New mayor calls hiring city manager the first order of business

After two years with Liz Alpert at the helm, Sarasota has a new mayor.

During the Nov. 7 statutory meeting of the Sarasota City Commission, their peers elected Debbie Trice as mayor and Kathy Kelley Ohlrich as vice mayor.

Trice previously served as vice mayor. Ohlrich is entering her second year as a city commissioner, winning the election as the District 2 representative in 2024.

“Thank you all for your confidence in me, and I promise to do my very best to live up to your expectations,” Trice said. “Twenty twenty-five, as you've heard, was a challenging year, but we had quite a few successes, one of which is we have over 1,000 affordable housing units in the pipeline.”

Trice was nominated by now-former Mayor Liz Alpert and elected unanimously by the board. Ohlrich, who initially nominated Jen Ahearn-Koch for vice mayor, withdrew her motion after her nomination by Commissioner Kyle Battie, which was not seconded, but supported, by Ahearn-Koch.

Because the public does not elect them to their leadership roles, the mayor and vice mayor are largely symbolic, but do require more work in running commission meetings and representing the city at events.

“Thank you to Mayor Alpert for your service for two years as our mayor running the meetings," Ahearn-Koch said. ”It’s not a little more work, it's a lot more work, and we really appreciate it.”

In addition to her prior State of the City remarks at the meeting, Alpert acknowledged the leadership of former city managers Tom Barwin and Marlon Brown, with whom she worked since being elected commissioner in 2015. She also recognized the now-retired Doug Jeffcoat for serving as interim city manager and current top temp Dave Bullock, “who has just in a short period of time has really gotten a handle on what needed to be done in the city and what we need to do to move the projects forward.”

Bullock, the retired Longboat Key Town Manager, may not hold the seat at the end of the dais much longer as the current track to replace Brown, who retired more than a year ago, is the first quarter of 2026.

“Looking at the year ahead, our number one task is to hire a new city manager,” Trice said. “We need someone who has the skills and the vision to build upon Sarasota’s success and lead us on our upward trajectory and continued status as America's best place to live.”