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City manager search underway

Kile Brewer
Posted 3/21/18

GREEN COVE SPRINGS – The search for the next Green Cove Springs City Manager is almost underway.

Members of the City Council voted unanimously Tuesday evening to hire a Texas-based company …

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City manager search underway


Posted

GREEN COVE SPRINGS – The search for the next Green Cove Springs City Manager is almost underway.

Members of the City Council voted unanimously Tuesday evening to hire a Texas-based company called Strategic Government Resources to complete the executive search process. The city is moving hastily on the issue with their goal being to get someone hired with enough time to train alongside current City Manager Danielle Judd before her departure.

No formal bid process was opened. At the previous council meeting, council requested staff return before the next meeting with a list of possible executive search firms, which they deemed to be in the best interest of the city. So, city staff assembled a list of names through consulting with other members of the Florida League of Cities as well as considering one company that solicited their services to the city.

Each company provided a sort of catch-all lump sum amount for their services and a chart was made to compare the five potential search firms. Most of the proposals came from companies that are either Florida-based or have a key representative living in Florida to help the city through the process.

Four of the five hovered around $20-26,000 for the hiring, in either a flat rate or a not-to-exceed amount. One bid came in at $15,750 which, being about $10,000 less than the others, concerned members of the council from the start. After some discussion it became clear that council members had already picked their favorites.

“I thought that they were all pretty thorough,” said council member Pam Lewis. “I like the idea that SGR has a representative right here in Lakeland, Florida and I believe he was a city manager at several of the cities here in Florida, so I like SGR the best.”

Mayor Mitch Timberlake had another frontrunner in mind, but acknowledged that SGR also ranked high on his list.

“I think I liked Colin Baenziger & Associates,” Timberlake said. “They’re a Florida company and I particularly liked their approach to the interview process.”

Lewis said that Baenziger had been her second choice, and SGR had served as Timberlake’s runner-up.

“I think the other thing that I felt we should pay attention to is that while they all have a lot of credentials with cities and counties in the 150-500,000 [population range], those two had a significant number of clients that were in the 7-15,000 population which is going to be more closely aligned with what we’re going to be doing,” Timberlake said.

After discussion began to wrap up Timberlake called for a motion and Lewis spoke up in favor of SGR, who had proposed a not-to-exceed amount of $26,000 in their proposal and had a representative based in Lakeland. Lewis got a 5-0 vote in favor of her motion.

“We should go back and look at SGR’s timeline,” Timberlake said. “Just make sure we’re in an appropriate timeline, we want to move forward but we don’t want to get so far ahead that we’ve got somebody identified and hired in April.”

Staff said they would contact SGR Wednesday about getting a contract lined up before the April 3 council meeting so that they can approve the contract and start collecting applications for the position at the city’s helm. SGR will see the city through the entire process from setting up interviews to contract negotiations with potential candidates, as well as providing some guarantee of their candidates with an 18-month replacement clause.