Commission stalls on its two-year retainer decision

On Wednesday, Thomas Barwin was told he would have to wait another day before the Sarasota City Commission finalized his city manager contract.

But, what’s one more day when you’ve been narrowed down from a pool of 100 candidates over more than three months, dismissed along with other finalists, then brought back while the commission scrambled to fill the position that Interim City Manager Terry Lewis will leave behind Aug. 4?

The commission voted unanimously Wednesday, Aug. 1 to continue discussion Thursday of a provision in Barwin’s contract that guarantees him two years of employment in the event that the city changes its form of government “to anything other than its current city manager form of governing (such as a strong-mayor form of government),” while approving the remainder of the seven-page contract.

The provision allows Barwin to remain employed during the two-year period, not necessarily as city manager, but in a role that would authorize him “to guide and assist the city in the transition as the chief administrative officer of the newly formed organization” with the other terms of the contract, including a $175,000 salary and benefits, remaining.

Commissioners asked to push back implementing the provision to allow City Attorney Robert Fournier to put in writing three options he outlined for them at Wednesday’s meeting for entering into a contract.

The first option would allow for adoption by ordinance during an election. The deadline has passed for the upcoming November election, but the ordinance could be adopted as late as November 2014, according to Fournier.

The commission could also choose to enter into a contract for a defined period of time that would apply retroactively and include a clause that it could be terminated with a defined amount of notice — for instance, 90 days. In that scenario, the city manager would receive 90 days’ notice of termination, which would then make the two-year contract effective.

In the third option, the commission would agree to grandfather the city manager position into a role that would be consistent with a new charter.

Commissioner Paul Caragiulo introduced a competing charter amendment July 15 that would create city-wide mayoral elections and make the mayor the chief executive of the city. The measure did not make November’s ballot but will be discussed by the commission Aug. 20.

Caragiulo questioned the provision describing it as “an open-ended security.”

He pointed out that the contract could still be terminated by a commission vote.