City Council - Regular Meeting

Alright. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to our May eleventh City Council workshop. Would you call the roll, please? CONSOR Henry. Here. CONSOR GOLLER.

Here.

CONSOR CHAPMAN. Here. CONSOR Schwan.

Here.

CONSOR GREY. Here. Chair Palumbo. Here. As we see, we have a small audience in attendance. Let's remember rules of decorum, also in effect, counselors, attendees. Counselors, let's also remember, we are being interviewed as much as we are interviewing. So let's conduct ourselves accordingly, and we'll be conscious of time. Alright, guys. I pledge allegiance.

I'll I'll lead you if you don't mind on this one. Alright. Please stand. Pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, On your agenda, item number four, the business we're here for. We're going to turn over the introductions to the city manager finalist interviews to Diana Snover from Human Resources. Diana, please.

Thank you. Good morning, counsel. Before we begin today's city manager candidate interviews, I would like to briefly review the schedule and the format of today's workshop. Today's workshop is scheduled from 11AM to 5PM and will consist of interviews with four city manager candidates. Each interview will be approximately one hour in length with short breaks scheduled in between interviews. The interview schedule for today is as follows. Mr. Greenville will interview from 11:10 to 12PM, Ms. Miller from 12:30PM to 01:30PM, Mr. Mendez from 01:45PM to 02:45PM, and Doctor.

Lucius from 3PM to 4PM. Counsel has been provided with recommended interview questions, candidate materials, and evaluation sheets. With six council members participating, it is recommended that questions be rotated throughout the interviews to allow for a balanced participation. Council members are also welcome to ask follow-up questions or seek clarification as needed during the discussion. Each council member is asked to complete an interview evaluation sheet for each candidate and return those forms to me at the conclusion of the day.

The interviews are intended only, the interview evaluation sheets are intended only as a tool to assist counsel with discussion and do not determine the final selection of the next city manager. Candidates will remain near City Hall throughout the workshop to help ensure the schedule stays on track. And lastly, I would like to remind council and the public that no formal action will be taken during today's workshop. The purpose of this meeting is for interviews and council discussion only. Any formal decision regarding the appointment of the next city manager would take place at a future public city council meeting. With that said, we are ready to begin the interviews.

Before we get to that, let me just is my mic? Hello?

Can you

hear me? There we go. Counselors, and you, we have an input in this. Here's what my thought would be as this is an informal workshop. We'll start with questioning with one counselor, just rotate around. If somebody wants to piggyback on that question or answer or ask it, great. But then we'll go back to the next counselor in order for their set of questions. And that'll allow us to interact a little bit. Let's be cognizant of time. I'll try to keep us on track. Staff, if we're running a little long, please let us know, as we've never done this in a public format before. And with that, counselors, questions? All right, let's begin.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Kevin, welcome. Thank you for making application. We do appreciate it. It's quite an honor to consider our city a place you'd like to work. Diana, a little guidance here. Do we a little tell us about yourself first? So what would be the any thoughts on this?

I think that is open. But I do think the candidate would be nice for them to tell a little bit about themselves and why they're here.

Please, if you would, Kevin.

Can you hear me Okay? Good morning. My name is Kevin Greenville. I'm very honored to be here today and being considered for this position. Just a little bit of background about me.

I am from Maryland. I went to college for financial economics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. When I graduated from there I got a job as an accountant for a $1,000,000,000 health insurance company in the federal employees health insurance program. We gave health insurance to federal employees and postal workers. I had to get a security clearance for that job.

And while I was there, I was fortunate enough they paid for my master's degree which is in accounting information systems. And they also paid for me to become a CPA. When I was in my mid-20s, I had an opportunity to become a finance director for a local government. I was really the only person who was willing to take it on because they were three years behind on audits. And it was really a government and change.

I didn't know a whole lot about local government when I took that job, But I went for it. I saw it was an opportunity. And ten years later in my career, I'm sitting here for a great government of Marco Island being considered for a city manager position. I really like local government. It's a place where you can actually see the change and difference that you make.

I have a long track record of success stabilizing governments, transitioning them through change, and really growing a diversified revenue source for governments. Everywhere I've been, I've always been multifaceted. I've been involved in every part of a government. And I always try to learn as much as I can from everybody I've come in contact with. I'm looking right now.

This is I've been at the village of Astero now as their finance director for three and a half years. This is the first job that I've taken a job interview for since I've been there. I'm very deliberate in the places that I apply for. And I just think that Marco Island is a great community. I think you guys have a lot going for you, a lot of strengths. And I think I could be someone who could bring everything together with my background, with my experience, and bring everything together and lead you guys into the future. No I'm just really excited to be here and for this opportunity. Just thank you very much.

Kevin, thank you for the introduction. As I mentioned before we spoke, do appreciate the fact that you knew our names. It proves you've watched our meetings and you've taken an interest. So I think that's a great first step. Counselors, anybody want to start? If not Deb, I'll start with you, but not every time. We'll rotate it around. But do you mind starting off? Please. Counselor Henry, you're up.

Hi, Kevin. My name's Deb Henry. Where I kind of want to go into in my thought process is whole history is in finance. And as a city manager, it's an overall picture of more than finance. So my question is, when you enter a new leadership role, how do you assess the organization to determine when to implement changes on things you're just learning about? So if you could provide an example for that as well. Yeah, Councilor Henry, very nice to meet you. As a city city manager, I

I think my first priority would be to get to know your guys' priorities. You know, I take direction from the board. It's your vision and my job is to implement that. So I would want to learn as much as I could from you. Get to know you guys as council members. I've done a lot of research on you and you guys have very impressive backgrounds. And I think the next thing I would look to do is to talk to the department heads and really get to know staff. Implementing change is something I have a long track record with my governments. I've done ERP system conversions. I've totally changed management and financial policies at governments.

And you know change I think is something that is natural. It has to happen. And you know local governments, you can't hit a home run with everything you do. When that opportunity arises, should take it. But you know change must be strategic, it must be incremental, and it must be supported by the staff and by the council and the community.

Okay. If I can just ask one more question. So going into a leading leadership position here on Marco, 100 plus employees would be working under you. What is your experience in working with that large of an employment? Do you have experience in that?

So at the village of Astero, I don't know if you guys are familiar with Astero, we operate under the model of government light. So we only have 12 FTEs total, you know, for our $100,000,000 budget. So it's a little different, my experience at Astero, where it's managing contractors and our consultants more than it is managing staff. At the town of La Plata, which was my prior job to Astero, we had about 100 employees there. My department was about nine and you know we managed all of the finances, all of the customer service for the entire community.

And at Mount Rainier, which was my previous job, it was a smaller community about the same size of 100 people. At the American Postal Workers Union, we had over 300 employees. And about 200 of them were bargaining unit employees. And I actually supervised seven bargaining unit employees. So I do have experience with unions and actually hands on supervision of them. But I have never had 200 direct reports before. But I think it's something that I could handle. And it's, know, like I said, just taking things sort of incrementally, understanding the organization. And I would look to hire very competent and I think you guys have very competent staff to really guide and lead them as well and me to sort of be the on top of them guiding that.

Thank you. Councilor Schwann, anything?

Yes. Good morning, Kevin.

I'm with Good Mr.

Schwann. We're glad that you're here.

Thank you.

I know a priority of all of the counselors up here and I know it's a priority of mine is keeping our citizens and our guests safe. And attached to that is pedestrian safety and bike safety. Have you had some experiences dealing with pedestrian safety and bike safety? And if you could share those with us, please.

Yes. So at the village of Astero, we updated our bike master plan and bike and pedestrian master plan. You know I think one thing that Collier County does very well is you guys have very wide roads and very wide bike lanes which I really like. So you know I do have experience with implementing master plans with bike and pedestrian. And you know I think it's very important and something we always need to look at and you know continue to monitor.

And I'm not sure if you guys have ever done a bike and pedestrian master plan, But it's something that you could consider and, you know, look at to sort of help guide that process through.

Thank you. And actually we were very fortunate here in Marco Island. We have over 40 miles of shared use paths and bike lanes and we're looking to continue to expand that. We've had very active residents who've worked on securing us almost $16,000,000 of grants that have come through the Collier County MPO too.

That's awesome.

Yes. And I serve on the Collier County MPO Board as a representative of Marco Island. So I'm so glad to hear that you have worked on a master plan. And thank you for that information.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Schampied, any questions?

Thank you. Thanks, Kevin, and welcome. I'm looking forward to talking with you this morning. I know you've done a lot of research on the city, and that's very important. You wanna know what the governance is. You'd like to know what the staff, how they perform, who they are. And the city council, it's very important to know who we are also. And so I was very pleased to hear you did a lot of that. Assuming that you're selected to be the city manager, and if you'd become so, looking ahead twelve to eighteen months, based on your research, what are the two or three critical challenges facing this city? And how would you position the city to address them?

Well, I think the most critical challenge facing Marco Island right now is your finances. You guys are very financially strong. You know you have a very strong and diversified revenue base which is a great thing for a local government. But my understanding is that you know you've done the rollback rate for the past eight years. And you guys are restricted both by trim and by your city charter and how much you can raise revenue and raise taxes.

My background is I've never adopted a budget that's ever raised taxes. I've always lowered taxes or kept the millage rate the same. But just my experience with constituents is they aren't always opposed to tax increases if they know it's going to a good use. If they know it's going to infrastructure, it's going to help the environment, and that it's an investment for them. So that I know you guys are looking to put a referendum for bond issuance.

Think at the May 4 you adopted a $23,000,000 and a $34,000,000 referendum. I think the need that I heard is a $100,000,000 over the next ten, twenty years. So that does help with that. You're also looking to do a 1% sales tax with Collier County. You know, as a tourist community, I do think sales taxes, you know, can be beneficial where that burden isn't on residents or on the ad valorem taxpayer.

But what I would like to do, if I was the city manager working with the finance director, working with the deputy city administrator, and working with you guys, is really to come up with like a strategic long term financial plan. When I budget, you know, I typically do one to three years of very detailed revenue and expenditure. Because I think when you go past, even though we have to adopt a five year capital plan per Florida statute, I think that, you know, when you start budgeting four or five years out, it does get a little dicey, you know, and doing those projections. It's hard to I think the rule of thumb is in the first couple years, you do too much analyzation. And then the future years, don't do enough.

So those numbers are useful. But I would really like to come up with a, you know, a long term and sound where we aren't just doing piecemeal debt issuances. We're doing debt issuances that are now and in the future planned what we're going to do next. And I think that's really what I could bring to this position is, you know, that strong financial background. As well as you know I do have a just a long history of working in multiple parts of departments.

I think the other issue facing Marco Island is you know, it's a growing community. And I think growth and being rentals and everything, it presents challenges. So I think just managing that is another thing I would look to do with counsel.

Very good. Have a follow-up if I could.

You

mentioned knowledge that we, by charter, have a spending cap that limits the expenditure growth on an annual basis. How would you manage have you had any personal experience with a spending cap?

I have not worked with a government with a spending cap, no.

How would you manage increasing service demands and infrastructure needs with this constraint? Well, I

think your operating expenditures are always very important to monitor. Having a cap in the city charter is not necessarily a bad thing unless you fall behind on infrastructure needs and operating needs. Then it becomes a challenge, right? That's where the challenge comes in. I think the charter allows for you know some ways for utility and for voter approved capital projects to be approved in over that cap.

