- April 29, 2024
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The Palm Coast City Council is considering piggybacking onto a contract with another city, New Smyrna Beach, to speed up the timeline in its search for a new city manager.
Piggybacking on the contract would save two months on the search by bypassing the request-for-proposals bid process, said Renina Fuller, Director of Human Resources.
The problem with piggybacking, council member Theresa Carli Pontieri said in the April 9 meeting, is that Palm Coast will not be able to set its own search parameters of what makes an ideal candidate.
“I don’t understand the point in ‘speeding things up,’” Pontieri said.
Pontieri was the only council member who felt that the new city manager should be chosen by the council in place after the November election. Two of the seats will definitely have new faces in them, as Vice Mayor Ed Danko and council member Nick Klufas are running for Flagler County Commission, while Mayor David Alfin is also up for reelection.
The other four disagreed with Pontieri, saying that it is the job of the current council to choose the new manager.
If the city forgoes piggybacking the contract, it would need to go out to bid for a search firm, a process which takes 45 days for the bid itself and another 15 days to review. If the council goes that route, the city won’t likely choose a search firm until June, plus another 90 days to find candidates for the council to consider.
Joining the contract would not allow Palm Coast for much wiggle room with its RFP parameters, though the city will still have the right to reject any presented candidates. In an interview with the Observer, Pontieri said that designing Palm Coast’s RFP for a city manager is key.
“The RFP is — that’s your whole thing. That’s what you’re asking for,” she said.
Klufas told the Observer the council members need to choose the option that will give them the qualified candidates it needs, regardless of the timeframe.
“I think whichever solution we choose, it has to be the correct solution,” he said. “... I think it’s more important that we make sure that we choose an agency that represents quality individuals.”
But what does Palm Coast need in its city manager? For Pontieri, she said the two most important aspects for a city manager is someone who has experience handling an almost $500 million budget and someone with experience in managing large organizations.
Klufas, too, said experience with a budget the size of Palm Coast’s will be essential in the city manager candidates. The ideal candidate will need strong leadership, he said, and demonstrate a clear vision for the city’s growth and development.
That person should also be able to collaborate and have a proven history of civic engagement, he said.
“I think it is absolutely imperative that we make sure we have a candidate that demonstrated in the past that they’ve had a commitment to civic engagement and that this isn’t going to be a new behavior once they’re on board,” Klufas said.
Danko also suggested in the April 9 meeting that the city could also advertise for the position to ensure candidates who doesn’t meet an educational requirement can still apply to the position. Klufas agreed, but more to ensure qualified candidates who don’t work with a specific search firm can still apply.
Pontieri said while she would not rule out a candidate who does not meet educational requirements, she would personally need to see an abundance of experience to consider a candidate. Conversely, a person fresh out of school, she said, would not hold against someone with 20 years of on-the-job experience.
“I would like to know what the education requirements for comparable cities are,” she said. “Because I don’t think asking for an educational component here is unrealistic or unreasonable.”
