On our way to selecting the city manager for the city of Cocoa, a local location of 65 Stone Street.
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Please get a roll call.
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Thank you.
Yeah, I can't hear. Oh, I'm sorry. Microphone's not on.
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do the pledge?
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of
America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
I'd
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And at this time, I'm going to
go
ahead and turn it over to you so ‸ we can get started.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This evening,
I
would like to introduce Mrs. Karen Gardner-Young from Boynton Beach, Florida. She is a
credentialed
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manager with ICMA. She has a master's of public administration and a juris doctorate degree. She's currently the planning
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city manager of Parkland, Florida.
Thank
you.
Welcome.
Thank you.
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on. If you want me to take it off, I can go either way. You tell me what you're more comfortable with. I know sometimes it garbles with the mask on. Yeah. So, but I want you all to feel comfortable.
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Yeah, usually that's the case. Although most people say they don't have a problem hearing me.
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Anyway, good evening, everyone. Thank you for having me. I am rearing and ready to go whenever you want to start the questions.
Honorable Mayor and Council members, I did receive a total of 27 questions from the residents. So, I am going to do my best to get through as many of them as possible. Several of the residents asked multiple questions. So, I will go through and ask one question from each resident and then go back and start over again. So, at least each resident will have as many questions as possible answered. My first question this evening is from Candace Rogers, Managing Director of Cocoa Village Neighborhood Coalition. She asked, what do you hope to get out of the position in a city like Cocoa?
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So, I just take some notes as I'm going along. It's not that I'm ignoring you. So, just in case, ‸ let you know. I think the best way to answer that question is I hope to be as successful here as I was in Parkland. I really feel when I left Parkland, I made it a better place than when I started there. I mean, if you look again, I was a long tenured in Broward County. It was
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I was almost ten. And, you know, by the time I had left, Parkland was in financially good condition. We did not raise assessments during my tenure. As a matter of fact, the last couple of years, we actually reduced the millage. We lived within our means. We had very little debt.
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So, during that time period, I built a new fire station, built a community center, built a tennis center, improved all our parks. So, we weren't sitting stagnant when we were
doing
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those nine, ten years. But I think the most important thing that I feel I can bring here and I think will be great, community building. When I came to Parkland, I instituted the Parkland Dash. And
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It was completely local. The local running club was the one who we hooked up with. They worked with city staff to run the event. And we donated the monies we received to non-profit organizations.
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And it wasn't a competitive walk, competitive run. It was really a community. So, you had the mothers who came with carriages, babies in carriages. It wasn't that, I'm not going to say it wasn't a timed event. So, you could get, you know, credit as a runner. But it was really meant to bring the community out together. And I think that we really did a great job with our special events. With, you know, talking to the community. We had, you know, our police was out in the field. It had that feeling.
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So, we, the community and the city really joined together.
And
I think that is something that I really can bring to the city of Cocoa.
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App 2 asks, Have any of the candidates ever been let go or forced to resign or resigned under pressure from a previous job? If so, for what reason?
So, that's an easy answer for me. That's a no. You know, the press always puts things differently than how it is in real life. So, oh, somebody laughed. I'm sorry if there's press here. I apologize. But, having said that, in the jobs that I've been, I have left of my own accord. And I do that for a number of reasons. You know, when I was with Parkland, I felt that I needed to grow. You know, Parkland was in a similar population
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But it was not a full-service city. They contracted out the police. They contracted out their fire. They didn't have utilities. They didn't have economic development. They didn't have a beach.
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And for me to grow, I felt I needed to go somewhere else. And that's how I ended up in Del Rey, which was triple the size. Had a beach, had an economic development, had tourism, had ‸ utilities. So, there were a lot of things that I experienced. I also felt in Parkland the train was running smoothly. You know, that I really brought to it what I could. You know, in ‸ that location, you know, again, financially
we're
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well off. I implemented succession planning. As a matter of fact, the city manager there now was the finance director when I was around. So, we implemented things that were able to make the city sustainable. And so, I felt it was time for someone else to take over the reins.
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in the best interest of the city. You know, there's always controversy wherever you go. I don't have to talk to you. You understand that the best,
thing
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And, you know, I thought, ‸ don't distract from the city.
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Didn't want me there. That was fine. I said, you know what, I don't believe in, you know, bad mouthing in the press and going back and forth.