But I would really focus on our operating expenditures being core to the organization and making sure that our reserves are strong as well to fall back on. But it's just something you're going to have to deal with and we're going to have to deal with is trying to figure out both that spending cap and the limitations of what TRIM offers every year and how high you can raise the taxes. I think having lean and efficient operations that still provide all the service is very important. And that would be sort of my strategy in handling that.

PRESENTER Kevin,

thank you. Some of my questions were answered, so I'm going to talk a little more general. Has there been a time when you've been acting either in Astero or previous job as the interim city manager? Have you had to step in, hire, fire, negotiate police contracts, these sort of things? Or this be the first time you're stepping into that role?

So I have been since I was at the city of Mount Rainier, I have always been when the city manager leaves, I've always been acting. Never the intern, but I have been the acting city manager for periods of times. And know this I've never been where the city manager has left and let me handle union negotiations or anything. But I have been a part of those. Especially like I said, I had a lot of union experience at the American Postal Workers Union Health Plan.

You know outside of them paying for my Masters in CPA, which I'm still super grateful for, that's really what I learned there outside of finance unions, you know, bargaining with them and also how to supervise and manage bargaining unit employees as well.

So you'd be required to manage over approximately two forty employees and also seven counselors who come and go and change and come in brand new to the job at times, have experience with life but no governmental experience. We are the people that stepped up for the job and won the election. Are you prepared to manage up? Can you? Do you feel comfortable enough to tell us when we're wrong or when you think we're going down the wrong path?

Yeah, absolutely. I as a city manager will always give you a recommendation and give you my thoughts unless you tell me not to or to stop. No. I've always had very good relationships with my council members. I try to work through trust. That's what I try to build with you. That's what I try to build with staff. And, you know, I just what you see with me up here in public, what you see with me in the office, that's how I am behind closed doors and in private too.

Thank you. That's what I have for now. Councilor Gohler?

Kevin, thank you for being here, and thank you for your email. It was really nice.

Thank you.

I think the champagne and mister Palombo just asked my questions, but I still have a few more.

Yeah. Sure.

So I would say you are familiar with our charter and I was very happy about it that you actually spoke about our spending cap issues that we've been facing for some reason. I have a few questions. First question is our budget is you know how much our budget is, right?

I think your operating budget's about $30,000,000 Okay.

Do you think assuming you will become a city manager, do you think you will need assistant city manager?

You know, I don't have a clear answer on that right now. I think I would like to better understand the organization and see if that's needed. You know, I think in organizations of this size with two forty employees, is typical to have an assistant or a deputy manager. But that's something I would have to look at and get to know the organization a little bit better before making a determination on that.

Okay. Thank you for that. I have a couple more. Actually, maybe one more. How would you describe your management style? What are two examples that you can tell us?

Yeah. So I would describe my management style as being inclusive of all employees, of all council members. And like I said, trust. Think my references for this job were from a certified planner, a public engineer, and a police chief. And I think they all spoke about, you know, my trust and my ethics and my morals.

That's what I like to build upon. And I like to build employees up. You know, up to help the organization, but also up to build them up as well. And you know a good example is when I was recruited for the finance director position for the town of La Plata, the second finalist was the deputy finance director. And she was intern in acting and I got the job over her.

And you know, it's business but it's personal too, right? We all take these things personal. And you know, still to this day I actually visited the town of La Plata over Christmas. And you know, I went and saw her. And we're still great friends and colleagues and still share ideas today.

And another example, I would just say at the city of Mount Rainier that was a government that was in total transition. And I was able to actually bring in staff and stabilize a finance department. You know I like to have fun at work. Know I don't think work has to be this grudging and awful thing. Know I want to get things done.

And just from a city manager perspective of management style, I like to minimize politics as much as we can. And I like to minimize unnecessary bureaucracy. You know, I want to come here and get things done. That's why I applied for this job and it's what I want to do.

Thank you. I have one more please. So what experience do you have using formal evaluation process for your direct reports? And as one of the you received formal experience for your staff.

Yes. So at the village of Astero, you know, do things a little differently. We don't do performance evaluations there. But, you know, everywhere else I've been do performance evaluations and my performance evaluation is not meant to harm or critique. It's meant to find what we can both approve upon in our relationship. Know I don't view a performance evaluation as I know. You know, I want to get feedback too in a performance evaluation and understand, you know, if they're having trouble what we both can do to, you know, help build them up and bring them back to a good performance. So, yeah, I've done a lot of performance evaluations.

Have you given poor performance evaluation and how did you handle it?

Yes, I have given poor performance evaluations. And you know, I'm there to understand what's going on and why there is a poor performance happening. So, you know, you do have to unfortunately have those conversations from time to time. But it's I try to get them back on track through that, not demoralize demean them. That's not my intention.

Okay. Thank you. That's all for now.

Thank you. Kevin,

thank you for joining us this morning. What does the word cash flow mean to you?

The word cash flow to a government is liquidity. It's making sure that you can meet your future obligations, making sure you can meet your debt payments, your liabilities that are upcoming. Cash flow to me from government accounting standpoint is your fund balance. Fund balances that is the portion that can meet your short term operating needs.

Thank you. Terms of what do you believe would be entailed in the best practices for capital asset management? What would that kind of approach or framework mean to you?

So capital best practices for capital asset management, I think it is first establishing a policy, making sure that you understand what a capital expenditure is, having a clear definition of that, coming up with the asset life cycles and understanding them. And then I think the next thing would be understanding what the community needs. What how much it costs. Capital asset management is I really view it as every part of it's the capital plan. It's, you know, keeping everything.

It's the op, you know, anytime when I do a capital improvement plan, one thing I always like to put on everything is what is the impact operating budget? Because that is so important when you're doing a capital plan or anything is knowing what that is. So that's a big part to me of capital asset management.

Do you work hard to identify useful life of all the assets?

Yes, That is very important. And I don't when I do that, I don't even I look to the policy, but I also make sure that it makes sense for this individual asset. Know, because when you look up, it's five, ten, twenty, forty. But you really need to look at that. But also there can be unique situations and you have to you really have to know that.

And you know, for an enterprise fund, I like to actually budget for depreciation. I think that's important. At the town of La Plata, we were in a very good financial position when I got there. But I even expanded it by we started like 80% of our enterprise fund. We'd actually put we'd be able to do 80% of depreciation annually in our budget, which is a great thing to do.

Vendor management. Some would argue we have trouble sourcing the right vendors for Marco Island that were in a more remote location. How would you try and maximize or approach vendor management to the best of your ability?

So at the village of Astero, I think I told you we only have 12 full time equipped.

I'm really jealous.

Well, there's challenges. There's late nights there too because of that. But so we outsource everything. I mean our whole planning and permitting department is a vendor. Know, have more contractors in Astero Village Hall than we have employees. Sometimes we feel outnumbered. But you know I think it's a challenge not just of Marco Island, it's a challenge of Astero, it's a challenge of Fort Myers. I think even up into Sarasota, it's hard getting contractors. And you know I think you have to treat them fairly. They have to want to work for you.

You got to pay them on time. And you you got to be collaborators with them. But you also have to hold them to a standard. And you have to make sure that they're performing well. And I think a big portion of vendor management is also making sure that the contracts you're signing protect the city's interests is a very important part of that. And making sure you have flexibility in terminating when you need to. You're not going to, you know, pay a huge price at termination or any of that.

Mr. Chairman, I have pages of questions. I do not want to do anybody else a disservice. I'll ask one more and then be happy to come Mr. Back

we're running late on time.

How do you feel about high involvement planning?

I'm sorry, can you

High involvement planning. From your employees, do you try and incorporate them into how would you approach your planning comprehensively?

So, yes, I really I'm not an expert on everything. Don't know everything. Yeah, and I don't want to know everything. I couldn't do that. So I really look to competent staff to help me in my decision making. And I'm the type of manager who I just don't want to know what my directors think or my managers. I like to know what does my wastewater treatment operator think about what's going on. I like to take all feedback and incorporate that. And yeah, I really lean on staff to help me. I'm a collaborator. And I'm very inclusive in decision making.

I'm so intrigued that you have 12 employees in the Astero. We have hundreds of employees. There's some conversation about whether or not it's beneficial to have remote workers. I'm just curious what you've taken from that business model and outsourcing many things versus insourcing them. Do you have any opinion on the strength of that model and strategically going forward the benefit of managing that kind of model that you're describing in Astero?

Yes. So government light this is a misconception. It's not always government cheap. It's not. Sometimes contractors charge a significant amount of money for their services. When you look at outsourcing services as a government, you're really looking at two three things control cost and then the service level. So really it's looking at each thing individually and making a decision on can you outsource it? Will you have the same level of service? And then what's the additional cost? Because you know when you're outsourcing a permitting department they're not just charging you the cost of the employee.

They're charging you a multiplier of their costs, their benefits and everything. So yeah, there's strengths to that and there's also weaknesses to it. I like to look at outsourcing. And I think that's a really widespread thing going on in a lot of governments is you can do it when it makes sense for everyone.

Could you describe the culture you'd like to see built here?

So I think the culture I would like at Marco Island would be one of community service. You know that's one thing why I like working in local government is serving your constituents. I'd like it to be inclusive, inclusive of staff, inclusive of residents. And you know I'd like it to be known as a professional organization. We're council members, we're staff and we're citizens where we treat each other with respect and dignity as much as we can. You know we're always going to have disagreements and stuff happens. But, you know, that's what I think I would like the culture and especially the perception from outside, not just here but other governments, to have of us.

I'll throw one more out there. Sure, Peggy.

Okay. Kevin, assuming you will be accepted for this job, will you be relocating to Marco Island?

So I think the city charter says it's up to counsel's decision. I just moved down here three and a half years. I bought a house about six months in. I live in Estero. I live out on Corkscrew Road if you're familiar at all. So yeah, I think I would be willing to relocate. But I think I would like to be given some time. I just settled into a new house. My wife has this has been her biggest issue about me applying and accepting this job is I don't want to move. But you know the drive would probably be about an hour each way.

When I worked for the town of La Plata I actually had a ninety minute drive each way and that was on the DC Beltway a lot of that. So I do have experience driving a long distance. And we had three lawyers, DC lawyers on council. So our council meetings started late and they ran very late. So the drive wouldn't be a problem. But I think I would like to relocate, if not on Marco Island, closer to the island would be something I would like to do How long

do you feel about conflict management?

So I am not opposed to conflict. I like positive conflict. Know, there's always going to be conflict in an organization, especially when you're a government. I just try to make conflict positive, make positive outcomes of it and not let it get out of control. Know you need to manage conflict. If you see something brewing, you see a problem happening, address it then and address it now. I've learned that in my career. Don't let things fester, especially between employees or with people.

I'll just take one more then we'll roll back around.

I understand. Yeah, I could keep you here till midnight. Is there a municipality that you've sort of identified as setting a really good example for governance?

So I think the village of Astero, we've really established a I think a standard for governance. We've dropped the millage rate all the way down to I think $0.73 We have the lowest millage rate in the state of Florida. Think outside of one or two very small communities that are more like HOAs than actual governments. You know, yeah, think we've really established a way of doing government. You know, I've worked now.

