement of the entire workforce in terms of the work that we do, making making people feel uh that they are valuable, that they uh that their contributions are wanted and are critical.

Uh what I've done through the years, and I'm gonna probably talk a lot about this is I I I have a management system that I've developed, and it's it's it it's it's a performance management and data analytics management system, but in order for it to work, it it requires the entire organization to be involved, from the council, the commission, all the way through to staff.

Uh it's not a top-down approach, and so by people participating, it gives it makes them feel like they have value in terms of the organization.

So I can talk specifically about the system.

Uh it's a four-pronged system.

Uh actually uh I developed it while being city manager in Cincinnati, Ohio.

It's uh when I became city manager, uh I was introduced to a retired senior executive from Procter and Gamble.

Uh his name was Harry Cangis, and his retirement job was basically using the one-page strategic plan for his corporate clients.

And this is something that was derived within Proctor and Gamble.

It's something that they use themselves.

Uh his version is slightly different.

I've modified it through the years myself, and so uh in order to develop that one-page strategic plan, everyone has to be involved.

And so that begins to uh develop cohesion, focus, uh teamwork uh in terms of everyone, from the governing body all the way down to it could be a clerk uh managing a an intake window of some sort.

It could be the permit operation, it could be anything.

Uh and and then we uh the second component of the system is an ILAP innovation lab.

Uh this is where we leverage uh we don't do the full-blown lean six sigma, but we leverage lean techniques and where we we refine processes and we fix problems, but in order to do that, you have to convene a cross-section of staff at every level with a dedicated facilitator to walk through a particular problem or process.

So people are getting involved.

And when people have the opportunity to be involved, they take ownership, okay, and they feel like they are a part of what we're trying to achieve.

The third component is a stat process.

Uh you may be familiar with ComStat, which started, the STAT process really started with NYPD.

Uh and this is how this was their primary tool that they used to solve crimes throughout the city.

And so former governor of Maryland, Martin O'Malley, who was mayor of Baltimore City, he took that concept and civilianized it for non-public safety purposes for non-police fire department functions for the city.

And uh and so that's taken off, and I use that tool as well.

And we use that tool to drive results to drive outcomes and so forth, and then obviously the data, data analytics, uh having a robust data warehouse of all kinds of data sets on everything where we can basically experiment to learn more about the work that we do and identify what we're missing, and as well as identify potential opportunities that we otherwise would not see.

Uh and we can use that to communicate with each other internally, and we can communicate with the public through the development of a variety of dashboards.

Uh to give you an example, uh in Cincinnati we developed 70 or 80 different dashboards for different things.

Uh but the most popular one was the snowplow dashboard.

Okay, you can imagine winter time, you get you're gonna get a lot of snow.

Okay.

And and what happens with that is it generates community anxiety because people want the snow removed like yesterday, uh, and so they're calling the city over and over and over again, like where where's the snow plow?

So we set up a dashboard in which they could check themselves for where the snow plow was uh with respect to where they lived.

And the calls dissipated significantly because we found a way to mitigate some of that anxiety.

Uh uh.

So it's it's a comprehensive process, it's not rocket science, it may sound like it's a lot, but it isn't.

Uh and and that has gone a long ways in uh enhancing employee morale, uh, strengthening organizational cohesion because everybody is involved in every facet of the process, so they take ownership of it, and they are encouraged uh to participate as well.

Can you give me the an example of a project or initiative that you shepherded through, but it was controversial that you managed to get it done.

Yes, absolutely.

I it just started as city manager of Cincinnati, and there was a streetcar project, construction project for the city that was underway.

Very contentious.

Half of the city wanted it, half of the city did not want it.

It was it became an election issue, uh one of those election issues.

And so, but those who wanted it prevailed.

And so the city uh went through the procurement process, selected a uh a vendor uh to start building this streetcar system.

Uh but when I got there it was floundering.

Uh it uh it uh it was having a lot of trouble in terms of being way over budget, uh they lost control of the vendor, so the vendor was not being managed properly, uh, and they were way off schedule.

And so what I did after assessing the situation, I determined to that I should bring the project into the city manager's office to fix it and to get it back on track, and we did, and then I turned it back over to our regional transit entity.

We we we greatly subsidized the regional transit operator, and they started out managing the project, but didn't do a very good job, and so we pulled it in, we fixed it, stabilized it, and then turned it back over.

But but one of the problems was that it didn't really have that uh they were still fighting the fight pre-approval of the project.

Uh and so that didn't help matters out a lot.

Uh but we we overcame all of that.

The project is a big success.

Uh it's been an operation now, I guess for maybe eight or nine years.

How did you overcome the opposition?

Uh well uh uh luckily for me that was decided before I actually got there.

Okay.

Okay.

It was it was it was decided uh as a part of the election.

Okay.

And and so that but but the tensions were still there.

Uh and they could very well still be there.

Who knows?

I mean, some of these things uh can be very emotional for a lot of people, and uh but it's it's important to understand that and to be able to uh recognize it, to hopefully be able to do something about it.

Thank you.

That's my time.

Thank you.

Uh Vice Mayor?

Thank you, Mayor.

Mr.

Black, thank you for your interest in our city manager position.

We thank you for that.

Um you know, in municipal governance in the organizations, there are some departments almost from the get-go that are centralized.

Um, HR, um public works, vehicle repair, that kind of thing.

But there are others that as the city municipality grows, you turn around and say, oh, gee.

You know, everybody's doing their own thing in this area.

Um there are a couple that come to mind.

Um what do you have to say about centralizing versus department-based systems for whatever departments you pick.

I I think I would focus first on uh uh uh finance and administration.

Uh I've experienced situations where I've gone into new assignments and in a city may have allowed like the procurement function or certain financial functions to be so decentralized, and then everybody is wondering why certain things aren't working, because you don't have a clear uh delineation of who's responsible.

And when you don't know who is responsible, that's a problem.

Not a lot of good things happen.

And so what I've tended to do in the past is is to try to strike a balance.

I mean, there's a reason for some element of decentralization, but the key is not to go to an extreme of either one, not to go to an extreme of centralization nor an extreme of decentralization.

But the key is not to go to an extreme of either one, not to go to an extreme of centralization nor an extreme of decentralization.

Figure out what works best for the organization, balance it, uh, and you're going to maybe do a little more of one versus the other, but it all it all depends upon the circumstances of the organization.

But the key is somebody should always be watching from an executive level to continue to modulate that balance.

Well, I'm not surprised you picked finance because you're a finance guy.

Pick another department too.

Let's say let's say.

I I mentioned procurement.

Most of the stuff that's going to be decentralized are going to be support functions of the organization.

You know, it's going to be obviously human resources, it's going to be finance, it's going to be budget, it's going to be general services, IT, things of that nature.

Mostly your staff functions versus your line functions.

But we deal with the line functions in a different way to get to the same result.

And that's the stat process.

That's how we deal with that.

Gotcha.

Thank you.

I'll reserve my 640.

Yes.

Okay.

Commissioner Ahern Catch.

Thank you.

As you know, the city manager in the City of Sarasota has a decent amount of flexibility for decision making, not only in spending, but in other sorts of decision making.

They don't have to to work to uh push an item or work in it with an item up to that limit and then go to the commission.

Sometimes they can decide, you know, this is this triggers going to the City Commission, bringing this before the City Commission before I make a decision, or we as a city make a decision about that.

What would that trigger be for you?

I would always err on the side of caution.

If an item gets right up to the limit, the threshold limit, then it really probably should be over the threshold limit.

And so my philosophy is just do it the right way, bring it to the Commission.

Whatever that procedure here calls for.

I'm a big proponent of letting entities do their jobs.

The Commission has a job to do.

So it's not my job to try to circumvent the Commission.

I advise staff not to do that.

So I don't have a problem with bringing stuff to the Commission or the Council because that's a part of their role.

I don't split purchase orders to avoid getting to a limit.

It needs to be what it needs to be, and if it's over, then it needs to go to the process.

Okay, thank you.

And in the city manager form of government, we do have a you know our charter which you know defines everybody's role and how we all work together.

Um what would be your your thought about the relationship between the City Commission and the City Staff, the directors, the managers, and so on and so forth.

Well, the City Commission is the Board of Directors of the Corporation.

Uh you set policy, you perform oversight, legislative oversight, uh, and you establish the priorities with hopefully some input from staff.

But you establish the priorities, the goals.

And once you do that, it's incumbent upon the city manager to organize staff and resources to execute those goals.

Uh but to do it in a way where uh you're always fully aware of what we are doing, how we're doing it, and if we need any help from you.

Okay.

So if we would need to know that relationship, how would we as commissioners have access to that relationship?

Uh my history is number one, I I will I have a tendency to over-communicate intentionally.

You will know everything, just about everything that I know almost as soon as I know it.

Uh I don't know what the practice is here, but uh in my previous city manager roles, I would have scheduled one-on-ones with each city council member once a week.

Uh whether we had something, I had something, or whether they had something, I would encourage them to still come, even if even if it's just for five minutes, just to touch bases.

Okay.

Because it want to keep those lines of communications open.

Uh and and that helps to uh the more time we spend together, the stronger the relationship hopefully will become.

Thank you.

Uh and you'll be happy to know that we do regularly meet with the city manager uh at least once a week, and we have plenty to talk about.

And I can safely say it's never been just five minutes.

Um I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but uh uh keeping on the lines of communication.

It's really important as you saw last night.

Um we have a very involved community.

Um they want to be informed, and we want to inform them.

Um the more they're informed, the more they feel empowered uh and understand their own city, the city and uh and the government.

Um what are your thoughts about your communication strategy with the public and your communication strategy of the city to communicate to the public?

Uh what types of media, what types of outreach, what does that look like?

What are your thoughts on that?

Well, as city manager, my my approach to uh staying engaged with the public is to be frequently visible and accessible.

Uh again, as part of my 100-day process, I I will typically in the case of Stockton, I met with about 160 or 70 community organizations or individuals to get to get to know them, to introduce myself to them to better understand what their interests were are, their concerns, uh, and I invited them to to come and see me.

I have I maintain an open door policy for for the public as well as for staff.

Okay.

You come and see me, uh you don't need an appointment.

You may have to wait as a result, but you'll get in to see me eventually.

Uh so I'm very accessible, very visible.

Uh I'm very supportive of community-based organizations.

I think that they're very vital to the community, to the city.

They're they can be used and leveraged as an extension of the city.

Uh so whatever we can do to help them and to help them to develop and build greater capacity, the better off we will be, particularly in crisis situations, emergency situations.

Uh so as a city engaging in community engagement, I'm familiar with and have practiced the traditional stuff, you know, uh leveraging social media, leveraging the city's website, uh we have community engagement workshops of different types and sorts for everything.

Uh uh.

But I I've been thinking a lot recently of what's the next iteration of community engagement?

Uh and it doesn't exist yet, but it's going to have to come because we're spending a lot of time and money on community engagement, but I'm not quite sure what the return is back to us.

I I think I think the the return doesn't doesn't level up to the level of effort that we are uh providing.

So what it tells me is that that the dynamic has changed because of social media, you know, and there's a developing uh unfortunately there's a developing trend where people don't necessarily want to engage.

Uh but what I'm thinking in terms of the next iteration is that they want to engage, but not in traditional form formats.

So what's going to change in terms of the future that's going to sort of refresh community engagement in general?

Uh and I think it's going to be leveraging AI, leveraging other technologies where uh a citizen can basically engage its local government any time and in multiple ways, they can basically curate their own engagement process.

I mean, that's kind of way out there thinking, but I think that the technology is going to ultimately get us there, and I think it's going to enhance uh and grow better community engagement, if that makes sense.

It does.

Um next question has to do with your experience in your background.

Um it's pretty high level, uh pretty, you know, large uh cities and pretty big responsibilities and pretty big budgets.

Um, Sarasota, we're not, we're not quite there yet, and I'm not so sure we ever want to be there.

Um we are our own place and our own culture.

Why Sarasota?

Why?

Why us?

I I I I answer that question starting out by saying, why not, Sarasota?

Uh Sarasota is a unique city.

It's a small city, but really is it a small city based on how it how it operates based on what it is.