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go. And so, that was another reason. And the other places I left was for promotions.
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So, I can honestly say I was never forced to leave. I was never fired, never any of those that I ever experienced in my life in government. Thank you.
I want to up front apologize for mispronouncing any names this evening. Mr. David Prather asks, how would you, as city manager, improve the business climate in this difficult environment?
That's a great question. You know, there's a number of ways you can help your typically small business. You know, some entails money and some doesn't. So, a lot of cities ‸ are doing some sort of incentive for businesses. It might be a grant, which could be at zero interest or don't have to pay it back. Some of them are using the COVID-19 funds that they were able to get.
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monies. But you can do other things. For example, when I was in Parkland, a different reason, but you can encourage people to come to your businesses. So, when I was in Parkland, we actually did a treasure hunt. And part of the treasure hunt, it took you to ‸ different locations within the city.
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the person to visit the park, to visit the community center, to visit a business, because they had to get their book stamped that they had gone there. So, just, you know, kind of approach. You can help by being a depository on our site for businesses, so they know where they can go.
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of loan. You can go to the, you know,
Economic
Development Department for this kind of loan. So, you can help them get that kind of information. You can also encourage your population. A lot of them are encouraging to buy gift cards. So, that way, you're bringing in money now, but you may not be spending it, but it's keeping the business alive by having that continual flow of cash of coming in.
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a business. I've already talked with the chamber president, talked with her, wanted to get a feel for what the business community was like. So, you know, kind of have a feel already. It's a tough market, I'm not going to lie.
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We even see, I don't know if any of you heard today,
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But I think from my perspective, that's the answer. But I think you need to do more investigation on your industry. You know, I did a cluster industry when I was in Delray Beach. And that helps to tell you what your businesses are. So, like, for example, in Delray, it wasn't a headquarters. They weren't going to go bring in headquarters.
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But they noted that they attracted businesses that had 10 employees or less. And so that's where they needed to encourage people to come or to find a business that follows in the community feel.
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off the water. So, maybe it's an artist who does whales or does paintings of birds.
You
know, can we create a village, kind of like an arts village or education village? You know, can we bring something like that together? But I think you could do monetary incentive or you can do by using your own resources, social media, to encourage and help your businesses.
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Oh, so, you know, this is always a tough question. I find some commissions like consultants, some don't. You know, again, you hire staff and staff only has so much knowledge and experience. Look, if they had it all, we would be paying them a million bucks. So, we're not paying a million bucks, so obviously that's not the case. The consultants need to supplement our staff. Where we don't have the knowledge and the experience would be where we need to bring the consultants in. And I've used them in the past. For
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planning.
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do studies. For example, the cluster study was done by one of the school professors.
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So, we, you know, had somebody who did traffic studies for us to determine whether speed bumps should be put there. Or whether traffic lights should be put there. So, I really do think you need those consultants in order to be able to assist and supplement what your staff, not because they don't want to, but it does require certain expertise in order to try to get what is desired of the commission and the community.
And ‸ this question has multiple parts, which we'll ask at a later date.
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you think these issues affect COCO?
‸ In today's society, with social media as it is, I think everything affects everyone. I have, you know, I've been in the field since 1998. And I have seen the difference between then and now. I'm sure you as ‸ council members experienced it all, trying to keep ahead of that social ‸ media trail. Almost impossible. I haven't yet figured it out. I've been working on it for a long time. You know, we're in tough times.
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There's a lot of areas that I think are tough for cities. There's, first of all, cybersecurity. Oh, my gosh.
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It cost them, I don't want to tell you how much, to get their information back. And it's not, you know, it's not a malicious. You know, in that instance, somebody sent an email, they opened a link, and that was it. And
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So it's not, you know, somebody did it maliciously just to get the city. But it occurred, and it's occurring more frequently. You know, in Texas, there were 12 of them that got hit at the same time. So, you know,
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got
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But certainly diversity and inclusion. That's huge. You know,
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‸ And I bring that up because I feel every city has a responsibility to be sustainable.
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components. And sustainability means that the city is going to survive in the future.
