Group receives city manager input

A Citizens Advisory Panel, of 10 city residents, formed to share their thoughts on a job description brochure for a new city manager, met last week with the search consultant.

Search consultant Colin Baenziger, of Wellington-based Colin Baenziger & Associates, and city human resources Director Kurt Hoverter, met with eight of the 10 committee members who provided feedback on the advertisement brochure being crafted to solicit top talent.

Meeting minutes reveal that Baenziger has met individually with each city commissioner, using those meetings to craft a rough draft of an employment profile brochure that will be utilized in a city manager search that could take 90 days to six months to complete.

Baenziger received feedback about the profile, which advisory panel members sought to make briefer.
Citizens Advisory Panel Chairman Del Borgsdorf, a fulltime city resident since 2006 and the retired city manager of San Jose, Calif., said the two-hour discussion focused on providing a lot of input to Baenziger regarding the brochure.

The brochure, which was released for the commission’s review on Tuesday, outlines the city’s amenities, history, geography, climate, demographics, commerce, form of government, issues, challenges and attributes of the ideal city manager candidate (view a copy of the four-page brochure here).

Candidates can view the brochure online, and the city will be able to use the brochure as a marketing tool.

“The brochure was more than eight pages long and focused on the issues facing the city,” Borgsdorf said. “We focused on the importance of creating a comprehensive brochure that focuses more on brevity and bullet points to get our points across without having a document that’s too overbearing.”

Borgsdorf called the discussion “engaging” and the committee “appropriately diverse.”

“We spent a good deal of time discussing a potential profile of the city and the ideal candidate for our city,” Borgsdorf said. “It was an information overload for the consultant from people who have sincerely held opinions on what they want for this city.”

Meeting notes state the crux of the discussion focused on the brochure and the city manager compensation range. Committee members thought the $130,000 to $180,000 salary range to be too low. The search firm agreed to bump the minimum salary up to $150,000.

“There’s a need to better emphasize the positive attributes of Sarasota and the experience and attributes needed to be a successful city manager,” according to meeting notes.

The rest of the committee members opted not to talk to the Sarasota Observer, choosing, instead, to nominate Borgsdorf as the committee’s spokesperson. The state’s Sunshine Laws prevent committee members from speaking with each other about the search outside of a meeting.

Baenziger also could not be reached for comment for this story.

The Sarasota City Commission approved a $28,500 expenditure in February to start a national search for its new city manager.

There are no further meetings of the advisory panel anticipated until the group and the public can provide feedback during on-site interviews further along in the process.

“This group was more interested in raising the bar, raising expectations and very much focused on an experienced public-sector employee,” Borgsdorf said.

The majority of the city commissioners had not heard about the details of the meeting at press time, but Commissioner Shannon Snyder said the feedback he received about the meeting was positive.

“I heard the brochure was a little folksy,” Snyder said. “I have faith that the panel members the commission selected know this city well enough to know what we want and how to help recruit a top talent to our city.”

City Manager Citizens Advisory Panel
The following city residents were chosen by the Sarasota City Commission to serve on a panel that provides input for the city manager search:

• Chairman Del Borgsdorf
• Mary Anne Servian
• Richard Dorfman
• Paul Mattison
• John Harshman
• Jane Robinson
• Bob Johnson
• Bob Easterle
• Glenda Williams
• Gretchen Serrie