What I mean by that is the let's say the inside Sarasota is not simple.

It's it's it's it's complex.

Uh you've got big city uh economic development and community development activities going on.

I mean, big time.

And when you see four or five cranes in the air, that's not indicative of a small city.

So something's different there.

Something's very different.

Uh you uh you're growing, you're you're growing twice in your size for a certain portion of the year.

It's a tourist destination.

So that's a whole nother world in in and of itself.

Uh you've got uh very diverse higher education here.

That's another dynamic.

Uh you've got economic development aspirations that are not necessarily small city because you've got those uh gems of assets to work with uh that can allow transformational changes for a community.

Uh and now the outside of Sarasota, you're competing with all these other cities up and down the coast.

Okay.

You know, you're competing for development, you're competing for workers, you're competing for residents, you're competing for visitors.

So that's not a small town kind of thing.

That's that's that's that's sophisticated.

Uh so again, it's I like the challenge that these opportunities present.

I believe that my background and experience can lend tremendous value to the city's efforts.

And I'm an executive, I know how to work at the executive level, but I can get the work done too if I have to.

Okay.

Uh and so I'm able to help any department head with anything that they're confronted with.

It can be a public works issue, it can be a transportation issue, it could be a public safety issue, it could be development.

Uh I'm very well versed in all of these areas at a granular level and can be very helpful and helping to get things done.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Batty.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

And uh thank you, Mr.

Black, for again taking the interest in our city and you know, to the Commissioner's point, you know, you know, why Sarasota with your background and so on.

Um you were talking about um and touched on like systems, you know.

Now, were you speaking of systems that uh kind of bring in the say the balkanization which we spoke of, you know, in our meeting, um, under, say, you know, one umbrella or whatever to make things more streamlined or whatever when, say, a project, you know, there's three different departments working on it, and there's like a lack of communication and and and so on, and it doesn't say pan out as a commission.

Sometimes we've been like, where did this come from, or how did this happen and things of that nature?

Um you have uh is that what you were speaking of.

And that's the uh OGSP.

And the the other components that go along with it.

Uh uh.

The STAT process is the primary component of the system that guards against what you are suggesting.

Uh so for instance, in in Stockton, we would have uh established seven different stats.

And a stat is a session, uh let's say it's a public work stat.

So in essence, we go through a process of developing a memo that guides us through the stat meeting.

And so the city manager's team works with the department to develop this memo.

And the memo is tied right back to the one-page strategic plan and the strategies and the plans that are there that are applicable to public works, as well as any other items we want to track, like sort of large projects and things of that nature.

So we meet every two weeks with the memo.

Public works is in front of us.

We have a panel of people.

We have the HR director, finance director, IT director, deputy city manager, and maybe someone else.

Uh and we're going through someone on the panel is facilitating going through the the memo.

And again, we're tracking stuff.

We're tracking activity.

We're tracking potholes, we're tracking graffiti, we're tracking missed trash pickups, we're tracking special projects because we want to know where we are, and it's not about catching anybody in anything.

It's it's identifying what's are there any problems and how can we as a panel help you?

The idea is that we have all the decision makers here.

So we don't need to set up another meeting to talk about what you just brought up.

We can deal with it right there on the spot and keep it moving.

That's the idea is to keep this stuff moving and to get to the finish line as quickly as possible and then move on to the next thing.

So that's the primary use of the stat component of the system.

Okay.

So a lot of times, like a good example is, and this is not unique to Stockton, this is every city in America, uh, if you, you know, the building permit process, the time that it takes to get a building permit.

It takes a long time in many cases, most cases.

And so we use the ILAP, leveraging the lean techniques.

We we place the entire building permit process in there.

We put about 25 people in the room with the facilitator, starting with the intake clerk in the permit center, all the way up to, you know, maybe a division head in various departments.

It could be fire, transportation, health, whoever touches that process.

And so we're we're identifying where where the bottlenecks are and problems, and we identified 80 things that needed to take place to fix that process.

And once we did that, we parked it into the STAT process.

And so we had a two-week cadence on that.

So that was development stat.

And we were able to reduce the time that it takes to process the building permit by 45 percent.

Wow.

Excellent.

Excellent.

And what would you say is uh or might be some of your your better qualities or or strengths that uh you know, as a city manager or as a leader, you know, that you could you know bring to our organization to uh that be applicable to where we are as a city and where we're going, where we can improve our organization and you know fill in you know gaps and so on.

Well, well, first and foremost, uh I care.

I I care about the work, I care about the people who are doing the work, and I care about the people we're doing the work for.

Uh being a city manager is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

You're really going to have this level of an opportunity to make a difference.

And so I want to try to do as much of it as I can while I can.

Uh in terms of skills, uh, you've got several consequential projects that are either in motion or will at some point soon be in motion.

Uh you've got some really high-level sophisticated economic development projects, transactions going on, and the city needs to be able to keep up with that.

Okay.

Uh the city needs to be able to find ways to develop itself to be a co-equal player because we're talking a lot of money, we're talking a lot of policy implications, uh, uh, you've got climate change, sea level rise, uh, uh, you've got sort of uh a dynamic national, global, regional, local economy.

A lot of dynamics.

So we need to be ready and prepared to engage these things and to make certain we have the necessary tools and capabilities to be able to do that.

And I believe, based on my experience and having dealt with a lot of these things, I can bring that experience uh and know-how uh and share it with our team here, uh, to make certain that we win as much as possible as the city goes to the next five to seven, eight years through this transformation process.

I mean, the city is already transforming, but it's just getting started, most likely, is what it looks like to me.

So, as a city government, we need to be able to keep pace with that and not lose and not lose control of it, okay, to make something that we get out of it what we need to get out of it as a city.

Uh excellent.

I yield, man.

I'll take my 12 seconds.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um, Mr.

Black, uh, over the last day and a half, you have met with each of us individually, you've met with senior staff, you've met with the public, and you've received a guided tour of our city.

So based on what you've seen and heard and anything you've investigated, the Sarasota before you came, I have three questions, and I'll ask them one at a time, but really based on what you've just experienced.

In what aspects of the city itself or city government, do you see room for improvement?

And I don't necessarily mean deficiencies, although it could be, but you know, what could we where could we be doing better and what could be we do to move us to the next level, in your opinion?

I I think I think Sarasota is already moving to the next level.

I'll go back to what I just recently said.

Maintaining some element of control and manageability of moving to the next level.

I don't think moving to the next level is a question.

It's happening right now.

When you go around the city, you see I can sum the whole experience up with one word, uh transformation.

And uh you've got transformation that's happening.

You've got several risks out there that are real and and or developing, and so all of these things have got to be managed.

Uh and so that's where I would see the opportunity area is to make certain that the organization is ready and capable to be able to handle all of this stuff so that the city wins big.

The city is going to win either way, from what I can see.

But if you can win big, why not try to win big?

Thank you.

Um from what you have seen and heard, are you a good fit for Sarasota?

And would you elaborate on your answer?

Absolutely.

Uh I'm built for this.

Uh you've got complex and when I say when I use the word complex, I'm not using it as a negative.

Uh you've got complex challenges in front of you.

Uh and you need a city manager who has a certain way of thinking, who has an operations way of thinking, who has an entrepreneurial way of thinking, and an analytical way of thinking, uh, uh a city manager who can deal with and see the big picture, but also understand the fine print at the same time.

Uh this is about mechanics, execution, risk management, and a lot of nuances.

So I'm built for that.

I've been dealing with like that and with that my entire career.

I've had to find a lot of, I've had to pull a lot of rabbits out of the hat.

Okay.

And I've been successful.

Thank you.

Um then uh my third one was over and above managing day-to-day operations.

What one thing, like a new initiative or a change, are you likely to bring to the commission for consideration?

Uh yeah, first and foremost, there are two things that I would clearly want to bring to the Commission.

Uh, and hopefully the Commission would be would receive it well, both of them.

First, I would want to uh establish some this is the science, the mad scientist in me.

I've done Office of Performance and Data Analytics twice, but I did them the same way twice.

I want to do the same thing here, but I want to I want to I want to sort of play with it a little bit and maybe create the next iteration of it uh based on everything that I've learned from the two previous uh and and put in the whole system, you know, adapt it to Sarasota.

You know, it's not a one-size-fit-all kind of an approach, okay.

Uh uh that's the OGSP one-page strategic plan, setting up the ILAP, setting up a stat process, and instead set setting up a robust data analytics or adding to whatever you currently have in terms of infrastructure for data analytics.

I'm talking about a robust data warehouse with, you know, we're we're we're we're basically trying to suck data and information from any and every source that we can within government and outside of government, okay?

Because that's going to allow us to ultimately leverage AI, okay, in terms of predictive analytics, because we'll set up a myriad of data sets and try to connect them all together, okay.

And uh and that and that's how you can do some problem solving as well as the STAT process.

Second thing that I would I would definitely want to do, I I stress this everywhere I go.

I stress this.

This is this could be one of the most important things that you could do, and that is establishing a long-range financial plan.

Okay, uh a long-range financial plan that is electronic in nature, a living long-range financial plan.

Okay.

You have a financial forecast, but that's not a long-range financial plan.

A forecast will be a part, a segment of the long-range financial plan.

Okay.

Long-range financial plan is uh is a roadmap.

Uh usually, you know, in this case, I would probably recommend sort of a 10-year-range financial plan.

And it needs to be that long because it needs to also take into consideration long-term liabilities, pension obligations, health care, uh, and any other long-term obligation that you may have on the books.

All that's got to go into the database.

Okay.

Thank you.

So I will hold my three minutes and 27 seconds.

And who would like to use I guess it's Vice Mayor?

Here I am.

Um hold on, I lost it.

So let's talk budget a little bit.

Um you talked about the long-range plan that sounds like a good idea.

But would you tell us um what your guiding principles are that lead you to develop a budget every year?

Uh what expectations you set for your department heads and departments ahead of time, and also if you think uh measurables are important to include in the budget itself.

Absolutely.

So uh a good budget and a financially healthy community starts with an accurate and honest revenue forecast.

That's step one.

Once you know what that number is, that's what you got to live within.

Okay.

If it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit.

Okay.

Uh you don't play around with the revenue projection because you want to get to an operating budget number.

Okay, that's when you start getting into trouble.

Uh so assuming that you've got a solid revenue estimate, uh, you prepare the through obviously through the budget office, you're preparing uh instructions to departments in terms of uh how they should uh engage this year's exercise.

You're giving them numbers, i.e., you know, you can go 2 percent above last year or whatever the case might be, or if if if if the conditions support that, okay.

In some cases, the conditions may not support that, it may have to go in the other direction.

Okay, but whatever it is, it's all tied back to that uh uh revenue estimate.

Uh I believe in uh again, if you don't have it, you don't spend it.

But even doing tight financial times, if you've got a good long-range financial plan, you can really do some things because you get to see where everything is.

And so where you think you might not have some funding, you very well may.

And that's the importance of the long-range financial plan.

It it's it's a tool that helps you to win, that helps you to optimize where you're trying to go and what you're trying to do.

Um the uh one-page strategic plan, OG SP is critical too, because you know now what you're saying your priorities are.

You know what you're gonna spend money on.

If it's not tied to that OGSP one-pager, then you've got to ask a question.

Should we do this?

If it's not going to support one of these five, seven, eight goals.

So that helps you in that process as well.

So that one pager plus the long-range plan, financial plan, they they they work hand in hand.

And it helps make your job a lot easier.

And it and it allows staff to better understand what the priorities are and what the dynamics are.

And so the last part of it is should measurable objectives be included in the budget itself, or how do you get to that when do you get to that point where people know what they're measuring and can be held accountable for it?

So in a case like this, and that let's say hypothetically, we would be starting the OGSP, the one-pager kind of mid-year, you know, off-cycle a little bit.

Uh and so it's going to have to catch up to the budget process.

So you're going to incorporate some element of metrics in that immediate budget, knowing that once you have the one-pager established, you will have already identified data points that you're going to track.

You're going to have a corresponding performance scorecard that's tracking several hundred data points related, everything's got to relate back to the priority goals and the strategies that are developed and the plants.