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And it could be financial sustainability. Do you have enough money in order to operate? It can be diversity. And that could be young to old. You know, or it could be different races, different backgrounds, different education. Any of that. Because that is what makes your community robust. It's economic sustainability. You know, do we have businesses here that will survive? Because they're your support for your residential. Again, the vision of the council makes that decision. When I was in Parkland,
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They were a bedroom community.
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because they didn't want that. They didn't care that they had to go to the next community to do their dry cleaning. Delray Beach on the other side wanted everything in the city. They were working on trying to help the older portion of the city in order to bring in the services. It was a supermarket desert. Before I left, we did a partnership with a private developer who was coming in to build affordable housing, which is a big component of diversity and inclusion. And, you know, so from that perspective, I think everything that's going on in the news right now is certainly heard by ‸ everybody in your community and can affect you in a positive or a negative. And so we need to be aware of that.
Jerry
Blanco
asks, If you are selected as the new city manager and choose to accept the position, my question to you is this.
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of owning a utility that generates a significant amount of revenue for the city. This revenue has allowed the city to accumulate a generous balance in the reserve account. ‸ As city manager, one of the duties and responsibilities will be to oversee the budget.
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Would you be in favor of maintaining the current level of reserves? Or would you look at that balance as an opportunity to expand on capital improvement projects in the city?
Great question. I think the first thing I want to make sure that everybody understands, budgets are really adopted by the council. ‸ The city manager makes a recommendation of a budget to the council. But ultimately, that's a policy decision. And I think everybody needs to be clear. Council is the policy body. The city manager implements the policy. Okay? So, but, you know, ‸ I don't want to see ‸ it's kind of black and white. It really isn't. Okay? Because, you know, you could say, hey, Karen, we want to have that street redone. Well, then it's my job to say, is it asphalt? Is it concrete? Do we put a bike lane? Those are the kind of things that, you know, we would work with the community in order to come up with a vision of what they like. Okay? So, first of all, I just want to say that. I mean, I certainly can make a recommendation regarding that. But ultimately, this is one that the buck stops with you guys. But having said that,
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Okay? An enterprise fund means that you can only spend those funds for the reason that they were collected. And typically, there are numerous enterprise funds. And
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Okay? Building department is an enterprise fund, typically. So, when you pay your permits, that means that the money needs to go back to the building department. Okay? Utilities the same way. Utilities, stormwater, all those, when you collect the fee, it's got to go back to that purpose. Some people have golf courses. Golf course fees. Got to go back into the golf course. So, there's different ways. But if it's defined as an enterprise, it needs to stay within that. Now, having said that, not encouraging it, but just to let you know the history that I have,
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They borrowed funds from their utility. In other words,
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They borrowed the funds in order to cover their operating funds in their general fund, which left the shortage in their utility funds. And
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pipes breaking because they don't have the money. So, I'm not saying that you can't borrow the money in order to provide some other locations. It is not the recommended path to take. I just want to say that. Having said that,
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There's no ifs, ands,
and
buts about it.
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You can just imagine the conversations in my household with my husband, who is. But, so, from my perspective, reserves are great. Okay? There has to be a balance on reserves. Right? And there are different types of reserves. So, you have a reserve for a rainy day. So, a lot of cities, such as yourself, have a reserve six months so that if the bottom falls out, you have money to operate for six months. But it stays in there. You don't use it unless you need it. Example I've done, in Parkland, I did a reserve for the insurance deductible. So, when a hurricane came, we had the money already for the deductible.
I
didn't have to go into operating funds to go find it. So, it stayed in there. If I needed it, I pulled it. If I didn't need it, it stayed there. Then you have regular reserves, which are monies that you put aside every year for a purpose. So, for example, we put reserves for capital. So, if you have a roof and you can only put $200,000 away a year, it's typically not going to cover a roof of a building like this. So, what you do is you cover it over years. So, you put $200,000 for the next five years. And then, in the fifth year, your roof is ready to be replaced. You have the money and you're set to go. And that's a reserve. ‸ So, again, utilities should be having a reserve because utilities are expensive. And they are constantly changing. Technology change, right?
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So, what you may need to take out of the water today may not be reflective five years from ‸ now. So, you have to be prepared if you need to take out more of the particles. Or you need to do a different kind of chemical you need to take out. And, or growth. Look,
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That is a great opportunity to do it.
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We were doing nano, which is osmosis.