And part of the reason I took the job at the Village of Astero was to work for Mr. Sarkozy, our village manager. And I've learned a lot from him. And he's really taught me how to set a professional way of doing things. How to treat a council. And again, trying to he's really taught me how to minimize bureaucracy and minimize politics. And that's what I would like to bring to Marco Island.

Someone said bureaucracy is a hard thing to kill. Go on.

As this is an interview, and it's held in a public format, certainly a little different dynamics. Before I go back around questioning, did you have any questions for us?

Yeah, actually did, if it was.

Please, why don't you take your turn?

So I was just wondering, I couldn't get a lot of information, how is the fiscal year twenty twenty five audit progressing?

I'll let our chairman answer that.

You think I'm gonna note that down to the He has more skill in this than I do. We're coming along. How does that sound? There is some challenges or some arguments of years past with rollback versus needs and wants. So this council finds itself the transitionary council to going back to either the pay as you go or the bucket list, as we call it, or how we're going to look for alternative sources of income. This is something you'd be inheriting, walking us through or helping us with our cause as to how we are going to decide to move forward. Are we going to be a PAYGO, bucket list? Are we going to use bond funding going forward for major infrastructure? So to be very truthful, I don't have an exact answer for you. That's something we would be setting going forward.

Okay. Thank you.

I think your question was about audit though, was it not?

Yeah, it was a little bit more about

So the

the audit is moving forward slowly. There are several issues that have not been resolved, are expected to be so by the deadline of June 30. But it may be right to the end of the deadline. The weakness of the finance department was still at issue and we are kind of bringing in new talent and hopefully that will pay dividends in the long term. In the short term, it's been another difficult year from an audit point of view.

But it appears that we will not have the significant variances that we did the prior year. But still in progress.

I would add also, Kevin, that we have an audit advisory committee that has really stepped up to this task after we had our challenges from the last audit. They're closely working with the auditor and he's communicating with them and they are fully aware of all the deadlines that we need to meet. So I think we've all gained a lot of confidence in the advisory committee that's assisting us with this.

Yeah, that's great to hear. It's great to hear you have an active one.

Go ahead. Want to question you with question.

Okay.

Obviously, you know that we had issues with audit, correct?

Yes, correct.

So here is my question for you. What would you have done differently?

Well, I think first off, I don't know all the details of the situation, right? It's very hard for me to come in and pass judgment, reading news articles, talking to people. I would just say that I understand single audits very well. I understand how you have to account for revenue and assets. And also if there's an issue with the audit and I have a problem with the auditors, I will always communicate that to counsel.

Again, what counselor Gray asked me is don't let things fester or linger. You know, nip things and be direct with communication is how I would have handled that. But just, you know, whether I get this job or not, I mean, think the important thing for you guys in the audit if there are problems is to just make sure that any findings or any comments don't impact your upcoming debt issuance. You know you guys are going to be probably going out for a rating on that. Just make sure that any audit finding limits any problems with a debt issuance.

I think you guys could I'm not going to promise it, but I think you guys have the potential to get a AAA rating. There's just a few things you need to do. And one of those is making sure there's nothing in the audit. You know a lot of times, I don't know who's going be doing it. If it's S and P or whomever, they sometimes look at an audit finding and don't really care. Know it has nothing to do with the organization's health. Or financial health.

Thank you. Other questions?

So regarding the I'm sorry, my notes are so bad. So do you guys have any current lawsuits that are of a material nature against the city?

We do. Alan, do you want to take that off the top of your head? Not every one of them, just

the synopsis? The answer is yes. No, they're not of a material nature. But we do have lawsuits. Most of them we are able to address and deal with in a settlement kind of nature. Thank

you for that. Appreciate it. So I see you guys have a vision strategic plan that was done in 2019. How does that align with the current council's vision in moving forward?

I'm going to start this one guys. Probably could use an updating goals wants of the community and the councilors like anything else if you ask for a wish list, you'll get a great one. But is it is is everything accomplishable? Has to be put in order. As this council matures and and really we're working well together, and if you watched our meetings, probably see that as new people come and go. I think the question we do ask ourselves is, and maybe I gave you a bigger answer in the last one, where is the future for Morco? I've said it many times. Other councils bought the water plant, did infrastructure projects. Our destiny probably is how we meet development, redevelopment. And we've you were very bold.

I'll give you credit for using the word growth, which is a tough word here on the island as we reach full build out and there's no more space left. So I would say it probably needs to be tweaked or revisited. And that's something that we could certainly use the help of a strong manager to guide us through it and help lead the conversation as we make the ultimate decisions.

That's good to hear. I did the strategic plan for the town of La Plata. I was very involved with that. So I do have experience with strategic planning.

I would add something else, Kevin, to what our chair just said. The 2020 council did adopt a 2040 comprehensive plan. And there are specifics in there too. I don't know if you had a chance to look at that. But contained within there is Mark Wyland's commitment to conservation, which is very, very important for our island. And the council committed that we will be a strong force in conservation. Because we are different. We're a beautiful barrier island. We have a history of conservation with our nesting sea turtles, our shorebirds, our burrowing owls, our gopher tortoises too. So is that something that you've worked with? Some specific conservation plans or regulations?

Yes. So I mean just an example that comes to mind, the village of Astero, right before I got there, we bought about 68 acres right in the heart of Astero. And, you know, a great thing we did is we preserved a lot of that land. You know, we could have sold it and made a lot of money based off how the prices went up and everything. But you know sometimes you make decisions for the environment, for the future and for the people over money. It's a balancing act.

Thank you.

You want to follow-up? Counselors, we're coming down to about twenty minutes. Why don't you pick your best question, Deb, if you want to start, and we'll go through with that.

Mine goes into, and you brought up a little bit, dealing with the public. Research on Marco Island, we have a very vocal public. So my question to you is, how would you handle this is my view. We have seven counselors, and we have a handful of very involved residents that are very vocal and reach out to us on a regular basis. How would you handle that type of thing is they're the public. They're not an elected official, And they have a strong opinion. How would you handle dealing with the folks that would be maybe spending a lot of your time?

GREGORY No, understood. And I think all communities have that. I think public engagement is great. Know, I hate when you do a budget. You know, you do two public hearings and there's not one comment. You know, I don't like that. Like I like community engagement. And I think, you know, when you're dealing with residents who have strong opinions and who are very involved, I think educating them and making them a part of the process and making sure that their voices are heard helps that a little bit. But you can only control it so much. You know, people have opinions and they're entitled to them.

But I think it's something that you collectively try to work on. And I just think making sure residents I think something frustrating for residents is they don't feel like they're heard. And I think it's very important to get feedback from them and also educate them. Know, I think one thing the Marco Island could improve on is your budget. You guys I think used to win the GFOA budget award, you don't anymore.

I think that's something we could accomplish and get that award for the budget. And one of the parts of that is budget communication. You know, it's getting narrative out there and explaining things and even doing something like a budget in brief where, you know, it's a two page document that just highlights everything and getting that out. So I think it's communication and, just working through it.

Okay. And I just have one other question to lead off of. And this is kind of more of a personal thing. In reading your resume and the concerns I have is your long term commitment. I think the days are gone, yes, of getting a job when you work for thirty or forty years. But there's not a lot of longevity in a lot of the positions you have held. It because numerous very well done news articles about how you turned some cities around and then you moved on. Is your style of, say, come in, fix, and move on? Or are you looking for a long term home?

So I think one of the first things I would do if I became the city manager here is I would become certified with ICMA. I believe their code of ethics requires a three year commitment to any community. I wouldn't say job I have to some degree job hopped a little bit but I've accomplished what I set out to do at those places and I sort of didn't have anywhere more to push me. I think taking this job would be a challenge to me. I'm excited for the opportunity.

And I would look at Marco Island as long term job for me. Mean, wouldn't want to come in here and just jump and leave and go somewhere else. I would want to come in here and establish a long term government that extends beyond me. You know, the way we do business extends beyond us and beyond me. So, no, I would look at this as a long term job. Mean, I'd be excited for this opportunity.

Okay. Thank you.

Councilor Schwann?

Kevin, I just want to thank you for your time today and the preparation that I can tell that you did prepare for this.

Thank you.

Vice

Chair? Yes. Kevin, does the village of Estero have its own water and sewer department?

No, we do not. Lee County handles those. But we are doing several utility extension projects for communities that do not have any septic to sewer. At the town of La Plata though we did have a full service utility. We did trash, recycling, storm water, wastewater and sewer. And you know that's actually one of the things I miss working at the village is I like enterprise funds. I like setting rates. I like yeah I love all that stuff. So it's something I actually would like and looking for in a whether I got another city manager job or a finance director job is I do like utilities.

As you probably have read, the city of Markle Island has an extensive canal system. And the canal system isn't of the perfect clarity that the water should be. As a result, residents have kind of pushed a petition forward to do a referendum on advanced wastewater treatment. Very expensive. And unfortunately, it would be one of multiple processes that would have to be implemented.

AWT on its own isn't a silver bullet. So you need a couple more silver bullets. We haven't yet identified those in terms of we we have a general understanding of what's required. We don't know specifics about who does it, how much does it cost, those kind of things. Nor do we even know those great details in terms of AWT. So how would you deal with obtaining that information before we even think about passing an ordinance or legislation?

That sounds like a complicated issue. I think we would have to look at what we could do with staff to investigate it and then look to hire consultants who are knowledgeable about it and have experience with this specific item and who can guide us. You know when when I came to the town of La Plata they were mulling doing a like $35,000,000 full build out of the treatment plant doing four mods all at once. And I told them, you know, it may be more strategic just to do one mod at a time as growth happens. We weren't going to have, you know, the necessity of four of them with our current growth.

So I think with enterprise funds you know it's being strategic and how you grow them because you do have to finance them with debt. There aren't enterprise funds that don't have debt. It's just, it'd be impossible to charge the rate buyer that much to fund them that way.

Let me move on one more question. The city of Marco Island at the moment is beginning to experience cruise ship visits. Probably don't get them in the village of Vocero.

No, don't think they can.

How would you as the city manager balance the economic benefits for the local community of business along with the quality of life concerns of the residents who are worried about many hundreds of passengers and the legal rights of businesses and residents? How you balance this? All of a sudden a large number of new tourists gaining access to the island through cruise ships.

So I have no experience with cruise ships arriving in municipalities. I think it would just be something we would have to look at. We would have to look at how other communities have handled things in the past. What our police department thinks about it and enforcing those things. What legal thinks about it. And what's the economic benefit? Is it worth it to do it? You know that's something I think I'm naturally good at is weighing cost benefit in decision making. That's really what a lot of our decisions come down to. So no, that actually sounds like something fun to look into and research and come up with a resolution for the community. Thank you.

Well, to put that in perspective, that's a 100 person cruise ship at KCD. No, this isn't Carnival or

All right.

A small private line. Anyway, my questions were asked. So I'll just try to pivot a little bit. You seem like a gentleman that's articulate, smart, and I have no doubt you could figure the job out, by all means. I'm going to be a little bold, if you could be a little bold. How long do you think you need for on the job training? How long before you're up to speed with this community to understand what we're about?

You know, I think I could step in day one and lead this community. Mean I've already been doing research in the interim. But you know I have things. This is my busy season at Astero. We're going through our audit. We're going through our capital plan. And we're going through our operating plan. So I do have things. I care about the communities I work for. I have things I do want to accomplish with them and lead them on good footing moving forward.