And so the subsequent budget, you're going to have data points or data measurement and information that's going to be real in real time that you're going to be able to incorporate into that next budget.

So you have the first budget, you're going to sort of do what you can in terms of incorporating the data components to it while you build out this other thing.

And then once you have that built out from that point forward, everything in there will be all about and see the data points are results.

So the one pager is very, it's not nothing's going to be on the one pager that's not actionable.

Everything has to be actionable, because that's what you're measuring.

It's not a thought and idea, it's action.

This is what we're going to do.

This is how we're going to do it.

And this is how we're going to measure it.

And so the subsequent budget will have that kind of uh data-related component to it.

Thank you.

Well, you used up your time.

Oh, okay.

I thought you were giving I thought you were giving you three minutes up to anybody.

No, no, no, no.

Okay.

Well, I mean, Commissioner Batti has three minutes and twenty seconds, which he's giving to you.

Um I'll be quick about this.

And it just came up in this discussion in the context of this discussion.

So you have this one pager and you have this plan.

Um and last night you you said um you're somebody who likes to get things done.

And so sometimes, though, uh you can have a plan and you can have a want to get things done, but you run into something that is unforeseen.

Uh true story, one of the roundabouts that FDOT was doing.

We gave them all the information we could.

They ran into some buried gas tanks that were underground, had to stop, pivot, retool, and we even had to reconsider if we were going to be able to accomplish that.

So sometimes you can have a plan, but you've got to stop it, and you can't go forward.

Has that happened to you?

Um what about that situation?

Uh unforeseen conditions and unforeseen situations are a natural part of local government.

Uh you run into them all the time, particularly when you're trying to renovate a building for a city purpose.

Uh you're gonna run into all kinds of unforeseen conditions and as public works or whichever department here is handling that, they now got to come back to you saying, well, we've got a problem, we need a little bit more money.

Bathrooms.

Okay, or whatever.

It happens.

So our subject for us.

Sorry, everybody.

Yeah.

It's an inside joke.

I I get it.

I get it.

I get it.

So it's going to happen.

And I think the only thing that you can do is what you just laid out.

Uh, because the there are going to be unforeseen conditions.

Uh uh.

The planning department will have all kinds of data and information from a historical perspective regarding the city, but it won't have everything.

You know?

It didn't know about those uh tanks underground.

You know, so you know you're gonna run into that.

And the what's important is not that you ran into something, it's how did you deal with it?

That's more important.

And you laid out the process.

But sometimes you can't get that thing done.

Sometimes you can't.

And and it's important to to recognize that and to act on it.

Okay.

Most of the time we still try to push along.

Right.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

I think I just have a few to three less three minutes left, and my final question for you before your five-minute closing statement, is what question did we not ask that you wish we had asked, and would you answer that question?

I usually don't respond to those.

That's the question that the media always gives you at the end of the interview.

That's a trick.

That's a trick question.

No, this has been quite thorough, and I expected it to be thorough just based on your backgrounds.

Uh good questions.

Uh I I don't think that you missed anything other than really, this is not really even a question.

It's just really understanding where the city is right now.

You you all are in it, you're up close to it.

You may not see the full-blown realities of really what's happening.

Uh, this transformation is happening.

And it's happening.

It is it's going to be accelerating.

Okay, and so the key is to be ready for it, to be able to manage it.

Uh, and I I as I said, I I believe I can help with that.

Working with staff.

Thank you.

So let me we're going to give you your five-minute closing, and thank you.

Okay.

So, Mayor, uh, members of the commission, uh, thank you again uh for your time and thoughtful questions.

Sarasota is a city with strong fundamentals and high expectations.

My commitment is simple.

To provide steady leadership, safeguard the city's fiscal integrity, align operations with your priorities, and deliver measurable results for families, businesses, and guests.

If entrusted with this role, I will work every day to earn your confidence through transparency, professionalism, and performance.

In closing, uh, I would be honored to serve.

Okay.

Well, thank you very much, Mr.

Black, for your time and your interest in leading Sarasota.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you.

And we will have a 10-minute break before our next candidate.

Welcome back.

We are resuming our special city commission meeting to interview the five finalists for City Commission.

And we're about to welcome Kamar Brown to answer questions.

And before we start, I just wanted to let you know, Ms.

Brown, that uh after your opening statement, when we do our questions, each one of us has ten minutes.

So that's how it will work.

We won't be jumping around necessarily.

We have ten minutes understanding.

So now welcome candidate Kamar Brown.

Thank you for being here today and for your interest in serving as Sarasota City Manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Commission.

Uh first and foremost, I'd like to say it is not lost on me on how tedious the last few months has been for the commission as you've navigated the selection of the next city manager for the city of Sarasota.

Um, as one of the seasoned professionals uh for this very important position.

And I would like to thank the commission for taking the time to get to learn a little bit about myself, my professional journey that has brought me before you this afternoon.

I am a public administrator with over twenty years of experience in state and local government.

Uh that you may have.

Thank you for the question.

So one of the things that I I think is critical is a roadmap for any organization.

When we think about a strategic plan, and in the way of background, the city of Homestead has existed since uh 1913.

And this is this strategic plan that was adopted in August 20th, 2025 was the first formal strategic plan that the city ever had, where it established a vision statement, a mission, a city tag, and goals, core objectives, and very specific time-bound actions that the city would align to.

A strategic plan in its simplest form is a roadmap that lives beyond or is intended to live and guide beyond the people that sit in a seat for a time-bound period.

As we know, we live in a democratic form of government, which means that there are elections and their results of elections.

And that's a very simple statement, but it is also it's something that everyone can now rally around and align their uh individual objectives to.

So that is one of the uh critical reasons that a strategic plan is so instrumental.

Great, thank you.

Um so I've seen some strategic plans that do not include time-bound measurable objectives.

So if you're presented with that kind of strategic plan, what do you do as the city manager to get that into the plan so people know when they have to do what they have to do?

Well, the first thing is I'm going to ask the question of where's the where are the actual time-bound measures, right?

Um if those if that does not exist.

Um the the first thing that I think is important in the process is there is a re an evaluation or reevaluating of the strategic plan.

Um I would need to understand how did we get to this plan and what was that process?

And where do we need to uh go back and and and start again in establishing the plan?

So it it's when we talk about strategic plan, a lot of people think about it as a set it's a sexy term, it's a sexy document.

Um but I think when you go into the development process, it is extremely important that you not only have the intent of the the output document, but you have the actionable roadmap, right?

And then and you are evaluating that roadmap um an annual basis where you are looking to check off those things that are have been accomplished and though or those things that are multi-year um endeavors.

So for for me, the first thing would be we are gonna have to re-evaluate the plan, uh workshop with the leadership team staff to they are more than likely already doing the work and simply not being intentional in how their programs and their initiatives are aligning to the objectives.

So it's that work, and then bring it back to uh the commission for buy-in and consensus.

Strategic plan amended.

Great.

Thank you.

Um so you also wrote that you're a leader who uses technology to drive process improvement, reduce inefficiencies, and encourage collaboration across departments and with the public.

Again, I say, wow.

You know, talk about that a little bit and you know, throw the word dashboards in there.

Okay.

Fair enough.

Fair enough.

So I I am I I'm fortunate uh that my introduction to local government uh was with the city of Miami, um specifically the IT department.

And I will tell you, I do not have an IT degree, nor do I have an IT background.

But I started as the business analyst uh supervisor in that department.

And the role of a business analyst supervisor is to bridge the gap between you know IT speak and the end user, the business departments.

And in that, in that process, it was very important for me to understand and work with end user departments to get their processes.

Very first big project with the city of Miami.

Um I led a team of three persons, um, myself, a consultant, two consultants, um, one who had a lot of experience in uh data management and database controls, the other with a trainer, and we implemented um electronic plans review that is utilized uh to date in the city of Miami.

Um we implemented it in nine months.

Prior to that, the city uh failed to implement it two times.

Um again, I I think yes, leadership matters, I think vision matters in in executing, but more importantly, uh you have to have someone who understands very clearly process thinking and data flow.

Uh did the exact same thing, different system in my capacity of in as the assistant city manager in North Miami Beach.

That project was stalled for eight years.

Uh we I came in, I ran through what existed, and we were able to deploy um phase one in 90 days of me being with the city.

Um and then most recently with the city of Homestead, um, very it is a very archaic process.

And um the manager said, Kibar, this is your charge, and uh we were able to procure, so we utilized ARPA dollars, um, and we were able to procure uh a solution and implemented it from uh the GOAT phase one.

So we have is a two-phase project.

Um phase one is implemented of October 1st of last year.

So again, it's about five, six months to deploy um really a citywide platform.

Um of the things that is extremely important for me is to look at solutions that are that work cross-functionally.

Um it enables departments to use the same platform inherently, you start speaking the same language.

Um relying on a s on a single data set.

Um and what's even more important is that we are creating access to the public that they're able to see where their processes are, and they're we are able to establish they're able to track and monitor and we're and and keep quite frankly the city and or processes accountable.

Um in the strategic plan process, we have uh in homestead, we have um not only tied our programs on our initiatives, but we have now also launched a dashboard where um the public, if they're interested, um, are able to drill down at different levels.

So there are five strategic priority areas economic development, infrastructure, um, community engagement.

I should know all of them from the top of my head, but they're they're two missing.

Um and you can drill down uh by priority area if that's your interest.

We have different views where if you want to see the global picture.

Um so that dashboard allows us to have very specific conversations with the public, and then again keep us accountable of how are we doing, and we're not speaking in prose.

There's an actual data focused approach to what we're doing.

Great.

So dashboard is in simple terms, something that's put on the community's website that has layers to it, and people, if they're interested, can click on it and go down layer-layer, layer.

That is correct.

That is correct.

We've also done um not in not in homestead, but in North Vimey Beach, we've done a financial transparency portals where something is simple as your checkbook reportings can now live online if someone is interested to view.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner Alpert.

Um I guess it's good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Employees are really the heart of government because if we don't have good and motivated employees, then we can't serve the public.

So what are your techniques that you have used to improve employee morale and keep employee engagement at a high level?

So for me, it's always important that the team understands that we are one team and that we understand they understand that I am a part of that team.

Secondly, I think it's important that I earn the credibility and the trust of the staff, and that is done through action, right?

That is done done through delivery.

Because it ultimately the end goal is the objective.

If we can figure out a way to put together ideas or c or combine ideas to result in that end goal, that works out as well.

I don't I don't have the I don't have an expectation.

I I think last night in our community meeting I shared with uh one of the roundtable that you know I I personally fully am aware that I am in balanced.

Um I don't have that expectation of staff.

Um my expectation of staff is to show up, do the very best you can and know that I will trust um your process and we will work through whatever those challenges are as a team.

So how do you make them feel like it's a team, though?

I mean it's a lot of people.

Because that you want them to be a team, we all want that.

But how do you make them feel like their part?

Because I'm present and I'm working alongside them.

How does my presence just being present?

How does that make them part of the team?

Well, it's not just being present, is is having the knowledge base and the institutional knowledge of what they do and how they do it and where the best practices or what are best practices that can be that can be uh implemented and if they're already implementing best practices.

I think there is commonality that can be gained by virtue of technical expertise.

That is a that is a com a place of common ground.

Um then again, I as I said, I believe that if you're able to effectively communicate with staff and they see where you're coming from and vice versa, there is an opportunity for for a cohesive team.

Okay.

My next question has to do with um give me an example of a project or an initiative that that you have worked on and that was controversial with the public and how did you handle that and were you able to bring it to fruition?

Uh thank you for the question.

There are a lot of controversial projects uh that that I've worked on.

Um let's let's go to electronic plans review for a moment.

Um and we'll and then I'll if we have time, we'll talk a little bit about another one that is more on the development realm.

So with what we call e-plan, uh industries uh there's a permitting permitting, uh they call them permitting runners.

Um there are the architects, the engineers, there are different disciplines that relies on this permitting process.

Um the introduction back in 2016 of going electronic was a huge problem for the development community, for the permit expeditors, uh, for staff, because there was there is a reliance on I needed to review via paper.

Um it meant that we had to do significant uh socializing the project, the idea, the process, the concept, what to expect.