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But, you know, we were, but again, it's millions of dollars. You know, this isn't something you can just decide overnight. So, you've got to collect the funds in order to have it in time for when you need it. Plus, pipes. I mean, we had pipes that were 20 years old that were iron. You know,
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got to replace it because, you know, it disintegrates. You know, and again, technology changed. So, it's funny. So, every year, we could tell when we replaced it because it was, ‸ you know, this type of material this year and this material this year so we knew kind of what the years were. So, I think, again, you know, I wouldn't necessarily touch the reserve if there's a reason why we have the reserve. I don't necessarily believe in putting money aside just to put money aside because ultimately that means you're collecting funds that perhaps you shouldn't be collecting. But, again, we'd have to dig down and I'd have to talk with the utility director and find out what's our game plan in order to determine that. So, it's a long answer, but I hope it answered it. Oh, yeah.
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and what was the outcome?
So, let me address that one, too. So, the answer to that is no. Okay. You know, there was, in Delray Beach, there was a claim made, and this had to deal with the last hurricane we had. So, the situation there
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for council members, I always tell them, it's always good to go to some of those other meetings where you meet other council members because no matter how bad you think your city is, there's always cities that are worse. Okay.
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little over two years. I went through four city managers, four assistant ‸ city managers. There were five directors positions open.
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weren't working.
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So, you know, again, as I said before, if you don't want me, you know what, I'm not going to argue with you.
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Some of the city workers who I did not ask, the building official made it perfectly clear, it was all within his jurisdiction, all within his authority. He said Karen had nothing to do with it. It was all me. I ordered them. I told them they came during lunchtime, which I presumed was on their off hours. But I will say this to you. We all get into bad situations no matter what happens in our lives. It shows the character of the person on how they get out of it, not how they get in it. And I felt the best way to do that is you take responsibility, you put it behind you, and you go forward. And the complaint against me was dismissed. I did pay for the time, which was $128, so you can imagine it was like 20 minutes. But, you know, to this day, the building official will tell you, Karen really had nothing to do with it. ‸ But, you know, on the other hand, for the city, it was the best ‸ to put it to bed, and that's what I did.
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Candace Rogers asks, should you be Coco's city manager, what will your goal be for the first year and then the third year? How do you set those goals, and do you have a process?
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learn, learn, learn.
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Not change for change sake. Don't misunderstand me.
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it. But if you could be more efficient and ‸ effective, then you should take a look at things. So I look at processes, procedures, learn the culture. It's always, that's always so important. What's the strength and the weaknesses in the system, in the people, in the community? What have we done, haven't we done? So I think the first year is getting out to the community, talking with them, knowing my face, knowing that the city is listening, right? And taking that all back and then ‸ digesting all of that, and working with the staff, and working with the council.
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know you've done it, and I think you should do it again, and
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year, is strategic planning. You know, you are the policy makers, as I say. Strategic planning helps you tell us what your goals and objectives are. Then my job is to come up with the action plans on how to accomplish that. Sometimes it's difficult. I mean, when I was in Parkland, one of the ones was, you know, try to keep A-rated schools. Well, how do I do that, right?
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You know what we did? We created an SAT program.
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based on income, based on need, that came and got free SAT programs.
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so that they would do better in SATs. So there's always a way of accomplishing it.
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If I did, I couldn't guarantee that's what would happen. I think the first year, like I said, is a learning curve, understanding the culture, staff understanding my expectations, my understanding your expectations, and then working in the strategic planning process. What I've done in the past is, I've taken the strategic planning goals and objectives, and then I've required my department heads to draft a business plan in alignment with the strategic plan.
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Because there's no purpose in having an action plan that requires money and you don't have the money. Why even do it? So we align them so that every year, we can show how we improved. We have the money, we have the support, we have the vision from you.
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on that dais.
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how or in what role would you use citizen advisory boards?
So citizen advisory boards are really good for specific topics, specific time period, and clear direction. I've seen successful citizen boards and I've seen unsuccessful.
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They keep meeting but they're not getting anywhere. They're not doing anything. They're not bringing anything back. But I've on the other hand, seen very successful ones that have come forward. You know, ‸ typically they're appointed by the commission, by the council and I apologize.
