- March 5, 2026
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Pending a successful background check and contract negotiation, Sarasota has a new city manager, concluding a 17-month search since the October 2024 retirement of Marlon Brown.
Following a two-day visit to the city by the five finalists on Feb. 23-24, which included an evening meet-and-greet with residents and community leaders, the Sarasota City Commission on Feb. 27 quickly and unanimously selected Karie Friling as the next city manager. She will be the first woman to hold the position in the city's history.
“All the candidates have the technical skills, but I think it takes more than technical skills to be able to work with staff, work with the community, work with each of us as commissioners, and yet be strong enough to make the hard decisions,” Alpert said of Friling. “in talking to people in the community and talking with staff, the majority of people that I talked to felt like Miss Friling was at the top of the list.”
If not at the top, Friling was among the preferred two or three finalists among all of the commissioners. They characterized her as the best prepared, best researched and most knowledgable about the city, its history and its current challenges.
Those factors made her stand out among the four other finalists, who included:
Friling is currently the executive director of the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, Illinois — a suburb of the Chicago area — a position she has held since 2021.
Previously, she was village manager of the Village of Homer Glen, Illinois from 2019 to 2021 and assistant village manager and development services director from 2006-2019.
After all commissioners voiced their thoughts about their top two or three finalists, Vice Mayor Kathy Kelley Ohlrich made the motion to hire Friling, which was quickly seconded by Commissioner Liz Alpert.
“She actually did her homework before she came, and then just her attitude, her answers to the questions,” Ohlrich said of the Friling. “She was open. She was approachable.”
Alpert expressed similar sentiments in her comments made prior to the nomination.
“It’'s been an interesting week,” Alpert said. “I actually started out with one person who I thought I didn't like, who came in and just absolutely blew me away. I have two top picks, but the edge for me goes to Karie Friling.”
The decision marks the end of a lengthy process that involved two executive search firms, the second — Sumter Local Government Consulting — hired in September 2025 with an ambitious schedule to help the commission conclude its protracted city manager search by this spring. That deadline was augmented by interim City Manager Dave Bullock when he announced in January his intent to resume his retirement on March 6.
Momentum toward approving Friling was briefly derailed by Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch, lamenting that missing in the process was a deep background check and suggesting a final vote be delayed until Sumter completed that task.
“I'll take a vote today if we have to. I would rather if we narrow it and ask for some third-party references just to be sure that we are really doing everything we need to do,” Ahearn-Koch said. “I don't think we have that piece of this puzzle.”
The vote was taken and Friling was conditionally approved pending results of the deeper background dive, which Sumter Principal Warren Hutmacher, who joined the meeting remotely, said his firm would complete.
Commissioners also directed City Attorney Joe Polzak to begin employment contract negotiations with Friling immediately. The advertised salary range for the position was $225,000 to $305,000, not including pension contributions and benefits.