Um we had to revamp our physical built realm um to respond to moving in a digital manner.

In 2017, we did almost a hundred, well, we did a hundred and fourteen different community meetings solely for the purpose of electronic plans review.

And then it wasn't just about go live, right?

Then we had to keep reiterating and reinforcing the expectations.

We had to ensure that we established a um, we called it a citizen help center to make sure that folks understood or or knew that there was support well beyond you know go live.

So that that was one very hard project because the development community relies on making sure things go quickly, and at the time there wasn't a lot of trust in the process.

Now layer in the fact that we are going to go digital.

A second example is the city had a uh and I'm gonna use the example because I saw the Bobby Jones golf course uh on my tour today.

The city had a a golf publicly accessible uh golf course that they the decision was made by the commission to lease the course to private developers for the development of uh the Miami Freedom Park.

It's uh it's a soccer stadium intended to have both soccer, uh mix use, um, entertainment, uh essentially activations.

It was one, it's a historical facility in the city of Miami, so in itself, um it was a very controversial endeavor.

Two, um the public thought it was or thinks, I think to this day they think that it's a it was an amenity for the city and for to be utilized by the residents and to be accept accessed by the residents.

Um the the planning, the planning and the planning zoning, and we called it the Department of Real Estate and Asset Management Department was charged with getting the project through and getting the deal done.

Um I will tell you it was one of those very hard projects to sell to the community.

Um in fact there was a a lot of community meetings, a lot of uh proffering of community benefits, and the project stalled for a year uh just trying to get through the lease agreement terms to establish a a method that or uh to establish safeguards that the public would have accessible uh access to the amenities on very specific days.

Um I left so the lease the lease was essentially finalized and approved by the commission.

Um I I left the city of Miami before it broke ground, but I'm happy to say that they have broken ground and they have started to construct the um Miami Freedom Park Stadium.

So two very complicated um and intricate processes projects that has you know landed um to where again I think there are people who are still not happy about about the the giving up of the golf course uh but the city we were able to navigate and get the get the project done at the direction of the commission.

So but how did how did you get the public buy-in, the ones, you know?

I assume you've got the majority that vote for.

So for in our role as from the administration perspective, it's about the education.

Um it's about forcing, compelling our processes, calls for uh developers to go through community meetings as a part of their pre-application process.

So if you're looking to do a rezoning or a comp plan amendment inherent in that process, uh the development community must facilitate in-person uh workshops where they're getting uh the feedback from the community to inform ultimately their projects and their design.

Uh so that was a very um significant or uh that was a huge part of the that process.

Um as I as I've mentioned, there are still those who do not think it was a a good deal, um, but ultimately the decision is that of the commission and the commission approved approved the project.

Thank you.

Um Commissioner Hern Kotch.

Thank you.

Um how do you um connect to and build relationships with staff at all levels and the community as well?

So I've been thinking about what my should I be the selected individual uh candidate for this role, what a 90-day plan would look like the first 90 days.

Um and I've arrived at the first 30 days is going to be a listen, a diagnosing, and a building of trust, right?

That is that is the beginning of that process.

Um it's gonna be important that I have one-on-one meetings.

I I I think I had a very good introductory talk with the uh executive team yesterday, but it'll be important to that I have focused departmental one-on-one meetings with the department heads.

Uh secondly, it'll be important that we we have one-on-one meetings with the commission to to understand really what are the what are the objectives, what are the goals, what's the agenda that we're that we're looking to accomplish.

Um I'll need to meet with the city attorney, uh, make sure that I understand any litigations that is ongoing.

HR, I need to understand the uh staffing levels and the and where there are challenges that may exist.

Um I know that Mr.

Bullock will uh go back to retirement on March 6, but I hope he would call allow and answer the phone.

Um so I would need to make sure that that is a very important resource.

Um finance and budget would be uh also an important element for me to really understand the financial realities of the city.

Um and then I would so those are my internal um, I would I would tell you the internal uh conversations that would need to happen.

Um second parallel to that uh there will need to be engagement with the the external um population.

So that is the Sarasota Chamber of Commerce, the neighborhood associations.

I've met a few uh of the representatives last night.

Um residents, uh one of the things that I did in homestead that I I would want to bring here is on a monthly basis, I would just go walking and I would invite folks.

Uh we do it internal to staff, um, but I would invite staff to just walk with me and let's let's talk about anything that you want to talk about.

Um it allowed me to get my workout in, but then also uh had a purpose to it, right?

Um so that is something that I uh I would want to do here to see the community from a pedestrian perspective.

I think that that is important.

Um and then also having a sense of or a meeting or a series of meetings rather with the develop the developers, right?

People who have projects in queue at the time, at this time, to to understand what are their pain points and how we can strategize internally to solve that.

And then from again an engagement meeting perspective, um, having learned this morning that the Sarasota Memorial Healthcare system is one of is an anchor employer here, it'll be important for me to meet with uh that the president or or the board to understand what their expectations, what their needs are from the city.

So that is a lot of meetings in the in the first 30 days, um getting a very good sense of what our financial realities are, what debt exists, um, and then moving into moving into the the I lost myself.

Give me one second, I'm sorry.

Take your time.

Thank you.

Can you restate the question for me just to make sure that I'm I'm I can't do that?

It was it was how are you going to connect with and and build a relationship with the city staff at all levels, not just management and directors, but all levels, and then the community as well.

Perfect, thank you.

So that is that is the initial outreach.

Um I think also within the net the first 30 days, it's important that I do field trips, right?

Um it is going to uh the public works department and making sure that I meet with staff.

Um it is going to utilities and make sure that I that I walk the the treatment plant for them to tell me what they do on a day-to-day basis.

From a community perspective, I think it's incredibly important within the first 30 days to have a meet the city manager town hall where again I get to listen to the residents.

It's one to begin to take control of what's happening, to start establishing credibility with the community, with staff, and then to begin to chart the course of what the administration will look like.

So it's a lot of meetings, it's a lot of engagement, it's being physically present, present, and then finding finding yesterday I shared it with staff, you know, finding a quick win.

Last night I met a an affordable housing developer, and he shared with me that one of the challenges that we're had they're having with is the IVR, which is the uh the interactive response voice response system that the city uses.

Um doesn't it works, but if there are roadblocks, you have to speak to somebody, but the city, but I get the development services department is closed for an hour to facilitate inspections.

So how can we find those quick wins, those low-hanging fruits to relieve uh very simple things that I again I'm pretty sure staff will also be willing and open to buying into, and again, it's this is the this is the beginning of you know the trust building factor.

I know who exactly you're talking about.

Okay, and I did mean to bring that question to Mr.

Bullock uh earlier today, so during our one-on-one.

I'm sorry.

But that's our community.

I know who exactly who you're talking about.

Um I'm gonna hold on my three minutes and three seconds.

Um I do have more questions, but I'm gonna say Commissioner Baptiste.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

And uh thank you come on.

I just want to say that it was uh you know great meeting with you yesterday.

We had a great conversation.

Um and uh I did reach out to Arthur friend of mine and uh spoke he spoke glowingly and highly of you or what have you and said that uh listen man if you want something done that that's the person to go to or what have you.

Um and uh one of the things you know that we talked about was integrity and character and um and transparency and how important that is uh for your role as a city manager, and uh so could you could you speak to that you know uh you know about yourself and and how important that is for you to to do your job, and particularly when we're talking about like setting examples for staff, um setting examples for the commission and for for the community at you know as a whole in knowing who you are.

Thank you so much for that question.

So I I'd I'd like to start off with a statement and then I'll give a uh a situation that that I was faced with.

So one of the big things that my my my mom always always says to me is that you need to know who you are before you show up at the seat.

Um I have been incredibly blessed to have very good parents who before anything will have a huge problem if I compromise um myself and my values.

Uh back in 2023, um my I joined the city of North Miami Beach as an assistant city manager and very excited for the role uh to be fair.

I thought I would have been there maybe five, six years just because you want to be a steady um party in a city that is growing and expanding, right?

And and that takes time.

So I was there for about two years, and there was uh uh a transition or an election, and the election was very volatile.

That I did not expect.

Um or rather I did to be fair, I didn't expect volatility to trickle down to a DCM or an ACM.

Because I figured, well, if you do your job well, and if you do the right thing, and if you sh you're always professional, folks will see through that.

Um because that's just who I am.

That is how I show up every day.

That is that is instinctively how I how I carry myself.

And the council decided to separate uh, you know, uh separate from the manager, which is of course every council's right to do.

But it was done in a way that was very harmful to the organization and to the individuals.

And I came to a crossroad for myself and I said, you know, I this isn't this isn't right because it's it's it's putting to do this, you have or to to do what needs to happen, you have to compromise um your values.

And flexibility is big for me, right?

You have to be able to be flexible to arrive at a goal.

But what is what is unshakable for me, what is on moving, what what is not movable and non-negotiable is me being put in a a position that will allow me to not sleep at night or not have my parents be proud.

That's I'm the eldest of uh four um and not allow my siblings to know who I am.

So that's you know, it's just not one of those things that I will compromise.

Ultimately, I decided to, without a job, right?

So maybe that wasn't smart, but um without a job, I said um the the city transitioned to an interim uh manager, the interim manager and I got on extremely well.

Um I did not know him until the day he said he was the interim manager, but but I I'm big on being supportive of people and supportive of the process and being a consummate professional.

But ultimately, a month, month and a half later, I I made the the professional decision to to separate from the city because it was it was important for me to have my integrity and my reputation intact well beyond um a specific role uh a given role.

Um I'll tell you that a title is secondary for um how I show up on a daily basis uh because you know my name lives beyond the title, and and that's incredibly important to me to preserve.

So thank you for the question.

Thank you.

Uh hold on to my five minutes.

Four minutes and fifty-eight seconds.

So wait, I owe you some minutes from last time.

So, Ms.

Brown, you over between yesterday and today, you've met one-on-one with each of us, you met senior staff, you've interacted with the public, and you received a guided tour of our city.

And I have three questions for you, which I will ask one at a time based on this exposure to Sarasota and any investigation that you've done prior to coming here.

Okay.

So the first question, in what aspects of the city or city government do you see room for improvement?

And I don't necessarily mean deficiencies, but where could we do better or what improvements would you think we could you know would move the city forward?

Th thank you, Madam Mayor.

So I I'd like to point to one that that I observed uh prior to my my arrival to the city.

Um there is a the city we have there or the city has a lot of capital projects that are ongoing, but I could not uh I d I could not identify um a comprehensive place that I saw all of the capital projects and where there are dependencies or or how we are able to collaborate um whether it's with our county partners, etc.

So one of the one of the the first things it is that I would look at is how can we establish a consolidated capital improvement plan that um looks six years out, right?

So it's five plus the current year, um, and and how do we centralize that those projects across the different portfolios.

So it's it's not intended to remove autonomy from the departments that are the experts in the delivery, but it is being being able to see um where all these projects or what the projects are, what the intent of the projects are, and are is there opportunity to collaborate in North Miami Beach, two seconds in North Miami Beach, a similar structure used to exist where uh there was NMB water, um it was a standalone department, they had their CIP, and then you had PUB you have public works, they have their CIP.

plus the current year um and and how do we centralize that those projects um across the different portfolios so it's it's not intended to remove autonomy from the departments um that are the experts in the delivery but it is being being able to see um where all these projects um or what the projects are what the intent of the projects are and are is there opportunity to collaborate in North Miami Beach two seconds in North Miami Beach a similar structure used to exist where uh there was NMB water um it was a standalone department they had their CIP and then you had pub you have public works they have their CIP and in two instances uh NMB water uh installed a uh force main in in I think it was and then there was a lack of coordination with public works where public works had to go back and dig the same road that was re resurfaced um or restored after the the force main to do work and that happens when you have departments that are managing their individual portfolio but there is a lack of uh crosswalk in coordination with the other department so having a consolidated uh CIP enables you to have a single pane of glass that you're looking through and you're able to to work in a more collaborative manner so that is that is one thing that I've observed uh where there um is again the data is there the information is there it's simply how it needs to um I would recommend consolidating thank you my my second question on that thing is from what you've seen and heard are you a good fit for Sarasota and elaborate on your answer.