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But you know, the council typically is the one who appoints them. But having said that, they can give you great community outreach because it's typically community members. It can help you on a particular topic where you can get experts in that topic. It can take a load off of you by appointing the citizen to do some of the work that you may not have time to do. So let's talk about some of the citizen advisory boards that I've used. So in Delray Beach, there were two. I had one that was worked on the comprehensive plan, which you guys need to take a look at yours. And it was a year.
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well, it
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supposed to be for a year and I think it kind of ran into two and a half. But they had different elements, right? You had a transportation element, they had a coastal element. And so what they did is they brought experts in from those areas who volunteered their time, and they became the experts to give the commission, the element that had all the materials in it so we didn't have to do research. So that was one example. The other example I used was with a historic. I had a historic preservation citizen group. And what we tasked them to do is to find out, do we give tax incentives to encourage historic homes to stay? Or they also came back with, should we look at other areas in the city? Whether they should be designated as historic ‸ areas. So they were already had the knowledge ‸ and also the passion to be able to do it. So ‸ I would encourage it. And I think that's some of the areas that ‸ you could certainly use a citizen advisory board. Again, with certain ‸ topics, certain timeframe, and certainly clear expectations.
Mrs. Connie Harvey asked, what is your philosophy regarding the use of consultants to help guide policy and operational decisions, such as recommending or selecting a vendor for trash collection?
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needs to come from the council. I don't recommend a consultant to say that. If the council is interested in something, and
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use the consultant. Again, if you make the decision, and, ‸ my feeling is that there's no one on staff that necessarily has the expertise on that particular topic, then again, I do encourage ‸ either ‸ using your attorney or the attorney ‸ using another consultant ‸ is perfectly okay. One of the areas you happen to mention is ‸ waste disposal. It's a highly technical area. If you don't know it, you don't want to enter into a contract without having somebody review it. And the same thing typically in debris removal. I don't want to say that's the only area. Police and fire. A lot of times, I was in Parkland, I was negotiating with another body. I made sure I had someone who had an expert who understood the nature of how police forces work, how fire departments work. So, you know, there would be a benefit of understanding and a give and take, because all those things are negotiations. You need to know. So in that respect, I would, but again, I don't think you use a consultant to make the decision. I think that's a decision that needs to come from you. Unless you need them to help you make that decision, then absolutely, I think it's appropriate.
Anthony Colombo asks, what qualities can you bring to make a positive impact on the city?
I think the first one that I certainly can bring is, and you can tell,
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I have a high energy. I am first one in the morning and the last one out at the end of the day. I put my heart and my soul and my passion into my job. You know, and I'm not even considering this a job. You know, this is my life. You know, I'm bringing my parents up from, they live with me down in Boynton Beach.
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You know, I make myself, I don't want to say make myself, I become part of the community. You know, when I was in Delray Beach, I painted houses with the Habitat of Humanity.
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I, during the holidays, was sending packages overseas to our soldiers. You know, I was working with Office Depot, I had a headquarters in Boca Raton, but
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And so we brought them in. And they paid to help improve one of our public schools. They came and they painted. They came and they brought new furniture in.
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So this is what's important. I think you need to become part of the community. I was out there on, they had Stop the Violence walk. I was there up front. My husband was with me, pushing my husband in a wheelchair, because we believe in the community. And that's the feeling and the passion that I would bring here.
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So I think I talked about this a little bit earlier.
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said. One was growth. I think as a city manager, you always need to continue to learn and grow. I think that as an individual, too, whether that's, you know,
interpersonal,
you know, learning better about yourself, or that's learning something you didn't do in the past, or learning something to do better. And so, you know, I wanted to become a better city manager, and I felt the only way I could do that would be to grow and learn. And now I think I can bring the pieces of what I learned in Parkland, the pieces that I learned from Delray, and I
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and I think be very, very successful. And also, as I said, there was a, it was running so smoothly. You know, I felt at that point that, you know, sometimes you just need to bring someone else who has ‸ different ideas in, and, you know, again, what's in the best interest of the city.
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Candace Rogers asks, how do you incorporate citizen input into the city planning process, and how much weight do you think should be given it in the development of those plans?
Ooh, good question. So I'm going to ask, I'm going to answer the latter.
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And the answer is absolutely.
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And, you know, again, input is always important because it helps all of us to do our jobs better.