But I mean, I think my knowledge, my background, I mean, I'd be ready to be the city manager on day one. But it would take time for me to understand the issues, understand the community. And I would do that by, you know, building relationships with the six of you and with staff. And and, you know I would want to you know intergovernmental relations are very important I would I you know I already know some of the Collier County Board Members I would develop relationships with Collier County with the surrounding communities. And also you know the local business groups, rotary, the chamber, those are very important to have relationships with them and get their input on things.

And one last quick one. As you know our governor the and higher government is looking to maybe abolish certain level of taxes for homesteaded properties. Can't touch the school board. I think police police and fire have to be 100% of last year's. So that leaves a small wonder parks, rec, community services, people. Do you have any thoughts, especially if you're having a financial background, how you would combat that? Are you thinking about that in your own community right now? Yes. Would you address it for us?

Yes. So I think that is a it's going on in every community. Know I believe that I don't think anything's going to happen this session hopefully. But it is something that I think is going to continue to happen. There's many states that are trying to do it just outside of Florida. I know Ohio, Indiana. And you know it's something we'll one thing is local government should have a diverse revenue. You should try to diversify your revenues. Think your last budget or audit, think it was 66% of our revenue comes from ad valorem taxes. That's a little high to me.

And we would be very susceptible any change. And especially we're an older community. And I think we have a lot of homesteaded and you know if they just touched homestead I mean we could pull up the Collier County tax rolls and I could calculate you know what that would be to us. Yeah, I think you got to diversify your revenue base. We would have to look to other ways to generate some revenue. Thank you.

Thank you again, Kevin. I have one question I think left. Everybody, great questions. Everybody, thank. I have one question. How do you define a resident's first approach in a tourist driven city?

A resident first approach. Well, think that there's an opportunity with a tourism community to generate revenue that's not on your ad valorem tax base. But you know it causes renters renting a home in a neighborhood can cause disturbances. Mean we have it up in Astero. I think it's about your residents, your long term residents, and your long term taxpayers. They take priority and their needs and understanding them are paramount I think to us in everything that we do.

You. Councilor Gray, does anybody else have any other important questions before I give Councilor Gray the remaining time? We'll jump in if need be, but you have about seven minutes.

You're kind. Homesteaded properties on Marco Island are approximately 31%. The state average is 35. I'm concerned that our trend is going the wrong way and that we're actually not adding to our homesteaded properties, we're deleting from it. What might you do to try and ensure shore up and attract more homesteaded properties or owners?

Yeah, well, I think you make Marco Island a place where long term residents want to come to not just renters. You know that goes to having good quality of life good environment good schools even though Collier County manages them we still have a say in them and can you know have a sway in them. You want to build a community where people want to live. Know where and I think one of the most important things is where people feel like they get value out of the government. Know that's really what I try to do is me personally, sometimes I don't like paying taxes because I don't think it's used in the best way.

Want your tax base to if you raise taxes, you want your community to know that it's going to a good use and it's going to better their lives and their safety.

Thank you. Reps and warranties. And I know you've worked on bonds. So you understand the importance of reps and warranties when you sign off on a bond. So this is a two pronged question. What reps and warranties would you want to make to this community if you got this job in terms of what should we expect from you or how you'd be facing the community? And then we are contemplating a bond. I know that bond counsel is required to sign off on an opinion on that bond counsel. Who else in the municipality would be signing off on the reps and warranties to say we were in compliance with all requirements before we were to try and draw down a bond?

Well, I think we would have to get bond counsel, like you say. They are the ones who really manage that process. If we have financial advisors, they won't sign off on it, but they'll give a recommendation and they'll bless any bond issuance we do. And I think it's also important for the city manager and the finance director to be involved in that. And I would look to ultimately what, you know, legal says who needs to you know, there's one thing, the legal portion of it, but I think there's the backside of it is making sure that we're all comfortable with everything that we do on a debt issuance.

Thank you. That's an excellent answer. Would you view the city manager at the top of that waterfall for making the representations, both the city council and the community, that we are in compliance with all bond standards?

Yes. And I could do that.

Okay. Thank you. Can I keep going or stop?

Do you want to jump in? Let's take Councilor Avancias. Go ahead.

You have more?

Yeah. Was gonna ask one on morale.

Okay. Let me ask one and I'll pass it on to you. So here you are. You've gone through almost one hour. And you've read a lot of research on the city. You probably have read the candidates who are also applying for this job. Why are you the best candidate we could choose?

Yeah, so I did read all the other candidates. I think you have three very good candidates for this job, along with myself as a fourth. You know, think what separates me from other candidates for this position is you know my financial background. It's very strong. Know a lot of city managers are specialist. Know a public works director will come up or something else. I am a specialist in finance as a city manager and I think you guys need that. I think that's very important. What else differentiates me I just think is my experience. Know, I've worked for several communities.

Very, very diverse communities. You know, I've worked in Prince George's County. That was my first job. And you know I've just I just have a really well rounded background. And I think too what separates me is you know you talk talk to the people I've worked with. Know I think my references were great and there's you know many more people you could talk to me, council members. And just my track record of I get things done. And that's why I like to work in government. And especially at the local level because you can actually go see what you've done. So yeah, I think that is what separates me.

We've had a little bit of a running debate about who's responsible for morale in the city. And clearly, think the city council has some ownership. I think management has some ownership. In terms of trying to build the right morale and the right energy and chemistry here, what would you consider your role as city manager in that?

Well, I think morale, starts at the top. I mean, would set the tone of that. You know, like I said, I don't like the workplace to be this grudging, you know, awful place to work at. I like work to be fun. I want us to go out and accomplish things. I want employees to feel like they get value out of a job. Know that they're growing, that they're learning and that they're accomplishing what they want. So yeah, morale to me I think it starts with the city manager. And I do feel like you guys play a role in that as well. Know how you treat employees. How you treat the public. And how we conduct ourselves I think is very important.

Got one more if you want before close it out.

You're kidding. If you were trying to build a peer group analysis for Marco Island, I'm a big believer. We both have some financial expertise. I try and look at a peer group and see what that peer group tells me about what I might do here. How would you try and approach building a peer group for Marco Island?

Well, I think as a city manager, a peer group, I would reach out to stakeholders at the county level and at the other municipalities. I think that's very important getting information from them in that regard. But I guess I don't know if you're looking more for that question.

I wasn't looking for anything in particular.

If

we're surrounded by good advisors, we have a better chance of not screwing up.

Yeah. No, I totally agree with that.

Thank you.

Any closing thoughts before I close this out?

No, I'm just very grateful for the opportunity. And, you know, if I was selected and, you know, we agreed to me being the city manager, I view this as really a huge opportunity for me. Just like I did at Mount Rainier ten years ago, I went into a place I didn't know anything about local government. And I've been running with it now for ten years. And I just think I, there's a lot that Marco Island could offer me in my career and my family and I think there's a lot that I could offer to you guys. I just really appreciate it. I've enjoyed this. Thank you very much.

Well, on behalf of the council and my co counselors, want to thank you for being well prepared, looking into us, finding out what we're about. I think it made for a great interview. And I want to thank you for your time. We appreciate you making an application. Thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you. Thanks.

Take a short recess.

Concession?

Thank you, chair. I would like to introduce miss Tracy Miller as our next interview today for the city manager candidate.

Tracy, welcome. It's nice to have you. And we appreciate you considering our community for the city manager position. Did you want to take a few moments just tell us a little bit about yourself?

Sure, I would. Is this on? Just checking. Sort of sounds like it's on. Just want to be sure. Yes. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Well, good afternoon. And thank you very much for this opportunity.

I have spent the last few days here at MARCO. I came down early with my family to explore and see your bit of paradise. I've actually been here before, but wanted to get a firsthand view. So I did that this last few days. Talking to store owners and immersing myself in what all of the amenities you're offering, what a pit of paradise you have here and how wonderful it must be to govern such a wonderful city.

So with that, I have also taken quite a bit of time to prepare for today. And I watched all of your deliberations. And I know firsthand that you have a wonderful candidate in your current interim. I recognize that. She and I operate in the same circles.

And while I don't know her personally, she comes highly regarded. And so do I. So I'm only here to provide you an option. That's my thought process, is allow you to think about something that looks a little bit different. With that said, I spent my first twenty years working at a nonprofit, trying to innovate the best governments that I were around the country with wonderful leaders.

And I was mentored by the best in the business. And I'm very blessed to have had that experience. Every day coming to work thinking about how to make good governments even better and more innovative is a pretty fun job. And when it came time to become a practitioner, I wanted to work for a great government with a great leader. And I found one in Sarasota and got recruited there.

And he told me he wanted me to do everything I was doing for everyone else but just for him. And so I embarked on that journey and then learned what this business can be. It was volatile from the start when four months later he was let go. So in my time in Sarasota, I saw three county administrators in ten years. And that's not odd. Volatility is very much a part of the work that we do. And so you have to understand that. I know you do when you start talking about the contracts that you might offer and what happens in that regard, I often say I have to be a duck. You've to just let it roll off and move on to the next. And so that's what I've done.

With all of that said, we have to hone our skills as best we can as local government professionals. My skill is as a change agent. That is what I bring to the table. When you're working every day to try and make great governments even better, that really is about progress and change. If you're looking for a status quo manager, I'm probably not the best fit for you. I'll just say that straight away. But if you're looking to refine your practices, become better at what it is that you do, then I'm someone you should look at. And so I'm here. Thank you again for this opportunity. And I look forward to getting to know you better.

Well, thank you. We appreciate that. Counselor Schwann, you want to start this time?

Yes, I will. Welcome. We're so glad you're here

this Thank you.

That's very nice you were able to spend the weekend in our community too.

Oh, we boated yesterday. Good. We have a boat, but we didn't trailer it down. But we rented one for the day and it was stunning. It was just amazing.

Wonderful. We're so glad you had that experience. Well, as you know, we are concerned with safety of our boaters out there, and we have our marine patrol, etcetera. But we're also very concerned about the pedestrian and bicycle safety, because this has been a rising issue in so many communities with the uptick in e bikes, etcetera. So could you share some of your experiences with pedestrian and bicycle safety?

Well, it's very interesting to me that you would say that because when I first visited Marco Island, I can remember seeing one of the first lighted crosswalks that flashed and actually worked. I had small children at the time. And I was very nervous about crossing right in front of the JW and thinking, wow, this is a better way to do it if everyone adheres to the law. And that's the real catch-twenty two is how do you police that? Do you police it with cameras?

Do you police it on foot? Do you have bicycle patrols? Do you ban certain vehicles, golf carts, e bikes, things of that sort? There's a lot of hard decisions that, frankly, you have to make. It's my job to bring those options to you, to have a public conversation about what it is that you think is best.

I do think bike lanes are qualifying factor. I do think slowing traffic in certain spots especially as as you're going out to the beach side. I watched several people yesterday get let off at beach access and have to wait quite a while for someone to either come pick them up. And so there are challenges as it relates to pedestrian safety. And unfortunately, in one of my communities, I saw a small girl right before I got there, unfortunately, was hit by

a

car. They used roundabouts in order to try and traffic calm. But there are a lot of different strategies. We just have to see which ones work best here. And I'm not sure if you have any transportation engineering, but we would probably need to acquire those skill sets and certainly come with recommendations for you.