Thank you so much I I have been thinking about that beyond the review of the the the brochures and what you what what I've seen online I've been really through the through the experience over the last uh 48 hours really thinking about um am I the right fit for the city and I'm pleased to tell you I think I am and and I'll and I'll tell you why I think your next city manager uh the state of Florida and specifically coastal communities um are they vulnerable and there's a vulnerability that exists I think your next city manager uh should have the requisite um knowledge base and understanding of what is happening um statewide and throughout in specifically with municipality um entities uh to to be able to add value and add to the conversation on day one um I have those that requisite experience um I think your next city manager has to have um coastal experience this is a coastal city uh that is that is positioned and prepared for uh has the experience for hurricanes um your next city manager should know what a simp is and should be able to have um a hurricane plan and ensure and engage and and and ensure that the respective departments are doing their appropriate testing uh tree trimmings um dredgings prior to June 1st because that is the beginning of hurricane season um I I believe uh that the community has I've heard uh multiple times that the community has a strong civic identity um I personally appreciate uh having active um active persons in the pro in the civic process right simply um having people at commission meetings or don't show up to commission meetings but we see online um you know the stories and the complaints uh is a disservice to the work that uh a city does um and then I would I would I would end with the city of Sarasota in my mind is at an inflection point right there are a couple of things that is being being being being balanced or or being juggled we've talked about individually affordability um we've talked about the need for future proofing the infrastructure within the city and we've talked about the the need to balance development that we are that you guys are preserving the unique character of the city alongside um moving forward with the progress and the growth of the city um those are all not only words right that I that I have been exposed to but those are specific agenda items that I have helped guide cities um through again with the with the buy-in the discourse of of the commission um and I I I believe that I have the the experience to to help to facilitate this process um for the next chapter of what of what the the city is facing thank you and then my third question is over in above managing day to day operations what one thing a new initiative or a change are you likely to bring to the commission for consideration it's a good one

Thank you.

And then my third question is over and above managing day-to-day operations.

What one thing, a new initiative or a change, are you likely to bring to the commission for consideration?

It's a good one.

So I in the in the in the ride along this morning.

And I'm gonna, it was in Newtown.

Newtown?

Yes.

It was in Newtown.

And Mr.

Wayne shared it with us that the CRA is reforming, um, re-energizing and starting to conceptualize what is going to happen in that area.

There's a particular, I think a 14 14 acre parcel.

We talking Mary and Andrews.

Yes, okay.

A 14-acre parcel that was recently that uh Walmart wanted to get there, uh the deal died, and it was um there was there's recently an agreement that I believe has been accepted where there are two local folks and another individual.

Um and now they're thinking about what what are we gonna do with this site?

It would be extremely cool in my mind that if I am able to help to shepherd that conversation with some sort of a legacy catalyst project that spurs um the economic development that I've heard um about that is needed for that area.

Um and it's and it's not you know the community doesn't want Walmart, so it's can't be Walmart next to the medical tower.

Uh so we we would have to figure out what that looks and feels like, but but that would be a very cool project to work work on that you would see the transformation of that community.

Okay, thank you very much.

And uh I believe Commissioner Ahern Kotch and Commissioner Batti have a little few more minutes.

Yes.

Would you like to go first?

Okay.

Um can you um talk to me about what was the hardest decision you ever had to make professionally?

Leaving North Miami Beach.

Um I knew that I did nothing wrong.

Um and I knew that so when you when you in my case, when I when I join an organization, um I am I am completely immersing myself into that organization, into the community.

And I felt as if I didn't finish doing what I needed to do there, but I needed to preserve myself, right?

So it's self-preservation at that point.

Um so it was a hard decision.

I also uh built a very strong team that looked to me, and then I felt like oh god, you're leaving the team, you're leaving your team.

Um in fact, last night uh after the the meeting, the community meeting, one of my team members called me for event session, and I was so exhausted, I listened for an hour and then I fell asleep on the phone.

Um and she's like, Are you sleeping?

I'm like, I'm sorry.

Uh so it's it's for me, I didn't think it was I was complete with the charge.

Um and I felt responsible for the people that were there and that I would leave there.

Uh so that was a very hard thing for me for me to do.

Um but again, it was important that you recognize when it's time to turn the page.

Okay, and I still have a little bit of time.

Uh don't don't I?

Uh yeah, one and a half minutes.

Okay.

Um can you describe a situation where you use creativity to problem solve?

Sure.

Just did it.

And not the IT one.

Not the IT one.

I did it last week.

So the city of Homestead is in the process, is trying to revitalize their um our downtown.

Everything in my mind must connect to something else.

And it is not, I don't believe in doing things for the heck of doing things.

So one of our commission, one of our council persons wanted to do an enhanced senior programming, which meant uh she wants to put on a senior prom.

A senior prom has different elements.

She wanted uh a nonprofit to provide um prom dresses.

It's interesting, but pop prom dresses, but you can't provide the prom dresses at the prom, right?

It has there has to be a selection of the prom dress process.

So what I've what I've had staff do is okay, guys, let's activate one of our empty storefronts in the CRA, where it becomes a retail store for two days.

Um allow folks to come in, traverse, they select their prom dress, and it's I'm less concerned about the selection of the prom dress.

I'm more concerned about us utilizing a space, activating for two for two days that the surrounding members of the community and the businesses along the corridor is seeing activity, and then hopefully that will have some investor saying, Oh, you know, this makes sense, and put and ultimately um invest in the space.

So that's a quick one that just came to mind because I'm actively doing it right now.

Thank you.

Commissioner Bat T, do you want to use up the rest of your time?

Yeah, might as well.

Thank you, Mayor.

Oh, for the record, the community wanted the Walmart.

It just didn't work out.

Okay, okay, okay.

See?

But you know, I appreciate your story, you know, about um, you know, falling asleep on the phone, you know, after the whatever.

You know, it shows that you care and and uh you care about your team and you you know you care about people and uh you know that's that's important, you know, caring about your staff and and and so on.

But uh one of the questions that I have is you know, s last night, you know, you had the opportunity to meet with some of the members of the community at that the uh uh community workshop.

Um there were various conversations, I'm sure.

Um based on those conversations, you know, did you come away with anything um that was uh uh similar concern, you know, amongst everyone.

Um that you know, in your experience and your professional experience in different you know, places that you've been that uh that may parallel any of those concerns and and that you can bring to Sarasota and uh apply to address any of those those.

So I think um number one, your the attendees, if if that is a re of last night's community meet and greet, if that is a reflection of your larger community base, your community is very well informed and very well engaged.

So that is a that is a huge um win um for for the city and the commission.

Uh two things um surfaced uh for me was one they they I've I heard about three different folks talk about they can no longer afford to live in the city that they that they have either have lived here for 45 years or have um grown up in.

So that was that was one that that stuck with me.

The second thing was the that this that the city has had a transportation master plan for some time and for um funding reasons have has not been able to execute on those um those projects.

Uh one being uh something is being you know crosswalks um signalization um to ensure public safety is preserved.

So th those are very similar challenges in in the other communities that I have had the pleasure of working with.

Um and in homestead uh we have a a bike a bike trail, the Greenway Bike Trail.

And there it it abuts a main thoroughfare um Campbell Drive.

It's about a abut of main thoroughfare.

And it is consistently um there are vehicular issues uh with pedestrians.

Um and we needed to install flashers, and it apparently took a long time for flashers to be installed.

Um at the direction of the manager, we got on a call and we ordered the flashers temporarily, and then we went with uh because uh all of our roadways, the jurisdiction is with uh MyMidade County.

Um so we installed we worked with the county, we installed, we installed um temporary flashers and um speed speed hums to and disincentivize the speeding um while the county does the study to ultimately install a permanent solution.

Um and then we we of course also deployed um a task force with our police department to again mitigate that specific area um that folks are not being um hit with vehicles or bikes as they they they enjoy the trail.

Uh excellent.

Well they got these ones.

Pass that on if you're um so thank you by the way.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Mrs.

Brown, and you have five minutes to give us a closing argument.

If we want to call it closing staying our attorneys here.

Yeah, closing staying in March.

I you know, although I did do law school, I did not decide to um I did not decide to to do litigation, so I will I will I will take it as a closing remark again.

Um thank you very much for the opportunity.

I I I am very pleased to have learned a lot about Sarasota um over the last four months in in the in the search process.

Um for me uh again I would like to reassert my ability to manage complex um initiatives.

Um very good at enhancing um and modernizing municipal operations um by leveraging technology solutions as we've talked about and um my requisite ability and understanding of the entire um development lifecycle process, I think would be an asset to to the team.

Um and I I I look forward to to working if I'm the selected uh individual tirelessly to to really move the city of Sarasota to the future in what it looks like in the next 10, 20 or 30 years.

I you know, my my goal and my objective would be to contribute my piece of the pie uh to move the move the move the needle forward in the right way for the city.

So I thank you for the time and um you know have a good have a good week.

Okay, well thank you very much for your time and participation, and we really do appreciate your interest in serving as the city manager in Sarasota.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you for being here, and I believe our next candidate will be joining us short like this.

Thank you so much.

Great job.

While we're waiting, ask a question of the city manager.

You mean Mr.

Long as you don't care about it being a good idea?

No, I want it to be made public, obviously.

Mr.

Book, is it okay for me to ask a quick question?

You can ask me a question.

That's my job.

Okay.

Um so you know, we're hearing a lot from all of these candidates and their ideas, but a lot of what we do has to do with services and people.

Um and I know that they all talked to our our staff, or at least the management staff, I believe.

They had a meeting with them.

Uh would be we be, I don't know if the other commissioners are interested in um talking to some of those people that met with these candidates and getting their uh opinion on on how that meeting went and what their thoughts are.

Would that be appropriate?

And okay.

So each uh candidate met with the leadership team.

That means the directors, several of the general managers uh also sat in.

I can assure you that many are watching right now.

Yep.

Um and they interacted with the the managers yesterday and the directors.

There was questions, there was some informal discussion.

Um I have complete confidence that they'll tell you all what they think, and I don't have any problem with you individually contacting any of them to ask them questions, get their input.

Um they'll be fine.

Good.

Could I could we get a list of who was in on those meetings so we could I think every director was there?

I think we need to have this conversation after he needs it.

Okay, okay.

I was just waiting until he came in.

But you know, no, he's waiting.

He came in, he was out of the way.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, well, if we could just get a list.

Okay.

So yeah, we're we're ready to welcome Dr.

Rodriguez.

Okay, there's no need to disagree.

Oh, okay.

Well, he went to the resume club and started talking.

Well, never mind now.

There we go.

Okay.

So we are now welcoming uh Chris Rodriguez to meet with us.

And thank you for being here today and for your interest in serving as city manager in our community.

And you may begin, well, before we you begin, just to let you know, after your opening statement, each of us has 10 minutes for questions.

And uh so we won't necessarily be jumping around.

So feel free to begin your three-minute opening statement.

Okay, well um first of all, um I want to thank uh the commissioners, I want to thank the the city staff um for your hospitality these last several days, and certainly throughout this whole process.

It's been um it's been a great experience for me and really shows that this city uh cares about its people and that it it runs a very uh tight chip in terms of how you're looking at these great candidates.

And I also want to acknowledge Harry Kamar, Troy, and Carrie who are also great candidates uh for this role, and I think you know the commission um has uh whatever choice you make, you're gonna make the right choice.

And I think that's always something as someone who does hire people as well.

Um sometimes it's a rare thing uh to be put in that position.

But um I was very happy to get to know them over the last couple days, and uh certainly they're very talented people.

Um in terms of why I'm interested in this role and sort of the skills and qualities that I think I would bring to it.

Um over the course of my career, um almost 25 years uh serving just at the federal, state, and local level, um I have always prided myself on um being very solutions-oriented and leading from the front and making sure that we are making uh the best decisions possible for the people that we serve.

Um we are all serving in privileged roles.

Um we are lucky to have these jobs that we have.

And um and we're fortunate.

And so I take that responsibility very seriously.

And it is something that I've brought throughout my career, whether it was serving our country abroad, um, serving at the state level in New Jersey and dealing with our 21 counties and 565 municipalities, and then of course, in the nation's capital over the last nine years, um dealing with um, as I'm sure many of you did, right?

