Off and Running: The City Manager Search Process

The citizen committee that is assisting the search for a new city manager spent more than an hour Thursday with search consultants Colin Baenziger & Associates, closely going over the first draft of a search brochure.

Two important takeaways from that meeting: One, this committee has its sleeves rolled up and will do some heavy lifting during the process. And two, the five members – under the leadership of chairman Tim Poynter – have quickly become a smooth-working team.

Here are the highlights:

The committee strengthened the brochure’s language about Fernandina Beach residents’ deep concern for their environment. They want to be sure applicants understand that Amelia Island is a major bird sanctuary and is surrounded by not just an ocean but also a delicate web of marshes and small waterways.

They put more emphasis on environmental treasures like Fort Clinch State Park and the Egans Creek Greenway.

They added language about the city’s tree canopy and its national reputation as a city of trees.

They stressed that, though it is a small town and wants to preserve its small-town feel, it also hosts more than a million visitors a year.

They made sure that any new manager should be able to deal with a marina, a golf course, an airport and — right next door to an international shipping port and two major wood-processing mills.

There was much discussion about what any city manager must uniquely manage: diverse operations ranging from police and emergency response, to roads and sidewalks, to fresh water supplies and sewers – along with more common management skills like finance, human resources and dealing successfully with a wide variety of people. They made it clear that the new city manager should already have become a highly experienced city manager.

Because this is a coastal city, they said an understanding of state and federal agencies that deal with coastal cities would be an important plus.

They said the search should focus on people prepared to have a long run here. No job-hoppers, please.

The consultants told them that the city shouldn’t be cheap. The high cost of housing here and the need for a strong city management background will call for a generous salary.

They will present the improved version of the brochure to the city commission for review at its June 6 meeting. The consultants will have two months to vet applicants and will present all suitable applicants to the committee by Aug. 7 — with 75-100 pages of information per applicant. The committee will weed that down to five finalists plus a backup. The city commission will then interview all finalists Aug. 24 and 25.

After that, negotiations. Beyond that, look for an additional schedule of events until Fernandina Beach has a new city manager — on the job and getting things done.