City Manager Search: Back to Square One

By Mike Lednovich

Executive search firm Strategic Government Resources says it will not provide only a select set of services in recruiting Fernandina Beach city manager candidates. SGR says to obtain its services, the city will have to pay for the company's full recruiting package.

The city commission, by a 3-2 vote, selected SGR as the recruiting company but with the condition that SGR only provide recruiting, vetting of candidates' backgrounds and forwarding a list of candidates to the city's Citizens City Manager Search Committee.

But in response to an email from city HR Director Denise Matson notifying SGR of the city commission's proposal, SGR President J.J. Peters rejected that plan. This puts the commission back to square one in crafting a plan for the manager search.

"While we have been able to offer Fernandina Beach component searches for a number of department level positions, we only offer our full service search process for positions, such as city manager, that report to a governing body,” Peters said.

“If it would be helpful, we'd be more than happy to discuss the reasons for this and some considerations the commission may want to make as they are deciding how they'd like to proceed," Peters said in her April 6 email.

"If the decision is made to conduct your own recruitment, we do offer marketing and advertising services as well as some stand alone candidate vetting services, however, please note these services would not include the service guarantee provided with our fully vetted, full service search."

That means no executive search firm will be under contract when the Citizens City Manager Search Committee conducts its first meeting on April 17.

SGR was among five recruiting firms to submit proposals to the city commission. The 'a la carte' vote at the April 4 city commission meeting came after an exceptionally confusing discussion among commissioners on exactly what services SGR was being asked to provide and what role SGR would play in the recruiting process.

SGR's rejection means the city commission will have to vote again on April 18 on two choices. First will be if the city is interested in contracting with a search firm for a "full blown" recruiting effort. If the commission decides to move forward, then the commission would vote on which of the five firms it wants engaged in the search.

On April 10, Matson emailed SGR, "The full proposal from SGR will be considered by the city commission at the April 18th city commission meeting. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. Thank you."

The April 4 city commission vote in favor of limited SGR services came after an extended and disjointed back-and-forth discussion that led to a reluctant consensus that it might be unrealistic to expect the citizen committee (four of whom are busy working people) to carry the full load of the search, even with some support from the HR department.

Some commissioners also pointed out that search firms know where to find candidates that would be good matches for Fernandina Beach – and committee members don’t. And some pointed out that hiring a city manager will be their most important decision this commission term. Others continued – throughout the discussion – to argue for a let’s do it ourselves approach.

That will be the mix of opinion going into the April 18 commission meeting.