Um perhaps the most significant emergency that we've ever dealt with in our lifetimes, which was the COVID pandemic, um, and making sure that our citizens and our residents were safe and that they were taken care of during a very difficult time for all of us.

Um in terms of um my leadership style, um I'm someone who also wants to make sure that I engage in deliberative processes with the people that work for me.

Um they are my colleagues, and they are people who um also give up a lot of time with family and friends in order to serve in these roles, and so I'm very excited.

Um when I did meet the staff last week.

Um sorry, yesterday.

Um it seems like it's been like it.

Um it was it was great to see the camaraderie that they have, and I can tell that you've built a great team here, so thank you for that.

And any city manager who's coming into this role will really um benefit from the people who work here already.

Um in closing, I I appreciate the opportunity, and I really look forward to engaging in a dialogue and discussion with you to dive a little bit deeper into my skills and qualities and and why you know I feel very fortunate to be in this position right now.

So thank you.

Thank you.

And who would like to go first?

I always go first.

Yeah, we're looking at you.

I'll start with the question.

You know, as you said, we really do have really good staff here and a lot of camaraderie between the staff.

So what you know, what are your techniques to uh make sure that we keep that morale and that um they're you know continuing to be engaged at a high level.

I think it is um and when I spoke to the commissioners and to the staff as well.

Um I I do think it's about being uh transparent and accessible.

Um walking around, not staying in your office and you know, shutting the door.

And one of the things that I've tried to do as a department head um and it also as a manager at CIA is always make sure I'm getting out and seeing people and meeting people, knowing their first names, and not just knowing also what it is they do on a daily basis, but knowing a little bit about them, right?

Their families, their interests, their hobbies, um, building that camaraderie and that trust with your with people who work for you, and and particularly in the departments here, as a city, you provide direct services to your residents and to your citizens.

And so m oftentimes they will have great insight into what it is the community is thinking and what they're doing.

And and so having and and often the best ideas come from the workforce uh and um whether it is something we need might need to change up, whether it's something we might need to continue.

I talk to a lot of people who work with me and work for me about uh sort of a three-pronged approach that I always have when I come in, and it's start, stop, continue.

What do you want to start doing?

What do you want to stop doing, and what should we continue doing?

And there's always answers to those questions and to each of those categories.

Um and that makes us more efficient and more effective in providing our services to residents.

Okay, my next question is um quite often, you know, when uh the cities involved in different initiatives and projects, um, quite often there's a lot of pushback, you know, sometimes it's very contentious.

Can you give an example of, you know, a project that you were responsible for that you know was very uh you know highly contentious, but you know, what you did to bring it across the finish line.

Um as a director in um in DC, as the director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, um, when I first came into the role in 2017, eventually ended up serving in that role for six years, um one of the things that I realized was that we had facilities and and an emergency operations center that was not I guess reflective of our status as the nation's capital in terms of our technology, in terms of our space.

Um we serve a region of six million people, and so excuse me, I did not think that we had the facilities necessary to manage a large-scale disaster, sort of similar to what it is Sarasota saw in the lat in 2024 with the three um storms that that hit you.

I was very concerned about what I called the billion-dollar disaster that we just were not set up to.

And I told the mayor this and the city administrator.

Um over the next several years, what I did was implement sort of a change management plan that got a lot of um uh pushback from my employees in terms of um uh building new facilities, moving them to new facilities across the city across town, which impacted their um their commutes.

Um they then had to pay for parking, which they really didn't like.

Um instead of being at a at a owned facility, we were moving to a leased facility.

And so a lot of it was um uh for an agency of 200 people, literally myself and my deputy going out and talking to every single person and trying to um explain why it was important to build a facility that really we could do training and exercise, we can be better prepared as a city.

So over the next several years, we um worked with the mayor and the city administrator to get 40 million dollars to build our new emergency operations center, which opened in 2023.

And during that process, we really um sought to engage our um our employees and what it is they wanted as well.

Um wellness areas, um they wanted a lot of uh break space so that they could go and and congregate with their colleagues.

And so um I think the more you involve people in the process, even if sometimes they don't really like it, they'll go along because you're being transparent and you're being open about what your intentions are.

Um I think often we when we're engaging with each other, there there's always questions of intentions.

What are you intending to do?

Why are you doing this?

Um and people don't like change.

They don't.

And so I think it's sometimes communicating and making sure that you're answering transparently and you're answering in a way that's also trying to make the community better so that you can actually serve in a in an emergency in a disaster.

If it's something that's the you know, that it's the residents of the city, how do you then do the communication with them?

Because you can't go to the single one of them.

We have very we have very vocal um neighborhood organizations in in DC, um, some single issues, some um larger than others.

And um one of the things that I'm I have to do as the assistant city administrator is go to those community meetings and get yelled at sometimes and and say, you know, why is the mayor doing this?

Why is the city administrator doing this?

Why isn't this in the budget?

And you have to sit there and you have to take it, but you have to answer those questions, right?

Because at the end of the day, I'm I get paid by them.

And I'm accountable to to residents.

And my approach to those types of engagements is always to listen and then to speak transparently and in a way that um explains why it is we're doing what we're doing.

Sometimes our residents like the answers and they understand, sometimes they don't.

Um I do think that those repeated engagements and it um in sort of an iterative process does build the trust with the community so that when you do go and tell them no, they say, I don't like it, but uh okay.

Um and so as part of being a city manager, I believe a city manager needs to be in the community constantly, not just in this building, but out.

Um and not just in the downtown core, right?

And they have to go to places like Rosemary right here, they have to go to Newtown, they have to be in the community in order to make sure that when the community does ask for something, um, they have an understanding and idea of what it is those issues are to those different neighborhoods in those different areas of the city.

Okay.

Thank you.

I'm gonna hold my three minutes.

Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Um let's talk a little bit about budgeting.

It's such a tedious process.

And just when you think it's over, it's sort of like groundhogs day, right?

Yes.

You get a memo that they're starting the process all over again.

So would you tell us what your guiding principles are for the budgeting process, what expectations you set out ahead of time for department heads and staff.

And if you like to include measurable steps in the budget itself to assure that you attained what you say you wanted to attain.

Yeah, thank you, Vice Mayor.

I um I'll talk a little bit about what we do in um in DC.

And again, it's it's not a perfect model, but I think um there are elements of it that could be applied and not knowing exactly sort of what it is you do on an annual basis in terms of engaging the departments and agencies and the heads.

Um I'll just kind of give you a flavor of what it is um we do.

Now in in the district, by federal law, we have to balance our budget over a four-year financial plan.

Our cap our CIP is the same, our capital improvement plans.

Um and we are on the federal cycle like it is here, September uh October 1st to September 30th.

And um we begin that plan.

We've already begun the budget process, we began it in November.

And the expectation of the department heads is that they they come to meeting with the city administrator and the assistant city administrator, and um they walk through their budget and what their budget asks are going to be for the coming year.

Um at that meeting, um it is possible if we are in sort of um more austere sort of conditions financially, we will give them a mark where they are not allowed to ask for more than a certain um certain number as we move into as we move into the budget process.

Doesn't mean directors follow that guidance.

Um they're always asking for more.

Um but um one of the things that we rate directors on is their ability to manage their financial resources.

At the end of the day, yes, they're leaders in the community and they should be operational, but they also have to be strategic and have a financial sense of how it is they're spending their money.

Um so what they do in that meeting is that they bring, and we have several of these, they're called um capital stats, they're called CAP stats.

We do CAFSAT meetings with them, several of them.

Um we start with the big agencies, DPW, DC Health, um, human services, schools.

And so um we start with that, and they have to bring measurable, they have to bring their KPIs.

We have their KPIs, we know exactly what it is they're being measured against, and so for very specific programs, they have to they have to show to us with metrics and data how they achieve those KPIs.

Um if they haven't, we have to have tough discussions about why a program should continue.

Um and if we didn't continue it, what impact would it have on the community?

Would we have vocal um community organizations that that might you know um come to and come and call us, right?

Call the mayor.

And so we we really do in that process try to force those directors, and they have to speak.

I don't want their CFO speaking.

I don't want their CAO or their COO.

They have to know their budget.

Now, of course, those people are there and they help and they fill in the gaps, but the directors really need to know how their programs are doing, and if they have enhancement requests, how they're going to measure the success of those programs going forward.

So they use the current year's KPIs to inform you in their request for next year's.

Correct.

And we can change those KPIs.

So if a program has achieved its objectives, how are we now either sustaining that program or are we moving to another one?

Right?

And do you measure them periodically during the course of the year?

The directors have to meet with the city administrator and myself quarterly to go through their KPIs.

And there are things that happen during the course of the year.

So for example, um this past August, we had uh a lot of our departments and agencies had a shift because we had a large-scale federal intervention in our affairs and in our city and in our budget.

So a lot of those KPIs will change.

But we do revisit them.

Gotcha.

Um in your letter, I don't know if it was your cover letter or your resume, you mentioned strategic and operational planning.

So how does strategic plan fit into the budget process?

And the strategic plan is a um for the city is a very um uh that is a high-level document that's separate, but it's not separate, but it it is something that guides us in our budget planning and in our and in our discussions with the departments and agencies.

Um we had to do a new strategic plan after the pandemic, as I'm sure a lot of the jurisdictions did as well.

Um large reason was because we had to think about how we were going to shift our economy away from the Federal workforce, which is the um when it went um largely remote.

And so that really impacted our downtown core, which is our economic engine as it is here in the city.

And so when people aren't coming to work, they're not eating at our restaurants, they're not buying, they're not going to small businesses, they're not buying things in stores, and so um we had to think about how we were going to shift our economy, literally, um, to more education with our the universities that are there, to our health care system, and to sports and entertainment, as we were thinking about, hey, how do we bring the Washington commanders back from Maryland uh to DC?

So I'm a New York Giants fan, so it doesn't it's important.

Um it's important to have a professional football team.

Uh in any event, so that strategic planning uh lasted about a year because we were th we had to engage the community because we want the community a buy-in and input.

And um it it took uh a lot of um a lot of people in the government and the department heads to think about how we were gonna move forward in a post-pandemic era.

And and that strategic plan was unveiled by the mayor at a large ceremony, and then that guides our it's it was a 10-year plan that that will guide our actions over the next decade.

Um and it helped us because we were balancing over four years, so we can actually um we can actually put money in the budget and then see where we are in four years and we can measure against that and then see if we should continue.

And confirm before you approve the budget that those items are related to the strategic plan?

Yes, ma'am, yes.

Gotcha.

Yes.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Okay.

You want to save your save my two minutes and fifty-two seconds.

Okay.

Uh who's up next?

Uh I'll go ahead and use up my two minutes for 50 seconds.

Yeah, three minutes.

Um, all of three minutes.

Um, DC is uh, you know, a very large and diverse and expensive city.

Um so how do you deal with the issue of you know affordable housing or you know, um making sure that people who work in DC maybe can live in DC.

Yeah, it's a it's a great question, and one that um you know large sections of the city have been gentrified and um that has also created a lot of neighborhood pushback.

Um and people who have been residents there um for decades have had to leave.

And one of the things that, again, in a post-pandemic environment when we talk about our strategic plan is to um is to create uh more affordable and available and accessible housing.

Um over the last 10 years we've created 36,000 affordable housing units throughout the city.

The mayor has also initiated a program which I think is is extremely um has been successful, it's called office to anything program.

So when we have abandoned, not abandoned, but uh as companies have left or as as employees um go remote, um we do have a lot of empty storefronts across the city.

And so the what we do is we try to incentivize private developers to um to develop those those parcels or um those storefronts, and the city will provide grants or incentives to to do that.

Um and a lot of it is affordable housing.

Uh and we're trying to also meet people where they are.

So our most socioeconomically sort of diverse communities live east of the Anacostia River and are we the city is divided into wards, so um there are eight wards in the city.

Seven and eight are traditionally um the most disadvantaged.

And so we really tried to focus our um our affordable housing efforts in those wards so that people can live in place, and while they may be displaced for a period of time while construction happens, the city will subsidize that and then bring them back into their affordable units.