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Hate to say the word regulatory, but we have to be realistic. And when you, city attorney,
I
know it's to my left, but when you veer from that path, you have the potential of challenges. So, you
know,
you try to stay the path, the course that you can do. Having said that, the planning process has a lot of opportunity for public involvement. Most petitions that are heard are not heard by one board. Each board is a public meeting that's published. You have the opportunity to come to that meeting. I hope, maybe, if I become your city manager, that we might be able to do some combination, you know, a virtual with a live meeting, so that if, you know, you have a resident who can't leave the house, but has an opinion, it'd be great for them to be able to get on the phone or on the computer to be able to ask that question. We know we can do it now. We were forced to do it. We know we can do it.
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You know, I believe in transparency and openness because if you operate your city as a business, your residents will treat you as a business. and they will trust you in what you're doing. It doesn't mean your decisions are always right, but they'll trust you. You made the best decision you can based upon the information and the facts that you had.
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or that feeling. And so, you know, again, maybe we can get, and maybe they are, maybe we can get those petitions, you know, a chart that shows where they are.
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This is where the area is. So
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you'll know exactly where you go to the map. You can go around the village and see what's happening around you. And then hopefully if we have good GIS or we have a consultant GIS, we can hit that and it'll tell you what the petition is.
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Florida open records. You can come in at any time, see what we have, and I will encourage an open door policy. I follow it and I would expect all my staff to follow it if hired here.
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of how you ‸ have empowered your staff to lead or complete a complex project.
Okay. I'll use an example in Parkland. So I told you we had built a community center. When we opened the community center, it was operated by the YMCA. The city felt from a financial perspective that they wanted to contract it out because they could save costs. We had the YMCA for about two, two and a half years and came to the conclusion after community involvement.
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Came to the conclusion that the YMCA, not a bad mission, that's not what I'm saying, but it was different than what the city was looking for.
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of the community center. And it wasn't ‸ something we did in the middle of the night. ‸ It was the end of the lease term for the YMCA. We did negotiate with them for a long period of time.
We
were looking for performance standards. They found it hard to meet those performance standards. We understood that. We said, look, ‸ what we expect from our staff, we would expect from our consultants. And so, you know, we would want you to do that. So basically we had less than six months to completely take over our community center. And what I did at that point is I turned it over to my parks director and I basically said, I could do you more harm than good to get involved in it. You understand the operations. You know what it takes to run a community center. Go forth.
Go
forth.
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I won't say completely because I don't think as administration you ever can sit back completely. But, you know, we had a little hiccup. And what I did is I asked my HR director to go over and help the parks director. And she did. And again, I didn't tell him what to do. But she came up with a fast track how to get the contractors on. Because we all know we got procurement.
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So I let the HR director and the parks director work together. They repainted the whole place. New colors came up with a logo. We had towels printed. We had the contractors. We changed all the rooms. It was amazing what they were able to accomplish in six months. And
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Mrs. Connie Harvey asks, what is your philosophy regarding the use of consultants for directional input, such as creating architectural ‸ guidelines and or small scale parking studies?
It's so funny you talk about parking studies. You know, of all the years, I have never found more controversial than parking is. I've been to more adversarial meetings in my life on that particular topic than anything else I've ever dealt with in the what, 20 years or 30 years I've been in this field.
Look,
I'll be perfectly honest. I hire contractors sometimes. Again, I'll go back and say, you hire a contractor when you need the expertise. If your staff doesn't have the expertise to be able to talk about parking or to be able to talk about design criteria.
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you don't want to take your existing staff. You
know,
you want to have the person who's there do it. But sometimes, let's be honest, we use the consultant because you shouldn't get the wrath of the ‸ residents, right? Sometimes it's nice to have a consultant who's going to be there and stand up, say they're expert, no different than what you would say.
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you know, people take it personal. But again, I think that consultants are necessary. I don't want to call it a necessary evil, but they are necessary because I think in certain situations, they are the best choice. But you gotta, you
know,
you gotta look at it. You gotta decide, you know, the benefit versus the deficit, right? You always have to look at it from that perspective. And I will tell you if I'm your city manager, I'm gonna
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don't. And you don't want to do something half done. I'd rather do it right the first time. You don't always get a second chance. And so if we need to have a consultant and to help us do that, I think that's what would be my recommendation.