Okay, thank you. And we do have actually we are a Florida trail town. Yes. Which emphasizes walking paths, hiking trails, kayaking and biking lanes, etcetera. So that's something that we just were designated this past fall, and we're very pleased that we received that designation.

We do have over 40 miles of shared use paths and bike lanes, and we are continuing to add the bike lanes, too. We also this council passed a 12 mile per hour speed limit on the sidewalks and shared use pass. Otherwise, riders can go faster course if they're in the bike lanes. They can go as the posted speed is there. So it is something that we continue to want to keep our residents and our visitors safe as a pedestrian and a biker.

Why we exist.

Just keep Thank it safe.

First and foremost, yes.

Counselor Good for now?

Yes.

GREGORY Vice chair?

GREGORY Thank you. I'm sure before you came today, did a substantial amount of research into the city, its form of governance, city council, city staff, all of which are very, very important, obviously. And based on that research, what did you find were the two or three most challenging issues facing the city in the next twelve to eighteen months, which if you were a city manager, you'd have to confront?

Well, I'm a strategic planner by trade. Your strategic plan is out of date, vastly. Without a strategic plan, it's very hard to even answer your high priority question. Obviously, know you're looking at AWT, been there. I have familiarity with expansion projects and wastewater treatment.

But that's not the only issue. Economics are always an issue in a town that's tourism based, which is what you have here. And of course, resilience for storms. So when you're factoring in the big picture, we need a strategic plan that's guiding us. I've used the same strategic planner that was used in 2019 here. So I'm very familiar with the plan and the style. Sometimes it's a little kitchen sink. So it has everything in it. And we need to hone in and say, Okay, well, what it's best when those plans are having an annual priority set. So we need to have a conversation annually about what your priorities are.

Pick your five to seven ish and go to work on those. And the one thing I am best known for is if I say I'm going to do it, I do it.

Very good. Similarly, you may have found that the city operates under a spending cap, which limits the amount of expenditures that can be spent on an annual basis. How would you see the city under your leadership with increasing service demands from the community and infrastructure needs which have gone badly underfunded for many, many years. How do you balance that along with a spending cap which doesn't allow you to spend spend everything everything you you would would like like to to spend? Spend?

JULIE Funding is the bane of all local government practitioners' existence. It's the truth. It doesn't matter where you are. There is some funding mix that you have to deal with. In my last city, I think the general fund here is $35,000,000 ish. Yeah. In my last, it was nine. Police was twelve. How do you fund that? Well, we had an electric utility.

But then they want to do spending caps on utilities. So every government, no matter where you are, has to deal with these particular issues. One thing I found very useful in my last organization was a model that we used from Raftelis. It was a financial spending model that allowed you to project out and also deal with your reserves and your funding caps. That's what we would need in order to like picture, okay, these are the priorities that we can actually afford.

And, you know, there is new state legislation that also says that we're supposed to reduce the budget. So we have to also have a discussion with the citizens about reductions. So not only is there a spending cap, but there's also the potential for reductions. And who knows what will happen with property tax reform? So when you factor all of this equation in, I have to do what I do best, which is to problem solve the heck out of it. I can't tell you until we're here and we're dealing with the particular problem that's in front of us. And then we go to work.

One more question, please.

Yes,

Excuse me, Counselor Champagne. Could you please turn on your mic when you speak? Thank you very much. Thank you. Have

you had any experiences generating new revenue streams not oriented with ad valorem taxes?

So I like entrepreneurial government. I think entrepreneurial government comes in unique forms, though. It's not just about new revenue. It is also about doing things with a more cost effective manner. Sometimes it's cost savings.

Both of those produce the end result, which is more revenue in order to be able to fund more objects. So I'm a big believer government and how we get there. Obviously, we're limited based on what we can charge for things. But I think ultimately, it comes down to really co creating with your community. And if they want to fund it, then we'll figure out a way that is legally permissible to do so. But you have to be willing to have those conversations with the citizens and the property owners in order to really just dive into it and have an answer.

Very good. Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Thank you, Vice Chair. Tracy, yes. A little bit I love to drive through the middle of the state. I have kids in Orlando and so I always take an opportunity to see what's going on. I love seeing the redevelopment, old Florida towns reinventing themselves. They're not afraid of the word redevelopment. Marco is in a little bit, in my opinion, of a passionate identity crisis. We fell in love, including myself, with what we had, which was an undeveloped community that had financial environmental challenges. And now we're reaching full build out. We've probably done it quicker than we thought.

And now we strive to figure out how do we go forward. What type of redevelopment or the word growth, which is very can you give me a couple of examples? Are you is Bartow is that what I'm saying? Is it like an old Florida town that was experiencing Yes. The same type

It of is not redevelopment heavy, though.

Okay.

That was a similar tension there. I think what you're seeing in Lake Wales, they've really boomed on redevelopment. You do have some of the challenges that come up with CRAs from a funding perspective when it comes to redevelopment. So a lot of those styles, whether it be Sarasota or Clearwater or Bartow or like, well, they have a CRA. But again, that's another potential funding risk at the state level.

So every year, it seems to be a threat to eliminate CRAs. And so redevelopment is quite the challenge. Every place I've ever worked, I've had to deal with redevelopment. And also as a consultant, Clearwater might be one of the best examples of redevelopment painful but successful. And again, I really think it goes back down to that co creation. You have to do it with your community. If you're fighting against them, you will not be successful. And you will just it'll it'll keep keep you up at night a lot of the time.

I actually just came through Clearwater yesterday, meet up family from come from the airport. And I say every beach on Florida is the same, but totally the same but absolutely different.

Mean, a

whole different vibe there, much more tourist based, fun things to do where we are flying under the radar a bit more. We like our tourism to be the laid back Marco experience. And we're very happy with that. Can I ask, do have any experience with the Army Corps of Engineers made from Sarasota, submerged land leases, these type of coastal based challenges?

Definitely in Sarasota. Interestingly enough, just privately, our family owns bit of property on St. Croix. And so Marco Island reminds me a lot of some of the challenges that we face in St. Croix, except it doesn't have access to the mainland.

So imagine not having to ship everything in and how challenging that could be, and storms really being brutal. I think I had the Army Corps on-site in Bartow, actually, during Milton because we have a wastewater treatment plant that's about 13 feet above sea level on the Peace River. And it's a regional wastewater treatment plant. And so there isn't anything worse than wastewater in the middle of the streets. So we installed a tiger dam.

I'm not sure if you're ever seen one of those. A tiger Dam is kind of like a giant inflatable tube and it's got three rungs and it's kind of creates a false sea wall of a sort. And we thought we were good until the gators started to come over it and pop because it was, you know, it was a tube. So there's nothing like seeing gators on your Tiger Dam. In any case, I do have experience.

I'm not an engineer. You don't want me to be your engineer. We want to hire really competent engineers to tell us and verify what's happening in Army Corps. My job is to what they bring forward is to provide a recommendation to you as to what we think we can manage and we can we can work through. So I would say yes but I could still do more and you can always do more.

Excellent. Thank you.

Yes,

sir. Councilor Gowan, I turn it over to you for the moment.

Welcome and thank you for being here.

Thank you.

I have couple questions. First of all, you know our budget and do you think if assuming that you will become our city manager, do you think you will need assistant city manager?

Yes. A a town of this size needs an assistant.

Okay. Yes, ma'am. Okay.

I I I think, having come from a very similar environment, although I had 53 square miles, so Bartow was bigger geographically, the makeup is very similar. We actually had two assistants. Assistants. It was very hard to manage. When one retired, it was a big weight on me as assistant there. And so I would not recommend not now, we have to be working together, lockstep, as if we're one. But yes, I would

How many employees did you manage?

There was three seventy four there. Okay.

So our next question would be, would you please describe ROBINSON: your management style?

Sure. I'm a servant collaborative leader. I believe in collaborative leadership. I will never just say, oh, it's got to be my way or the highway. And I'm 100% right all of the time.

I'm not afraid to make the hard decision. But I want to gather input. And I want people to be on board. In my last organization, within about four months period of time, I implemented an employer of choice initiative and $3,000,000 of salary increases for our staff that were sorely underpaid, negotiated with three unions, and created a human resource policy manual all implemented within about four months period of time. None of that's possible without the backing of your leadership.

And their input as part of the process. Whether it be co design for the community or it be co design for the organization, you have to do it together. That's the only way I know how to lead. I know that there are others who are more my way or the highway. That's not my style. I'm also not a hands off leader. I believe in mentoring and growing people and bringing them to the table and career ladders. And I want to do what was done for me through my career. I want to pay that forward. And so I'm known for bringing talent forward.

I think I may be more successful at getting promotions for the people I mentor than myself. But that's Okay. I think that's the best way to be.

Okay. One more, Chairman. What experience do you have using former evaluation process for your direct reports? And have you had poor evaluations, given poor evaluations? And how did you handle it?

Performance evaluations?

Performance evaluations.

So you haven't really asked me 100% about my specialties. That actually is performance management is one of my specialties. Performance management of the organization and measuring of the organization, but also of the employees. I have had a lot of experience in performance evaluation actually as a consultant and then in each of my governments. I've participated, obviously been on the receiving end of them, as well as giving them.

In my last organization, we didn't have them and saw that as a huge travesty. I mean, how are you supposed to say to the taxpayers that they're getting their money's worth if you can't say with honesty, this is the evaluation of your employees. So, you know, I've benefited by being a five star employee many times in my lifespan. And then sometimes having some contradictions in them as well. So I think that the real key is about training.

I honestly believe performance evaluations should be simple. And they shouldn't be just one time a year. It kind of stinks a little bit that they're tied to money oftentimes. And so my last organization, what we were trying to do was you to receive a satisfactory in order to be eligible for your step increase. So it kind of tied both things together.

It was very innovative, unheard of. But basically, you had to be at least a three out of five in order to get your step increase. But then they continued with the step plan. And that kind of helps with the unions because unions require most unions want a guaranteed step every year. So that was the way we did that there.

Councilor Gray.

Yeah. Thank

you. Thank

you for joining us. Thank you.

Sorry, my mic's on now. This is a little bit of a two part question. You mentioned entrepreneurial government versus, I put bureaucracy as the competing viewpoint. And you mentioned you're a change agent. I've been tormented personally by how you create an entrepreneurial environment in a bureaucratic setting.

Very difficult.

As a change agent, how do you go about that?

Well, as I said, I think there's more to entrepreneurial government than just raising money. There is also the notion of doing things better, faster, cheaper that creates more funding based on the way in which you do things. So entrepreneurial government doesn't just come in new revenue streams, although that is a part of it. I do also through my career, I've been around many organizations that try to manage competition at a golf course, at an amenity based part of what it is that you offer. Can you do that well?

I think it can be done, but it's a stretch. It's a stretch. And the reason why we don't is because private sector has a different mission than public sector. And so bureaucracy exists for a very important purpose. It's for the betterment of everyone.

When we are talking about private sector, it is about the benefit of the pocket. And so we have to kind of extract that notion when we're talking about entrepreneurial government in this setting. It has to be for the betterment of all in order to be able to do that. And so it is a challenge, but it's something that if we understand that the different missions exist and how can we find the best, I do think that sometimes those best ideas, they come from our employees, how to do things better. But you have to source that.