Um again, strategic planning, right?

How are we rolling out an affordable housing program that meets people where they are, that keeps people in their neighborhoods where they know their neighbors and they feel most comfortable there.

So it's a huge priority for us.

Thank you.

Commissioner Batti or Commissioner Hirnka shoot once.

Okay, I'll go.

All right, well that sounds I hadn't planned to ask this.

That sounds like it's very interesting.

I'm sorry, I missed the time.

I must have stepped out.

How much time do you have left?

Fourteen minutes.

An hour.

No, no, no.

This is her first goal.

This is all about taking time.

I'm so sorry for the long two days.

Sorry.

It's been a long day.

Give me a little grace, sorry.

Okay.

I apologize.

I didn't mean to interrupt.

I'm so sorry, sorry.

Go ahead.

Sorry.

It's okay.

Um that sounds all very creative, and I and I'm pretty sure that um DC has uh inclusionary zoning as well and has been doing it for a very, very long time, which is one of the tools in your bucket of of affordable housing creation.

Um but like the storefront program and others that you were talking about, those sound great, but where does the money come from to do those kinds of things?

I mean, that's where for you know, to scale down to the city of Sarasota, these ideas are great, but you know, we we are in a different financial situation.

Well, I think we're all um in challenging financial situations.

Some of those programs have had to be scaled down and recalibrated.

If it's all about metrics, right?

And and about data and how are people are people biting, right?

Are developers biting on these programs?

Are they applying for the grants?

Um and if they're not, those grants are reallocated.

So I think I mentioned in a lot of my discussions with the commissioners, um we uh the vast majority of our budget is on health and human services, on education, and on our debt service.

The that's about 70 percent of our budget.

And then the other 30 percent of the other 30 percent about only like five percent is economic development.

So it um in terms of your question, Commissioner, um we're also constrained in that respect.

Um, but as we're developing our budget, that 5%, a large portion of that is trying to incentivize affordable housing and making sure that we're providing we're offering programs that are appealing to the private sector to help us build more affordable housing.

So it's a very small portion of our budget.

I'm not saying it's billions or hundreds of millions.

I'm just saying that it's um it's a program that we've seen some success with, and I think you know, it will continue to be funded.

I think it's uh it's a very interesting and creative idea, which um, you know, I think we've seen as we've done National League of Cities and seen other cities, um, mostly larger cities as well with bigger budgets, uh, retrofit and do a lot of retrofitting of um, you know, office buildings and things like that.

So, you know, um creativity is really important, and that's my next question.

Um can you describe a situation where you use creativity for problem solving?

Yeah.

Um well one of the things that one of the things that a mentor once told me is that there's there's always a way, right?

Um there is there is nothing that political will and budgeting cannot get accomplished.

And so sometimes sometimes we have to be creative in terms of how it is we go about um I'll use economic development as an example.

Um when we were looking at how to um incentivize I th this was a um this happened about a year ago.

Um the Washington uh the Washington Wizards and the Washington Capitals um had cut a deal.

One of the things I also learned from this.

You don't know what those are.

Oh, the Washington Wizards are the uh the MBA team, MBA team, and the Capitals are our NHL team, the the hockey, the professional hockey team.

Um like a magic club.

We have a big arena downtown, Capital One Arena, where they both play.

And um they were the owner of the team was looking for um uh us to put a lot of money into rehabbing the the arena and how we were going to go about doing it.

And um and one of the things that uh he did was that he cut a deal with Virginia to bring the teams to Virginia.

Another thing that I realized is that um never announce a deal if you haven't any anything signed on a piece of paper.

Um it was a it was sort of a gentleman's handshake.

And um the governor and the owner went out and made this big announcement.

And our mayor really just sat quiet and didn't say anything, didn't you know, say anything about the teams, didn't say anything about the owner or the governor of Virginia, uh Glenn Youncan at the time.

And um and the deal fell apart in the Virginia legislature.

And as the owner sort of turned around and was like, okay, I'm back now.

And at that point we had um, I think a little bit more leverage to sort of bring the team back and think about what tax incentives we could put in place and how much he was getting about two billion from Virginia to build a sports complex and everything in Alexandria, right on the water um on the Potomac, and I think we ended up giving him about 500 million.

Um so there's there's and he came back, and now you know Capital One is being rehabbed and and redone.

So um when we think about you know creative solutions to problems, um, we we sort of think about it from a financial standpoint.

There's always a way to accomplish things.

Um I think you know, I I think what I've learned about Sarasota's budget process is that uh I can imagine how hard that must be on a one-year budget cycle.

Yeah.

That must be really hard because you you then can't plan out and try to and and if there are new priorities that come up, it's hard to sort of adjust, right?

Um we can in in a city, and I'm sure in a lot of jurisdictions, you can do that and then create creative creative solutions to problems.

Some of our other initiatives have been in community-based policing.

We've put um we have put sort of uh what we call these community um safe community hubs in different neighborhoods across the city.

And really what they are is for residents to come and just get basic services, and they've been utilized um a lot.

And we put them in sort of areas where we've seen high crime or drug use um or um large numbers of uh residents who are experiencing homelessness, and we've seen hundreds of people come in, and and that helps us right get them essential services.

And so instead of like flooding the area with police officers, which is not unimportant in terms of dealing with crime, um we also took a different approach that has really helped um drive down crime and revitalize some neighborhoods where people otherwise wouldn't wouldn't go.

Um some of them are in our Anacostia neighborhood and in um Chinatown in particular.

Okay.

Thank you.

I'm gonna save my three 335.

Okay, Commissioner Bachee.

Uh thank you.

Thank you.

And thank you so very much, man, for you know, a conversation yesterday.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and more importantly, thank you for your service, you know, to our country.

And and so on.

Um you are great yesterday in the conversation.

Um you one of the questions that I've been asking everyone based on you know the conversations that you all had last night with the community and gotten to uh engage, you know, with uh members of our community, particularly the neighborhood associations and so on and so forth.

Um if you found any uh like a consensus or common uh uh idea or situations, problems or whatever that that uh everyone may have been had a concern with that you can kind of apply your your own uh experiences from where you've been and and and so on that could help address any of those those matters.

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, thank you, Commissioner.

I think um uh one of the key themes that came away from last night, and it also reflected in our my conversations with all of you, um has been uh the pace and scale of development and um and housing and particularly in the downtown area.

The good news is that people want to be in the city.

Like people want to come here, they want to live here, they want to visit here.

This is a very desirable place to live.

Um I've traveled all over the countries, I'm sure many of you have.

It's one of the most beautiful places to live in the country, period.

Um, and probably in the world.

Um so people want to be here.

Now that also creates challenges, right?

Because people want to be here.

And then they and and you have a lot of desirable land, you have a desirable location, and so you have developers that want to develop and they want to make money, um, which is the American way.

Um that pace and scale of development, I think will be a challenge for the city over the next decade, over the next 20 years.

It has exploded clearly over the last decade, over the last 20 years.

Even from when I was here in Lakewood Ranch about seven years ago, coming here the other day on Sunday when I arrived, it's completely different.

Um so what I heard from residents and from neighborhood and from neighborhoods associations is that um we need to be thoughtful about how this government um and how we go about managing that, um, not just for today, but for future generations, what kind of city do we want to build?

Um and that takes strategic planning, it takes um discussions with developers.

In in my case, you asked me to apply a certain um uh a certain experience.

We've had similar experiences with um I mentioned uh the Washington Commanders.

There's a lot of people in the communities on Capitol Hill that don't want a stadium there.

They're afraid of it's gonna parking, right?

There's gonna be the huge parking garages, it's gonna like bring more people to the community.

Um there are a lot of vocal neighborhood organizations that do not want a professional football stadium there.

And one of the things we had to do was go out to the community to those neighborhood associations on the Hill and explain sort of and talk about the the financial benefits for for um tax purposes.

Um we had to talk about sort of the value of bringing the team back.

Um some of those folks were not there in the 90s when they left, and so they don't have a lot of context for it.

Um but again, that's all about being out in the community, talking to people, and making sure that they feel heard so that when tough decisions need to be made by elected representatives, by city managers or city administrators, um they they can at least appreciate the why.

And I think that's really really important.

And and ultimately we we got it done.

Um our residents did like the fact that you know we have a three billion dollar investment from the team itself, the largest economic development investment in the city's history.

And so that was part of our negotiations to to make sure that the public and our residents were comfortable with it.

They're not all still comfortable, but we got there eventually.

We got to yes.

Uh excellent.

Because you're uh we spoke about your budget there.

What but now what is it again?

So everyone can 22 billion.

22 billion dollars.

With a B.

And it's 22 point something, right?

Uh yeah, I think so.

It's probably one.

22 point one or something.

I mean, wow.

But it's all just numbers, right?

I mean, that's what I always say.

It's like it's whether it's 300 million or 22 billion, it's it's how you manage those resources.

Yeah, right?

Right.

Wow.

So half of it is federal money because as the federal city, we we do get a lot of federal support.

Okay.

Uh excellent.

Uh I'll I'll yield and hold on to my four minutes.

Okay.

Yeah, I I I was just gonna add the aside that you know, and the and Congress can decide, no, we're not gonna send you the money.

Yeah.

They took away a billion dollars in 2025 in the middle of the fiscal year.

Yeah.

So I have uh actually three questions, and they're all based on the fact that between yesterday and today, you met with each of us one-on-one, you met with senior staff, you interacted with the public, and you had a tour of the city today.

So I've got three questions based on, and I'll give you them to you one at a time, but based on your exposure to Sarasota and other investigation that you may have done.

So the first one is in what aspects of the city or our city government do you see room for improvement?

And I don't necessarily mean we've got deficiencies there, although I'm sure we have some deficiencies, but where could we do better or what do you see we could do to move forward or you know, up to the next level?

Um I do think you know, a common theme in in talking to the workforce and also um with all of you, I think there is a common theme and um and a desire to take a look at how we do business right now and um and to have an honest assessment of are there things I I'm sure there are things we're doing very well, right?

Um and those things, again, this goes back to my start, stop, continue, right?

Um there we should continue doing those things.

Um I'm sure, and and you know, this happens in any city, whether it's large or smedium-sized or small, there's always things we can stop doing.

Um there are things that like you have to take things off your plate, I I believe, in order to add and in order to add more, right?

We can't just keep asking people to do more.

That's what we we always do that, right?

Do more with less.

And um I imagine that there are people within the departments and the agencies who say, I don't know why we do this.

I don't want why do we do this?

Um and I'm sure that there are there are other initiatives where like if we just started this initiative this year, like we could have this type of impact in in in you know 12 months or 24 months.

This is the there are people I'm sure who have really good ideas about new initiatives that we should be starting.

So and I think that there is a desire, at least from my impressions of my discussions with all of you, is to take that that honest assessment and to look at are we organized the right way?

Um are we um are we doing the things that we should be doing?

And any agency or any um city should always be not always, but periodically reviewing sort of how they do business internally, and some of it is all inside baseball, right?

Some of it could be just how we communicate with each other or how you know you're meeting with departments and agencies, or how the city manager does that.

I I I don't know.

But there's always ways to sort of make the processes more efficient.

We're talking about the budget planning process.

I would love to hear more about you know what the commissioners or what the departments have with the CFO and our financial uh team thinks about how that goes.

Are there things we could be doing better?

Um so I am I am definitely open to that, but that is sort of a common theme that I heard.

Um sometimes expressed explicitly, sometimes implied, um, that I sort of caught in my discussions.

Thank you.

And the second one is again, from what you've seen and heard, are you a good fit for Sarasota?

I think I am, yes.

Um and the reason is that uh based on all of my professional experiences and all the things that I think that I know that um I have had to implement over the course of my career, I think it is a really good fit because I think I'm coming to the city, and the city is coming to me as one of the five finalists at a time when it is seeking exactly what it is you're saying, Mayor, which is you know, uh should we be looking at things a little bit differently?

And I think the fact that I believe I asked nearly all of you this question, um what does Sarasota need, right?

And is I think there's a reason why all your five candidates are sort of external candidates and and sort of thinking about, hey, periodically, right?

Every city, we do it in DC.

