Q+A with Susan Phillips

Assistant to the Town Manager Susan Phillips has sat through more Longboat Key Town Commission meetings (17 years’ worth and counting) than any commissioner and has handled agendas and itineraries of two town managers (not including the 15 days she spent in the role). A Key resident since 1998, Phillips has immersed herself in the town’s two largest civic groups on the island — the Longboat Key Garden Club as its new president and the Kiwanis Club of Longboat Key as its second vice president. She organized the first Dinner and a Movie event held April 24, at the Longboat Key Club, which raised $8,000 for both groups’ scholarships for area students. 

Q: How did you end up on Longboat Key?

A: I married a guy who brought me to the Key to live in January 1998. We lived on a boat near the Buccaneer Inn, and I had my first meal on the island at that inn. 

Q: What would people be surprised to know about your upbringing? 

A: I grew up in the middle of nowhere in Jessup, Ga., where my daddy, Mike Phillips, had a lucrative feed mill company. One day, he decided he wanted to build a shrimping boat, and we moved to a 4-acre area on the coast that sits between Savannah, Ga., and Jacksonville. Everybody in town thought he was nuts. When he paid the boat off , he built another one and built another successful business. He built a seafood dock and a processing facility and started Phillips Seafood. Then he opened an 800-seat Pelican Seafood Restaurant years later, and I spent 12 years managing it. 

Q: How did you become assistant to the town manager? 

A: I applied for a temp job at Town Hall and started off working half my time as a receptionist and half my time as (former town manager) Bruce St. Denis’ second assistant in his office. 

When he consolidated to one assistant, I applied. I told Bruce I ran an 800-seat restaurant, and if you can run that, you can help run a town because in the end it’s all about customer service and treating people right. 

Q: You served as acting town manager for 15 days in October 2011. What was that period like?

A: Surreal. We were also without a planning director at the time, and that department is not my background. We also had a new Publix project going on and the Key Club project issues. And I had to start an investigation into what happened with (former planning director) Monica Simpson. I appreciated the commission trusted me with their town. 

Q: What’s the longest commission meeting you ever sat through? 

A: Probably a seven-hour workshop. But the longest I was ever at Town Hall was past midnight with Bruce St. Denis and (former finance director) Tom Kelley to get an agenda out for a revised $16 million beach referendum. We were all so tired Bruce started playing his ukulele in the hallway. And he was terrible. 

Q: Do you have a favorite commissioner with whom you’ve worked? 

A: No. I love them all. But Jim Patterson, the two-star general, stands out as amazing and funny. John Redgrave reminded me of my daddy. He was kind and sweet. Everybody knows former mayor Jim Brown is my best friend and officiated my wedding. And how can you leave out Hal Lenobel? He made me laugh. 

Q: What’s the key to keeping a town manager happy?

A: Managing his time and schedule so he’s spending his time wisely and can address the most pressing issues. 

Q: What’s the funniest thing you’ve seen at Town Hall? 

A: After a referendum failed that would have given commissioners a $4,800 annual salary to help pay for their expenses, Bruce and I came up with this idea to make T-shirts that read, “I’m a LBK commissioner and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.” They were good sports and took a picture with their shirts on.