Know, you have to be willing to go out and get it and have sometimes the hard conversations about you know, in my last government, we had the notion between a pool that was approved and a golf course, both that would have cost about $2,000,000 a year to operate. Again, when I told you what my general fund was, there was no way you're going to operate at a deficit on both. You just can't do it. And so you have to make hard choices sometimes or have in that case, maybe your golf cart fees have to be higher and your pool fees have to be higher. And maybe you just price yourself out of the market.

And so definitely market based analysis as well. You can't rest on your laurels when it comes to the finances.

I apologize if I missed it in your background. Your educational background, I did not see that in there. What was your

Yeah. So I have a PolySci undergrad, which is really research based. It's research methodology. And so that's where my love for research comes in. My master's is in technology and innovation management degree, which came out of the school of MIT. And it really is a strategic planning futurist degree. Today, call it strategic foresight or things of that sort. But the basis of it was bringing large scale technology product to market. And so you did a lot of scenario planning, a lot of tech. I do have a tech background, obviously.

I was a technologist my whole career. But on the flip side and I had a feeling you might actually ask me this question or a similar type of question. Well, when you watch your meetings, you know what you're interested in, for sure. I spent the bulk of my career in Sarasota working in the Office of Financial Management. It doesn't say that on my resume anywhere.

But I did report in the Office of Financial Management for seven years and was pivotal in the budget process. It's a county versus city, so it's a little bit different. But we did work heavily on the budget side. And really, organization is groundbreaking. I think it's forty three years of winning the GFOA, distinguished budget award. When I got there, we were getting ones and twos on performance management. That was my influence. My influence was always on the strategy side. But obviously, you can't do one. We would sit as a team and do all of that process painfully every year and evaluate comments and how do we get better at it.

Given your depth of experience in strategy, strategy planning,

how

do you view a strategy document in terms of updates, changes? Do you think is the right way to approach a strategic document?

I love that you asked me that question. In all the governments I've worked in, I've implemented performance dashboards that are actually public facing. And you can go and see them today. They're actually the same ones. They haven't changed them from the ones that I built. And I personally built them. So without a strategic plan, we're guessing. So if you pick me, get ready. We're going to strategic planning retreat relatively quickly. Because otherwise, as a city manager, I have two major functions, my relationships with all of you and strategic planning.

The strategic planning says that the organization is doing what we say we're going to do. Those checkboxes, we hunt those checkboxes, right? We want to make sure that we're delivering. And that's what you want to do. You want to deliver to the public what you say you're going to do. And so that is all in if you go and visit any of my dashboards from my previous, you'll see where there are major initiatives that are portrayed monthly as well as measures that are portrayed monthly. Very transparent.

How would you try and present to the community how well our operations are running? What would be your process for that? The reason I'm asking that is, would the city manager reports to us? All the other employees, associates in those operations are handled by the city management. And sometimes I worry about opaqueness and understanding some of that. How would you approach educating the community and the council on the operations of the city?

From a budget perspective or No, all

pure operations. Execution.

So I think, again, I go back to that. A lot is uncovered in the strategic planning process. But sometimes, from your seats, it's about what you see in, not so much what we see out. And there's always a funny balance that managers I call us fence writers because we sit between the organization and the commission and the public. And we have to buffer the blows on both sides, but it's pretty painful in the middle.

And so there has to be education. I think the co design process as a whole allows for more fact finding and more time. I mean, it really comes down to time. My husband always says that where you spend your time is where you value, where you show value. And we have to spend time really talking through what's happening at an operational level in order to understand.

I mean, obviously, one on ones with commissioners weekly or at your will is necessary. I'm a big fan. I think you're probably all big picture thinkers. Fact sheets, lots of fact sheets, as well as also public dialogue meetings on important issues that you're facing.

GREGORY Counselor Gray, I'm going to turn it over for a few more questions this way, and we'll get back you.

I'm just laying the weeds with this man.

So Henry, you're up next.

Hi. Thank you so much for being here today. With all of the different things you're describing, can you explain that if you were to get this position, how you would hit the ground running with our current system and how we have things and what you've observed and how you would implement changes?

To be honest with you, it's pretty hard to know what the inner workings of your government is just from outside research. You have a line item budget, which is fine. But I would want to move us to a program budget. Probably couldn't do that in this cycle. It would probably take a year to do that.

A program budget ties what's happening at the programmatic level to measures as well as major initiatives. Because of the timing of when everything is happening here, we would probably go into strategic planning retreats as soon as the budget was finished and then start this process of moving towards a program budget for the next cycle. The challenge I'm gathering, based on the way the budget looks, that it's all spreadsheet based. That's a big no no in my world. So probably the purchase of at least budget software, if not some form of ERP.

All of those things take time. So those would be probably first on the list.

And then if I can just kind of go off that with unions and negotiations. Forgive me, I'm not does Bartow they have their own police force.

We do.

Yes. And firefighters as well. Yes.

And general. And what

part did you take in negotiating plea bargaining?

Did all that. I did all three.

Yeah. Okay, great. That's what I've got.

Right. Counselor Schwan.

Yes. Thank you, Chair. I'd like to do a follow-up question with you regarding conservation. Sure. Our island, Marco Island, has a long history in conservation and protecting our shorebirds, our nesting sea turtles, our burrowing owls, and our gopher turtles tortoises, among many other things. Can you share with me some of your experiences that you've had in conservation and working with regulations to keep our home rule? So

the forefathers of environmental impact in Sarasota were extremely smart. They did a really good job. And they did that well before anyone was even talking about environmental impact from an estuary. And it's funny because in the press right now, they're dealing with the celery fields. I'm not sure if you've seen that.

But you know, the bird folks are not happy about it because the celery fields are a bird sanctuary. And so the bulk of my experience as it relates to environmental impact is in Sarasota. And similar, same issues, birds, turtles, panthers, wildlife corridors, things of that sort. I would think that it's more of a microcosm here than it is in Sarasota, you know, lots of shoreline, much more impact, I would say. But whether it be from my time in Sarasota and those are always projects on the priority list Or it be good government national.

Environmental isn't just exclusive to Florida, so it really just depends on where you are and what we're working toward. But I think the Sarasota experience is extremely relatable and pretty much the same issue. But when I was working with Clearwater, they had the same issue as well. Definitely sea turtles are prime consideration.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am. I will say my husband was so impressed on the conservatorship of he saw I don't think I've ever seen owl purchase everywhere, as I have here. And he's like, there's another one. And there's an owl on it. There's another one. And he was really remarking on that. And that would not normally be his thing. So he definitely appreciated that both could coexist. And that's what we have to find. We have to find the balance of where we can both coexist and meet requirements.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am. I

think you indicated that you had experience with advanced wastewater treatment systems. At the most technological level, meaning lowest level of nutrients possible coming out of the wastewater?

Isn't that a misnomer, but okay. Yeah, so advanced wastewater treatment. I knew you'd ask me this question as well. So I'm sorry, but I'm going to say something that's probably not that overly popular. I've never seen a wastewater project come in on time or on budget. Not once. That scares me. I've done a lot of tech projects. They've always come in on time and budget. And I'm really stickler about that.

It's not an easy road you're embarking on. And you better be prepared. You better have your engineers ready. And you probably need one that has nothing to do with the ones that are actually doing the implementation. Just an ear, someone who can really advise you, me, on how to do advanced wastewater treatment. You you might do as much nutrient load as you possibly can. But what is upriver doing? No matter what, we don't know why algae blooms come into play. We just don't. They probably start upriver and move down.

You may have the cleanest water known to man. But at the end of the day, you're still subject to red tide. I've lived through two red tide events in Sarasota. It is not fun. As a matter of fact, before when I was a consultant, we brought a conference to Florida in Sarasota during a red tide event. And there's nothing worse than bringing people to Florida during red tide. I mean, that is awful. But what it demonstrates to you is the economics of it. It's not just about nutrient load. As much as we all hate red tide and we don't want that, it is also about the economics of an event like that.

We have to build resilience into this system, whether it be from storms, which, you know, I was saying to my family this weekend, storms are actually easier, really, than a red tide event. Because red tide, it lingers. It's nagging for a very long period of time. And so, you know, how do we build resilience into the system? From an economic perspective, from an environmental perspective, it all it's a system. It's not just one thing. And so you have to think about it that way.

Yeah, and that's true. Quite frankly, how does one for all of the concerns and cautions you've just alerted us to about AWT? Yeah. How do you balance the effectiveness against the cost, against the timeline? We have 100 some miles of canals.

Yeah.

Most of which are fouled with algae. Some canals are dead end. The water very rarely I

was out there this weekend. Yeah.

Did you see some algae?

I saw they looked very clean to me. I thought you're doing a really great job on your canals. There are some that look better than others.

Yeah. And we also are admitting to ourselves as a city and residents that AWT isn't a single silver bullet.

Isn't.

We need multiple processes to attack it. What the total cost of those are, we don't yet know. But we'll be looking into those kind of things.

Definitely grant funding on the septic side, hopefully. More of that. I don't, what I can't, again I can't find it on your site, is how many septic systems you have.

Not septic.

No, none. That's been converted. So everything is converted. Okay, that's great.

That's on this island.

But upriver.

Thereby residents still use.

I do think that collaboration and partnership is really how you have to slay some of this. It can't just be, you know, look, in Milton, we didn't get flooded in Bartow. We normally would. Usually they would let Lake Hamilton go so that Lakeland got preserved and all that water came rushing down. And my community was not wealthy.

You had some mobile home parks and some senior living facilities that were underwater in a horrible, deplorable situation. Milton, they didn't they held it in Lake Hamilton. And instead, Lakeland flooded. I don't think they'll ever make that mistake again. But here it goes. If my wastewater treatment plant flooded in Bartow, where is it going? Eventually, it's coming out. So, you know, it it really is about regional dialogue about how do we create clean systems in in this state And that is not an easy conversation to have.

Let me shift topics to one other that the island deals with. We are a full service community. All ages, young children, working adults, retired people, lots of tourists. Trying to balance those competing interests is sometimes of a challenge. We're beginning to experience more and more tourism. JW Marriott, you probably were staying there or nearby.

Oh, I actually stayed at the old Marco Inn north side.

Oh, okay.

We went to Snook Inn and loved it.

There you go.

Yeah. We did the old style.

We're beginning to experience small cruise ships, a 100

Oh, really?

100 people. Sometimes, if we look forward, it looks like the month of December of this calendar year, two or more coming in multiple times during the week. People call citizens getting very nervous that while multiple buses traveling around the island and off the island taking tourists around. How do you how do you, as a city manager, how do you balance this between the economic benefits local businesses will enjoy because of the tourism versus the competing interests of residents who want a quiet little town that never changes and the legality of all of that together. How how do we address these competing interests, keeping everyone as happy as we can, because we're never going to be like we used to be?

This is the fact.

That is true. Right? Change is inevitable. You can think that it's going to stay status quo, but market conditions will always create change. That's why we have recessionary cycles.

When I've been thinking about the different challenges that potentially could be faced by Marco, whether it be a red tide event, a storm, a recession, tourism, all of these ebbs and flows, you just don't know to some degree. And so we have to build resilience. I think resilience is the word for here more than anything, whether it be economic resilience or it be environmental resilience or financial resilience. Having and having honest conversations and everyone kind of knowing what the factors are and weighing the public good. It's my job as a city manager.

