Some 45 applicants seeking to become the next Islamorada village manager dwindled to 16 after council members presented their list of preferred names ahead of an Oct. 3 workshop.
But a discussion lasting more than an hour didn’t delve into the specific candidates, their credentials or the reasoning behind the council member’s picks. Council members didn’t whittle the candidates to five or seven finalists. Instead, talks ensued over tabling the matter to give the council time to gather more information on the 16 candidates.
Discussions also ensued over a need to fix the division among the dais before bringing in any village manager prospects.
Councilman Henry Rosenthal kicked off talks by requesting the matter be tabled until applicants on the list are pre-screened through a telephone interview either with human resources or a council person. He believed the candidates should answer a standard set of questions, which range from how the person would build a team and fix morale among employees to describing the difference between leadership and management.
“There’s a lot of things that I think have to be considered,” Rosenthal said. “This is one of the most important if not the most important vote we can possibly take.”
A dais that voted 3-2 in July not to renew the contract of Ted Yates for a second year as village manager recently saw a switch in interim managers from Bryan Cook to Ed Koconis, the county permitting director who once worked with the village. Koconis started with the village on Oct. 2 under a new 60-day agreement with Monroe County to loan county staff to assist the village through a transition.
Shortly after Yates departed, the council agreed to advertise the village position. More than 40 applications were submitted. From the list, each council member convened with a liaison of their choice to review the candidates and come up with a list of preferred candidates.
Christopher Russo, David Couch and Douglas Maxeiner were picked by three council members as viable candidates for the job. Russo is a former city manager of Sunny Isles Beach, Couch is the current business administrator for the City of Virginia Beach’s planning department and Maxeiner is the current city administrator of East Moline, Illinois.
Vice Mayor Sharon Mahoney said she wanted to take a deeper look into the 16 candidates.
“I can’t narrow it down to five because I never looked at some of these candidates,” she said, adding she wanted to make some phone calls before reducing her list to five.
Mayor Buddy Pinder believed the council needed to take its time with the decision. He also noted possible scheduling difficulties with the holidays rapidly approaching. Councilwoman Elizabeth Jolin had concerns with pushing the process of picking a village manager to after Christmas and wanted meetings scheduled to move the process forward. Mahoney responded by stating the council just had five meetings in September.
“I don’t want five meetings in October, five meetings in November and five in December,” she said.
Councilman Mark Gregg believed the council needed to fix its problems and division before even thinking about bringing in village manager candidates. He proposed the council convene for some team-building with a consultant.
“I really don’t feel honest bringing people down here in the state that things are in. I think it’s bad. I think we’re in a crisis,” he said.
Jolin expressed her support for holding what she called an intervention.
“There’s no downside to this. It might be hard to attract candidates if they watch our meetings. We could do better,” she said.
Rosenthal said he didn’t believe the division on the council was fixable. He said his choice for village manager, Maxeiner, could help solve the problems.
“I wouldn’t say I wouldn’t work to do it, but I don’t think it’s fixable,” Rosenthal said in reference to the current divisive climate in the village. “The community is not fixable. They’re just as divided as we are.”
Mahoney didn’t believe there was division among the people on the council.
“You clearly do and I think a lot of it is because of Ted (Yates),” she told Gregg. “You need to move past that.”
Mahoney added that it’s the first time in 25 years of the council that “everybody’s not in the good ol’ boys club.”
The dais will look to get its revised list of preferred candidates to staff by Oct. 25. Council members still need to hash out when and how they plan to interview candidates.