Like we we look at a department or an agency and we say, should we be, you know, should we um be promoting from within, or should we be thinking about we need a f we need someone to take a fresh look at things?

Um we do that all the time as hiring managers.

And so um I do think that the fact that we're in this situation right now, it's you might be looking for for something like that.

And that's what I've done throughout my career, is take a look at process, took a look at um KPIs and metrics and data, and said, like, how do we bring more structure and organization to um in in my case it was to the agencies that I led.

Um but I I think it's really important, and I think it's something that really needs to be done periodically.

Okay.

And my third one is over and above managing day-to-day operations.

What one thing, a new initiative or a change, are you likely to bring to the commission for consideration if you become city manager?

I think we do need to begin implementing um performance objectives and measures and KPIs and data.

I want I I I want to make sure and again, this is a fee.

I I don't, you know, I I've only been here for a couple days, so um I do know that there that there might be a desire for more of this data-driven decision making.

Um that is certainly something that I'm not saying it doesn't exist, I'm uh I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying that that is something that perhaps we could um build new initiatives in that respect.

How do we we always need to seek to do things better, always, even in my own job now.

Um I want my boss to tell me like how can I do things better, how can I be more efficient, how can I serve you better, how can I get you better decisions, right?

Um and it's that constant self-improvement that's really important in any city, in any um department or any agency.

Thank you.

I'm going to hold my three minutes and thirty seconds and turn to either Commissioner Ayur and Kotch or Commissioner Batti.

Um I can go.

Okay.

All right.

Um can you describe um the hardest decision decision you ever had to make?

The hardest decisions I've ever.

Yeah, the hardest decisions I've ever had to make are to um are to let people go and to fire people.

It's the hardest decisions to make because these are their people and they it's their livelihoods.

That is the hardest decisions, I think, in these positions that we are, again, fortunate enough to have to make.

Um I personally have had um, you know, a parent who was fired from a job recently.

Um it was awful, right?

I I I see firsthand what it does to someone.

And um those are those are extremely difficult decisions to make.

Okay.

That's the hardest decisions.

Thank you.

And then um, you know, I think you know that we are back to budget again.

Um we uh you know have a challenge because of the the three hurricanes and a namestorm that we had to handle and deal with, and um we did have to, you know, we did choose to raise our our millage uh to recoup our reserves, um budget and and with what's going on in Tallahassee, it may even be, you know, we have no idea the impact of what's gonna happen.

We don't know what's going to happen, but um there will be some constraints and some challenges for us.

How during budget decision making, do you differentiate between wants and needs?

Because every department can say we need this, we need this, we need this, and how do you distinguish make that distinguish be distinction between a want and a need?

Yeah, thank you, Commissioner.

And I and I want to say that um I think it's a credit to your um city management leadership and to this commission that you did have a RAID-day fund and an emergency fund.

Um there are a lot of jurisdictions that don't are put in situations where they are have to pull from other programs when they do have emergencies and um hurricanes or or other natural disasters.

And so I think it is a credit to this government that you've been able to um get that.

I know it's they've been drained because of because of the recent storms.

Um and it should uh be uh I think that is a need that this city needs to have is an emergency fund or several to make sure that you are prepared, because I will tell you you should not count on FEMA to come rescue you.

Um I've worked with FEMA for many years.

I've I've I've worked, I've worked with FEMA for many years, and I love people who work there.

Uh but you know, there is an element of politics involved, and um, you know, it will it will take years um uh potentially for you to get reimbursed.

Um and I know that all has to flow through the state.

Um, but I think the fact that you're taking care of yourselves and you're taking care of your community by by making that a budget need and a priority is is a is a is a true testament to the leadership here.

Um so those that would be an example, Commissioner, of a need because the next storm will come.

Might not come next year, might not come the year after, but it will come.

And I don't want to get political with climate change or anything like that, but all I'm saying is that we are seeing more storms, and we are seeing more of them being as intense as the ones that you saw, if not worse than you saw in 2024.

And less of a lead time to prepare, by the way.

That's right.

That's right.

And there are a lot of resilience and mitigation projects, and I'm sure you want to do as well, or you need to do in order to make sure that some of your areas of your city are not flooding and businesses are not losing, as I know they did in St.

Armand's businesses are not losing revenue and losing jobs.

So that's how I would distinguish that.

You have to look at life safety, you know, uh those types of initiatives, and that can be everything from preparedness to law enforcement to um to public safety.

Those are those are needs.

Um that's what builds uh the the safety of a community, um economic development, and of course taking care of those other areas outside of the downtown core, which I know the downtown core is the economic engine of the city, but there are other areas as well that I've seen that this again the leadership here has prioritized, like for example, Rosemary District, which you've seen a lot of development there, and and you've you have developed another almost um area where people want to go and they want to spend money and they want to be involved in your in your economy, right?

How do we how do we expand that as well?

I think is is a need as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Now both of you have some time left.

I'm going to ask the question that the mayor sometimes asks.

Uh-oh.

She's using my question.

We're a team here.

Um so would you answer the question that we didn't ask you?

What is the question?

Well, that's it.

It's your it's up to you to come up with the question.

Oh, oh, I'm not sure.

And then answer it.

Yeah.

Um my goodness.

You know, I guess it would be um the question that I ask people when they're applying for jobs with either an agency or with my team is why me?

Why here?

You know, like why?

Why are you here?

Why are you sitting in front of me?

You're clearly I would I tell people, because you know, a lot of people who interview with me, they they um they'll read off their resume.

And again, I had a mentor of mine once at CIA who um said, and I was interviewing for a job with him and uh for the leadership for the director of CIA to be a briefer to him.

And uh I said, you know, sir, well I've I've been in Iraq, I've like written so many papers, and um, you know, I don't know people in the NSC and at the White House.

He's like, Chris, he's he called me Christopher.

He said, Christopher, stop talking.

And I'm like, he's like, you wouldn't be sitting in front of me if you weren't qualified for this job.

Tell me about you.

Why are you here?

Why do you want to do this?

Right.

Um and so I think the answer to that question is um, I know the answer to that question is because this is um what I have experienced in sort of my research is that this is a great place to be.

It's a great place to live, work and play.

I've I have lived not in Sarasota, but in Manatee before.

Um it was fantastic.

Um my kids loved it here.

And having discussions with you all, I know this process is a you're also feeling us out and all the candidates, right?

Whether this is a good fit.

And the candidates are doing that as well.

Like, is this a good fit?

Um and I think it is.

Uh and hearing from all of you and what your vision is and sort of what it is you think you need at this point in the city's development, um, and then talking to the workforce and what they want and what they need from a city manager.

I know you have great leadership here now.

Um was also very illustrative of sort of people who I want to work with and people who share the same sort of impetus and and bias for action that we sometimes call uh we sometimes call it is it it's inspiring.

And it's a place that I want to be.

So um that that's a question I always ask candidates.

Why are you sitting in front of me?

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner Batti.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

I don't know why it feels like you're spending your own money with your time in a way.

Um but no.

So, you know, speaking with you and going over your resume and so on, I mean, you have I mean you've covered like a large swath of experience work-wise and so on.

Um I think is intimidating that, you know, you you worked in the CIA.

But based on that, you know, in and you know, like your military experience, CIA and working in government and and those sorts of things.

How how does uh your leadership style um and your qualities and your strengths and what they might be if you can you know kind of tell us what they might be translate to you know working with us uh commission, working with the staff and the community or what have you that that would make you like a strong you know uh possibility for for the the future uh city manager, Sarah.

Yeah, thank you.

I think my leadership style has evolved over time.

Um I when I grew up professionally, I grew up in CIA um and they sort of, you know, as I'm sure anyone who serves in the military or serves in law enforcement also has a similar um world view, which is it's all about the mission.

Um your your personal sort of situation comes second because you're privileged to be in these in this position and it's about like if the agency needs you to do something and they need to send you somewhere, like you do it because you believe in the mission.

Mission first is always sort of what we talk about.

Um that also has some drawbacks.

I've I've seen uh not drawbacks, I I guess that's the wrong word um, but it needs to be caveated in the sense that you're also dealing with people.

Um and people are complicated and people have um I I my you know um I talk to my to my staff now and when someone um might be having a bad day or someone talks to you in a way that you view as disrespectful, um I always um I don't know if anyone watches Ted Lasso, but um one of the things he says in there is uh be curious, not judgmental.

And sometimes, you know, I've learned how to be more like that.

And what I mean by that is, you know, it's not always mission, mission, mission.

It's also like, hey, I can see you're having a bad day.

Like is everything okay?

Do you need anything?

Um it's not about subverting your feelings in order to like you know, capture or kill the bad guys.

It's it's really about dealing with people.

And I've I've learned that over time.

Uh I have to admit, you know, like I'm sure we all have in our careers, I've made some mistakes, right?

I've sort of maybe been too mission-focused sometimes and less people focused.

But uh as I've moved up in my career and as a leader of a city now, um, not you know, really focused on a specific department or agency, but on uh our 39,000 employees and the the budget, the 22 billion dollar budget, our 79 departments and agencies.

As an executive, you you have to make sure that you're caring about your people.

And sometimes people need a day off.

Sometimes they need to leave early.

Sometimes they need to shut off their phones.

And you know, that's okay.

Um I think I've I've learned how to be um how to appreciate that more over time as I've sort of as the mayor has promoted me and I've sort of moved into new roles.

Wow.

Yeah.

39,000 people.

That's like the whole city of Sarasota working for the city of Sarasota.

Why not, you know?

I mean, oh it all run smoothly all the time.

Don't worry about it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But no, but thank you so very much, man.

Thank you.

Okay.

And I believe I do have like three and a half hours.

Yeah.

So since the Vice Mayor stole my final thing, I'm gonna really go out.

Okay.

Yeah, far off.

A couple of years ago, I read an article in the New York Times about there was a park being built across the Anacastia River, and there was a concern among the residents of Anacastia that that was going to cause gentrification in their neighborhood.

And I believe one of the things that they were aiming for was to either have a community land trust instead of a tax increment financing.

But the big question is from your knowledge, if any, of that experience.

What has been done to prevent gentrification so that the people in that neighborhood are not priced out of their community.

Yes.

Uh great question.

And the and the um community that you're referring to is is called Barrie Farm.

Um it is right across from Navy Yard, which is where the Washington Nationals, our baseball team.

Um right over the river.

Um 2019 World Series champions.

They're horrible now.

But in any event, uh the um Barry Farm um has has tr had traditionally been an area where um there was a lot of public housing, a lot of crime, a lot of drugs.

And um it it needed to be something needed to be done there.

Um there's a lot of investment in that area of brand new recenter, brand new pool.

Um, and then with um the new development that you're talking about.

We had I think there was about probably about a hundred units that were there, um dilapidated apartments.

Um one should really live in that kind of in that in that situation.

And so a lot of residents were given the options um to be bought out and to you know take that money and move wherever they wanted to, or to be um uh or to be guaranteed sort of new housing and some of it subsidized by our um uh the DC housing authority uh to move back in after a certain period of time.

And that development is still under construction right now.

It's just a flat parcel they've sort of taken everything down.

I don't know um how many people have have left decided how many residents have decided to leave or how many will be coming back.

Um but there is significant development happening there.

Um and we always, as I mentioned before, Mayor, we're always trying to make sure that people can live in place.

Um we don't want to displace people across on another side of the city where they don't they don't have you know the the um the connections, the networks that they have in their neighborhoods.

Um that is always that is um as we talk about wants and needs, that is like a value that we live by is making sure that people can stay in place in areas where they are comfortable and they know people and they have that sense of community.

So um I would have to get back to you on where the what the residents what they decided to do, but that is still under development and it's not completely done yet.

Okay.

Thank you very much and appreciate your insight in that.

And um so we you this can that concludes our questions and we would appreciate you've uh your closing statement.

You've got five up to five minutes closing remarks.

Well, um again, thank you for um thank you for the the last couple days.

I really it's been it's been a privilege like sort of seeing your city and and being here again and and meeting everyone and and I do um wish you all the best and sort of how you making your your important decision for the future of your city and I want to thank the interim city manager and the deputy city manager for all of your um hospitality and and of your staff, thank you so much.