I follow an ethical code. My ethics says that I govern for everyone. I can't not just the loudest voice. You have some very interesting debate here in public forum. And it's hard to not get lulled by just the 10 people who are most vocal about it.

And unfortunately, sometimes that costs you your seats. And so there's a lot of courage that comes into being a city manager. You know, I've seen a lot of city managers come and go because of these hard conversations sometimes, as well as elected officials. And so, you know, we just have to be honest about it. I'm a big believer in transparency and honesty and explain the trade offs. And then try to, you know, our major job is safety. In government, our major job is safety. It's not economics. The economics will take care of itself. They'll find a way to do it at the end of the day.

Our job is making sure people stay safe while that happens. Safe water, safe traveling, thoroughfares, public safety when we need it. That is our prime mission agenda.

One last question. I'll give you an opportunity to toot your own horn here. Why is it that we, as a city council, would want to choose you for the city manager's position?

I think because I am an innovative thinker. And I'm not sold on it has to be one way. I'm going to listen. Find that to be one of my best attributes, is that I don't just think I know everything, but that I'm going to actively listen. I do have a lot of pedigree when it comes to, yes, I know a lot about the budget process. I know a lot about performance management. I know public works, all of the stuff, right? Most of us do. It's really about, do you feel I'm sincere? Do you feel like you can get the most out of me?

Do we have the best chance at achieving the success that you all want? So hopefully I do a good job of that and that you find me to be transparent personally. Then we build rapport based on that.

How do you describe the word leadership?

Well, for me, it is about growing and nurturing something from one point to another. It isn't about me. It's about the thing, whether it be raising a family, which I've done successfully, or it be about raising an organization or whatever it might be, that leadership comes with accountability. It comes with honesty and transparency and a willingness to do what's difficult in the face of challenge.

Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Chair.

So we've all these preplanned questions, but I'm going go off script a bit because there's just so much to get to know each other in conversation. I'll make a few statements first, and there'll be a question in there.

Sure.

City of Marco, since we became a city, I think it took six referendum votes. It was a long journey to get here. Nine years we've been a city, and I believe 14 managers have been through there. Certainly looking for some stability.

Okay.

And if you watched our meetings, one of the reasons I did advocate for our current city manager in terms of stability. You know what you have versus who you might interview. You have an excellent background. Just from speaking to you and listening to you, I know you know your craft well. I'm going to tie it into with City of Oldsermann. I think it's like a seven month employment here. That'll be a question within a question. Where do you see yourself with us long term? Do you see this as your end all be all? Your family has to relocate to Marco Island? Thoughts on the longevity of being here?

Sure. So you're going to ask the personal question. Why not? Okay. Right. Right. Why not? I own a horse farm. I am not moving a horse farm to Marco Island. I have horses. So would be all of my family, I have a 29 year old chemical engineer who travels and then comes home on weekends. And I have a 28 year old who runs my husband's business with him as an air conditioning contractor. And then I have a daughter who is at USF right now, studying to be a future city manager. So I must have done something right. Yes, she will be an even better version of me, I hope.

But with all of that said, we are prepared as a family to be a two resident family. All of my children, when they're home, they live with me on the horse farm. It is a generational wealth kind of thing. You don't own acres and not have that part of your thought process. But it is certainly a conversation we're going to have.

I would have thought based on some of what I've heard you say, in particular what I've heard you say, is that you're not necessarily looking for a long term city manager. And so I would want to know. I would love to have a home from now till the end of my career, which I'm figuring is about twelve years total. I figure at that time frame, it'll be hard to do the job. But then again, we get things up, right?

And I'm a big believer in growing within. So if I'm not here, I'm preparing the next level and generation of leadership. Again, I benefited from that. I've also seen it not done that way. And I it's can't do that. I can't do that to the people who work for me. I want to see them grow. So that would be part

of it. Can you just address the seven month short time? Sure. Yeah. Ultima. Did I get that pronounced out right?

Yep. So you know how sometimes you wanna be a change agent and some people don't?

That was cute. You live in some days.

You know, I I I'm not a status quo person. That's not what you hire me for. I'm not a maintainer. I'm gonna I'm gonna refine. I'm gonna make things better. If you just want to dial it in, that's not a good fit for either of us. That's about as honest as I could get. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

Well, going back to my first initial comment, I'm an option. You have a wonderful option in Casey. She comes highly regarded from our community. I don't want to sell her short in any way, shape, or form. I'm just different. I think my career is different than hers, and I'm a different option.

I respect the way you're competing for the job. It's a nice way to

do it. Yes, sir.

Councilor Golder.

Ms. Miller, you had really wonderful answers. It was just very honest.

I'm here to try and make it difficult for you.

Out of all these for think everybody knows I'm probably the most blunt person.

So

I have a couple questions for you. I don't know how much you know about that we had for past eight years there was rollback going on. And I don't know. Don't remember. Perhaps it happened and I don't recall.

But I don't remember any big recommendations coming from city managers or anybody that, oh, you should not be doing that because down the road it will affect you. Well, that's not I don't recall it. Perhaps happened, but I don't. So how would you would you actually if something like that going on, would you be bold enough to come out and tell a city council and say, you guys are really making a huge mistake doing that?

End of the day, millage rate again and what did I say? Bane of our existence. Absolutely 100% bane of our existence. I actually, for the first time ever, was successful in a millage rate increase, a 1.5 millage rate increase in Bartow. That was crazy. But so much was needed from an infrastructure perspective that the community didn't fight it. They knew that was needed. Now their millage rate is 6.125or something like that. I mean, way higher than what you're seeing here. Now, you benefit from much higher property values.

But look, all of this changes with property tax reform. Imagine, well, I'd have to I don't know how many of your properties are homesteaded. But if you do that math, that

could be 31%.

31%? Yeah. So you're chucking $10,000,000 out of your general fund. How do you make that up? And there is no plan for how you make that up. So we have to get really ingenious on how to make that up. Or do we have to cut service? And does the community really want that? So this is really I think that state leadership has yet to really experience what it's going to mean if you actually put this through and pass it. Because citizens are not going to like what we have to do in order to satisfy those kinds of changes.

So you ask about rollback. You know, it's a funny balance. We have to have an honest conversation. We have to be willing to talk about whether or not the rollback rate is a good idea or not. I actually have not done the rollback rate in any of the organizations that I've been in.

Have we actually instituted that? They did lower the millage rate in Sarasota before I got there odd enough and this goes to show about really ingenious planning they lowered the millage rate in the 'eight recession. When everyone else was raising, they were lowering. And it did stem the tide of foreclosure in large part. And so you have to be prepared from a the only way they could do that was they had healthy reserves.

So if you're always doing a rollback, you're not building reserves, you're not able to do that. So there are these tradeoffs. We have to have open conversation about, you know, what are the importance of reserves. Now, in my last organization, they just built reserves and didn't do anything with them. Well, that doesn't do anything either because you have clay pipe that's falling in when, you know, you only have 27,000,000 of funding to go ahead and tackle that.

That's not enough. You need 50. So, you know, the dollar is worth the most in the present form, not in the future form. And so we to think about all of those things and have a conversation about reserve balances and when does that make sense. And it's not easy to find where you stand from an infrastructure perspective. And so I'd need to do an assessment on that.

So my understanding is you would be bold enough to let us Yes. Okay. Thank you. That's what I needed to know.

Sorry. Was a long waiting time Excellent. For that

Excellent. So one more thing. One more question. Quickly, and we're going to

ask if Tracy has any questions.

Okay. Describe something you have learned in your recent career journey that has helped you to grow as a manager.

Tracy, pardon me. There's three minutes left, the rest will be if you have any questions. So we're on your time after Okay. The rest

All right. I definitely think union negotiations I learned the most, one that I can carry the table. It is an odd experience sometimes to be the only female at the table in that forum and carry the table. And to do it with three in such a short period of time and do it well, I'm super proud of myself for that. So sometimes I think it is about knowing that you can.

All of this pedigree, all of this time, all this experience, that I'm ready to be a manager. And I'm ready to be your manager if you so choose. At the same time, I'm also happy doing lots of other things. Like, I'm adaptive. You cannot get too married to your own ideas in this profession.

The Pool Project is a great example of one where I thought it should go in a certain spot, and they wanted to go to a different spot. And I saw all the economic bells and whistles, redevelopment all around it, and no one was listening. And in part, it was because the site was a former segregated site. That community is an old site, and it still had segregation wounds from the past. And so we talk about heavy issues, but those don't get uncovered in the press.

But you find out about them later. So anyway, all of that said, I had to adapt. I said, Okay, not that idea. We're going go with this one. And you have to be willing to adapt as part of the process.

With the time left, did you have any one important question for us or anything you ask of us?

How do you feel about strategic planning? And do you want to do it? Do you not want to do it?

I'll try to field this one for the team. You can jump in quickly. It's a must. We need to revisit it. It's going be the way we conduct ourselves going forward.

I mean, your goals are expired.

I feel as I said I think I was mentioning that previous councils bought the water plants the big infrastructure projects. I think our destiny and the next council that gets elected in is going to be how do you meet the future. That's going to be the legacy of this and the following councilors. Nothing big to buy yet. That's been done. It's all going to be redevelopment. How do you keep a bit of the way this feels quaint in a small community with locals, citizens first, as we say, versus the fact that we are a tourist based economic driven community.

Could figure 50 that occupancy rate is quite an intriguing number to manage. Yeah.

I want to thank you so much. I think you've made this difficult on us, is a wonderful thing and a testament to you.

Yay. Objective.

Appreciate you

taking the time and considering us for as we're considering you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes. Thank you again.

Thank you very much.

All right, what time do we have here, counselors?

It's one twenty three and sixty eight seconds.

And our next one is at 01:45. Do you know if they're ready ahead of time?

They're here,

but Counselors, anybody need a break between these?

I'm just in front the blaze from everybody.

Okay. Let's take a five minute recess, and then we'll come back for the next interview.

Thank you. I'd like to introduce you to Mr. Ricardo Mendez as our next city manager interview.

Ricardo, thank you for coming. We appreciate you making application. Did you want to take a few minutes to tell us a little bit about yourself before we open it up for questions?

GREGORY Sure. Thank you, chair and the council, for the kind consideration. It's a pleasure and honor for me to be here. I am a combination of a technical leadership and a professional city manager. And I'll explain how.

I am a registered professional civil engineer who had an opportunity to work on amazing land development projects and design public infrastructure, water, sewer, drainage, and buildings up to 40 stories. And then my career progression took me to join Miami Dade County where I had a wonderful tenure, became one of the top land development officials, and appointed to all of the land development important committees, including the Plaque Committee, the DIC, and the DRI committees. Then I also served as Department Director of three acting Public Works Director for the City of Miami Beach, the Program Management Director for the Palm Beach County School District where we had approximately a five year $2,000,000,000 capital improvement program with 100 projects. And then the director of finance for the city of Sweetwater. Before I became a profession city manager and had an opportunity to serve as an assistant city administrator for the great city of West Palm Beach and the chief operating officer for the city of Harrisburg.

