Sarasota city manager search firm resigns, process back to 'square one'

Now that the firm retained by the city of Sarasota to help conduct the search for a new city manager has relinquished its lead role, the City Commission is no further along in the process than it was in October 2024 when Marlon Brown vacated the position.

On April 21, Daytona Beach Shores-based Colin Baenziger and Associates via email informed city officials it was curtailing its involvement, relinquishing to the city its list of candidates and all data collected on them to date, and offering its continued services in a supporting role going forward.

At Monday’s regular meeting, the Sarasota City Commission instead voted 3-2 — with Mayor Liz Alpert and Vice Mayor Debbie Trice opposed — to sever ties with the firm and, at its scheduled April 12 special meeting, determine where it goes from here. The motion also placed the charter offices of City Auditor and Clerk Shayla Griggs and City Attorney Joe Polzak in charge of the process in cooperation with the city’s Human Relations Department. 

Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch moved the city to restart the search effort and direct the two charter officials to engage in the process. The motion also called for commissioners at a May 12 special meeting to “come prepared to have a discussion about candidate criteria with clear qualifications. We also have to come prepared to talk about a process that we would have in mind, a budget, a timeline and some options to have a firm source candidates, possibly,” she said.

If a firm is engaged, it won’t be Colin Baenziger and Associates.

In its letter to the city, Baenziger wrote it had become apparent its methodology and the City Commission’s expectations were not in alignment, and it would be best for all parties involved for it to step back from taking the lead.

“We have had great success in the past with our approach and we expected to obtain the similar results for the city,” wrote Baenziger. “Had we known the commission expected something different, we could have altered our approach at the beginning so we would have been in alignment.”

Points of conflict in those differences in approach became apparent in the commission’s first meeting with a Baenziger executive on March 27, when it was to narrow a list of eight recommended candidates to a group of finalists. In that meeting, Ahearn-Koch led a resistance to the process, she said, and minimized the involvement of the elected officials tasked with hiring the city manager. 

The commission was not only not involved in hiring the firm, Ahearn-Koch said, but left out of crafting the methodology, nor did it have the opportunity to review the entire pool of the then-51 candidates, a pool that has since shrunk to 44. Still, a morning workshop and afternoon special meeting for April 11 in hopes of getting the process back on track with Baenziger providing the background research on all the candidates in the interim.

At those April 11 meetings, attended by Colin Baenziger himself, commissioners unanimously agreed to schedule a meeting during which they would select provisional semi-finalists for further consideration. During the afternoon special meeting, Alpert said the commission appeared to be “floundering” and was not a good look. 

The discussion placed on Monday’s agenda revealed Baenziger’s willingness to accept a reduced role, if one at all, and prompted self-examination of the entire matter by Commissioner Kyle Battie who said he left the April 11 meetings confused, disgruntled and not confident.

“We're back here to square one,” Battie said. “This process seriously needs to be dismissed, dismantled and totally obliterated.”

Battie was not alone in his bewilderment.

“I left the April 11 meeting shocked at the dysfunction here in this room,” said Commissioner Kathy Kelley Ohlrich. “A lot has changed since April 11, when the City Commission agreed to continue on the current path. We have a search firm that we had no part in hiring. That firm has resigned. Yet it hasn't resigned. It's not going to be the lead, but it will still be involved.”

In his letter, Baenziger wrote, in contrast to what he said on April 11, he believed the list of remaining candidates and all research generated about them to be property of the city as the firm received payment for that work. If there's a need for any additional reports, the fee would be the cost to the firm plus 20%.

Former City Commission candidate and regular fixture and speaker Martin Hyde took a contrasting characterization of Baenziger’s departure from the search process.

“The recruitment firm didn't step back. They fired you, and there's a reason for that,” Hyde said. “You’re like passengers in a cab who get in there and tell the driver how to drive and the best way to get there.”