So in a nutshell, I am sort of a combination of executive engineer and professional city manager. I have undergone the complete career track per ICMA serving in section head division manager, department director, and chief administrative officer to earn the opportunity to be here before you.

Thank you very much for that. Do you want to start the questions? Can cut it. Sure. Vice Chair, you're

up If you don't mind, I'd like to start with your resume first because I'm a bit confused as I look at some of the positions you've held and some of the dates that you held them during. And I start by the biggest confusion, has your last listed date of employment as 2021. That can't be true.

No. That was for the city of West Palm Beach where I serve as the assistant city administrator. I left the city in 2021 and came back to the private sector where I practiced as a consulting engineer. So towards the end of the resume, Mr. Chair, you will see all the relevant work and you'll probably see listed where I'm at, the organization. As a consulting, are I consulting engineers and civil infrastructure corporation?

Yeah, I've seen that. Typically, I think I would see a resume list the most current position to the last possible decision. This is kind of convoluted, to say the least. And it appears to me, correct me if I'm wrong, most of your work experiences outside of the city government arena, you're mostly a civil engineer. Isn't that correct?

I would say based on your resume, about twenty years don't have any city government employment identified. So therefore, I'm assuming you were acting as a civil engineer. Some of the pictures, I can see exactly how it kept you busy.

Well, if I may add, I mentioned, in regards to municipal government, in addition to my approximately seven years with Miami Dade County as a special administrator, I served as the finance director for the city of Sweetwater, which we helped an oversight board. I also served as the assistant public works Director and Acting Public Works Director for the great city of Miami Beach. And I also served as an Assistant City Administrator for the City of West Palm Beach. And furthermore, as the chief operating officer and chief administrative officer for the capital of Pennsylvania or the city of Harrisburg. That is my involvement as a municipal employee.

I think I understand. Let me ask you my first question. I know you've conducted considerable research on the city, on the city council, on the city staff here in Marco Island. So taking that for granted that you have looked into things as you should. If you were chosen as a city manager, and based on the research you've already conducted, over the next twelve to eighteen months, what would be your challenges as city manager to deal with? What's the research told you our issues are?

Excellent. I did have an opportunity to review your latest annual financial comprehensive report which is in 2024 and your latest adopted budget for 2026. As a matter of fact, I conducted an analysis and extensive report which I've been going through. But to answer your question directly, I believe and I was very impressed with the twenty nineteen fifteen year vision plan that the city has. Okay?

And I will I will ensure that we continue to build in the four pillars. Number one, financial soundness, okay? That we, for instance, in Harrisburg, I led one of the most successful and ambitious financial recovery plans with over 130 management improvement units that enabled the city to emerge from a state receivership. And it's now thriving and avoiding bankruptcy. In West Palm Beach, I helped balance a $192,000,000 budget in the general fund, Notwithstanding, we had a $10,000,000 budget challenge that was related to the pandemic, and we didn't lay off anybody.

So moreover, as a certified government financial manager, okay, I specialize in addressing critical financial issues such as the FY twenty twenty four audit for the city found some material weaknesses in grants, accounting, reporting, and year end adjustments. I will immediately be start working on that as a critical priority, okay, so that we can cure those just like we did in Harrisburg. And by the way, the same thing with the city of West Bank with information technology. So looking at the audience, and even though you got a clean opinion from the independent auditors, they did note that the city has to work on these areas of improvement. So that would be one priority.

Excuse me. Number two, going along with a fifteen year financial plan, Okay, the second pillar is environmental stewardess or a pristine environment and excellent water quality. As a registered civil engineer, I have been in charge, not only as the chief administrative officer, but I have been in charge of the water and wastewater treatment plants for the city of Harrisburg and the city of West Palm Beach, okay? Including and for the city, in addition to that, I have for the city of Miami Beach, when I was the acting Poly War's director, I was in charge of rehabbing the entire water infrastructure. I mean, we replaced the lift stations.

We lined the sanitary sewers, the manholes. We replaced or rehabbed the water mains, the force mains, the water tanks. So therefore, aligned with your question, I will make sure that part of our priority is to effectively address the drainage challenges, okay, that are environmental related to comply with the second pillar, okay? In addition to that, quality of life is very important. You know, we live in a city where, according to my research, approximately 69, the average age is 59.

It's over the state and the county average. Therefore, we're required to provide specific emergency services such as emergency medical services, recreation. Okay? For the city of Harrisburg, we accomplished a ninety six percent rate, success rate, in homicide investigations, okay? We not only I not only chair the Labor management committee meetings, but we address every grievances with the FOP and the fire union.

Excuse me. And we also made sure that all of I know that you built a great the Veterans Center, serves as a hub, which is great and I cherish that accomplishment. But we also made sure that we had facilities where people can gather and foster green initiatives, including eliminating the light and turning them into green lots where people can gather during the weekends in the city of Harrisburg. So those are the kind of initiatives, financial, a pristine environment, making sure that we take care of their drainage, making sure that we continue to build on the PAYGO bucket list, which I love, Okay? So that we do not the city does not have to rely on debt.

That is very important. And that we also seek diversify our base to bring additional revenue, which we could do. And I have it in my study, Okay? Along with that, as a barrier island, okay, we are susceptible to hurricanes, okay, nature events. So that 25% reserve fund is crucial.

And I will oversee that we keep it as a strategy and as a safeguard so that when these events come, okay, we can continue operations without disrupting the quality of life that I referred before. So those are some of the things that the priorities keep, you know, evolving. But I would like to making sure that we address the four pillars in your fifteen year vision plan and address all those management and administrative issues with the audit.

Very good. You may have found in your research that the city operates on a charter basis, which limits the annual growth of expenditures, a spending cap.

Yes, sir.

And I guess my question is, the four pillars you just described, very, very necessary. How do you pay for it with a spending cap?

Okay. Well, we start with an effective and efficient management. By that, I mean rigorous budget requests from department directors. By that, I mean everything is going to be based on priorities. What are the critical priorities?

And we're backward. Okay? That 3% expenditures cap by charter is something that we have to comply. And I believe now this and I commend the city. I believe that in your budget, in your latest budget, the expenditures were about 14.5%.

There was a 14.5% decrease than the expenditures from last year, which is great. Well, let's continue the trend, okay? But it's got to start with rigorous budget request from departments.

How about one more question, and I'll pass the baton. Have you ever created new revenue streams for the city that are not ad valorem based?

Well, that was some of the initiatives within the Harrisburg Financial Recovery Plan. The answer is yes. For instance, enterprise you know, we sort of try to implement the enterprise fund operations. In your Veterans community center, for instance, we can enhance operations. We can sell memberships.

We can do we can broad our base. Airlines some of the airlines don't make they make you know, they make money with the stuff that they sell you on the plane. So that is the same principle. Okay? Diversify from the ad valorean tax base is strategy that is crucial for the city to move forward and continue to work and allow itself some room when it comes to that gap.

I believe that now it's $32,000,000 Nevertheless, the projections are approximately 31.8. So you have approximately 175,000, which is great. Well, we got to keep working on that. In addition the revenue, we also exercised due diligence toward compliance. There were people operating out of the city, and there was a significant source of revenue that we were missing.

So through investigation, with planning, with code enforcement, with the police department, we team up and we significantly increased the revenue on licenses. Okay, and in user fees. So that is my experience throughout. And I can go in more detail, you know, whenever. Okay.

Thank you for coming. After reviewing this, you have a vast level of experience, many different facets of government. I did have a question, maybe a little bit off script from my co counselors. Since you're in the private sector now, correct? Yes. You're the consulting, which seems probably like a nice job to me compared to two forty employees, seven counselors, an entire community. And, essentially, even though we want you to have a life and and decompress, being on call almost twenty four seven, hurricanes, emergencies, things that pop up. May I ask what what makes you desire or why coming back to this versus what you're doing now?

Well, thank you for the question. It's very relevant. I I believe the the direct answer, Mr. Balumbo, is that I have a passion for public service. After I was hired by Miami Dade County, I had worked for seven years as a consulting engineer designing buildings.

Thanks to that great experience, I was selected among 27 civil engineers for the great position. Then at the county, they rotated me through like 26 departments. I was lucky enough to be admitted to the accounting manager's internship program. And I sort of fell in love with public administration. That's part of who I am.

It's part of my DNA, okay? Number one. Number two, I believe that throughout my career, all of those positions that I mentioned before that I've earned, I've earned them based on merit. I went through the selection process just like I'm going through here. And I was fortunate to be selected a top candidate and awarded a position.

Moreover, fortunate enough that after a great deal of hard work and effort, I was given an outstanding performance evaluation in the city of Harrisburg, in the city of West Palm, and throughout my career. In addition to that, you know, when you look at the description here, the requirements for this great position, you know, and you look at my educational experience, achievement, and professional profiles, they are not only an excellent match, but logic and common sense will tell you that they will enable me to add a great deal of value, to make a significant contribution and one more time exceed expectations. So that's why I'm here.

I like the way you ended that. Exceed expectations. Right. You. Councilor Gohler.

Hi. Thank you. Nice meeting you. Obviously, I'm looking at your accomplishments. You are a very talented engineer, and you have had some great success. Mike, I have a couple questions for you. What is do you see the top challenges for our city? Top three challenges, two to three challenges do you see that we, as a city, are facing right now?

Okay. Well, thank you for the question. Among the top challenges that I see is the public infrastructure. You have 15 bridges. Okay? You're gonna have significant challenges in drainage as a barrier island. Okay? You're also rehabbing these important facilities, fire station. By the way, I commend you with the job that you did with Fire Station fifty as well. And the Veterans Center.

So this public infrastructure, properly planning them, designing them, constructing them, and doing the project management and program management is crucial. Public infrastructure has become the Achilles' heel of municipality. To give you an example, the city of Harrisburg almost became the the single largest of the second largest municipal bankruptcy because of their infrastructure, because they deferred the maintenance, because they didn't expand it, they didn't modernize it, they didn't build new ones. And then they undertook an incinerator project that almost brought them into the bankruptcy field. So the public infrastructure hardening the city, implementing your and I see that you put $9,600,000 in the FY '26 for your capital improvement, you know, transportation, environment, okay, that is part of your $26,000,000 $27,000,000 capital improvement.

And I believe that you have another $25,000,000 $26,000,000 $21,000,000 for repairs, maintenance of capital infrastructure, which is also important. So taking care of the infrastructure, building it right, Okay? That's number one. Number two, excuse me, the environment. Keeping the city, you know, the the the small town character that has that is probably the biggest treasure that it has while managing, and this is number three, the priority, the land development, the growth and development that we have.

And along those lines, I want to say that I worked and learned with some of the best land development officials in Miami Dade County. I got hired as a civil engineer, a civil county engineer, and promoted to a special administrator and lent an amazing land development unit, which meant that if anybody wanted to develop any residential, commercial, industrial property within the county land, they would have to come before my office. There are land use attorneys, architects, surveyors, engineers. And we will sit down. And my mission was to avoid that the county infrastructure, transportation, water, sewer, right, was not being shortchanged by that development.

The same thing here. The growth and development that is challenging, which is a good thing, but it's got to be in an organized way. It's got to be professionally developed. And that's one of the areas that I value, I could where I could add value. So in addition to the infrastructure, the environment, and the land development, I'm going to mention one more Because as I said, I have never been a member of any fraternities in any city hall.