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So for me, I'm doing this because I want to be as successful here as I was in Parkland. I really feel that. I think this is a ‸ great position for me. I think I'll be a great city manager for you. I bring all the skills, I think, that will enable me to be successful here. As you can tell, I have many ideas that I'd like to bring here, some that you may not like. And guess what? I don't take it personal. But I'm gonna ‸ be your devil's advocate. I'm gonna ‸ throw things out at you. I'm gonna ‸ say, did you consider this? You know, I'm good with that. You know, ‸ I think one of, again,
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I think that means a lot. One of your other candidates doesn't have that. It means I am committing to my profession. I have 40 hours of continuing education that I need to do every year. And it's not just reading a book. It's taking what you've learned and actually applying it where you are. And I think that with all I have and what I can bring, and ‸ part of being a certified manager is mentoring. And I don't limit that just to mentoring staff because I think that's important. I need to bring in the next generation.
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It's not happening. But like I did
had
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succession planning in Parkland, I hope to have it here too. So we need to mentor those. ‸ It's mentoring
in the community,
whatever that is, Whether that's ‸ working as a page in the library and mentoring over there. And
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This is not your job. You're doing it because you want to do what's best for the city. So let me help you to understand how a government operates and give you the options.
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you want to me and we can talk about it all day. But I can tell you the good and the bad to everything that we do.
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And I think that I'm looking forward to being able to do that if I come here.
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how do you keep a ship on course when the winds
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are constantly trying to change your course?
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Never happens. Okay. I'm a straight shooter, guys. I don't play games. I'll tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly. Two things I think you need to do when you have politics, and let's be honest, in this area, it's always politics.
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One is communication.
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go back to it again. The more you communicate with your residents, the more you communicate why, how, when, the more they will trust you. And remember, it's hard to gain trust, extremely easy to lose it.
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the less they question.
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And let me explain, this is why we do it. We're not doing it because somebody's making money or it's
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No, we're doing it for this reason, this reason, this reason. The second thing I would ask, and this is important, the only way you're going to defeat some politics is that the commission operates as a whole and not decisively. And what that means is that if a majority of the commission agrees to go in one direction and someone's on the losing side, when you walk out that door after the vote is taken, you're on the side of the majority. And that will avoid some of this political ship playing going back and forth.
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when you're in the public, the majority rules. That's what this is.
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And so there are some times you're going to win and there are some times you're going to lose. But when you lose, don't be the sore loser. Don't be it. Come back and say, I may disagree. And I've had many commissioners who said, you know, I don't agree with you, but because the majority feels this, this is the position that the city is taking. And that will prevent that crack from occurring where then this political ship steering you in a different direction occurs.
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‸ What is your philosophy regarding the use of consultants for large scale strategic visioning and capital improvements, such as those invite slash encourage public input that results in a longer term plan, such as addressing parking issues and improvements to our waterfront and parks?
Well, that's about the fourth one on consultants, guys. That must be a hint. Something's going on. Again, ‸ consultants are necessary, ‸ particularly when you're talking. And ‸ like I said, I definitely use ‸ consultants in strategic planning. Look, you can do it internal.
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I probably could do it as a moderator, but I want to be able to listen. ‸ There's only so much you can do.
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No offense, guys. But it's more important for me to listen and get the philosophy. ‸ It's better to have someone who can, particularly if there's decisiveness, I'm not saying that there is, but particularly if there's differing opinions, that individual really has the technique, ‸ the knowledge, and the experience in order to help us get to a point, whether that's putting something in a parking lot, right? Or whether it's getting a compromise. And like I said, I could do it. I'll use an example.
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And by the way, I believe in one-on-ones so that we have time to talk with each other. He came in and he goes, hey, Karen, I think we should reduce our millage by 5%. I said, are you kidding me? I said, this is going to affect our ability to operate.
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And look, don't misunderstand me.
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Okay? You want a strong manager? I'm a strong manager.
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People don't like that. So take it for what it is, and I'm sure you probably read through the ‸ lines on that. But ‸ I truly feel that for commissioners and council members and the strategic plan, we need to have somebody who's going to help us get to where we need to be. And when I was in this meeting, I went to him and I said, you know what? I don't want
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to go down at all, which would be illogical from a city administrator's position.
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We talked about what ‸ does 0.01% mean? What does this mean? What does this mean? And, you know, ‸ I'll say he wore me down. Okay?
But
we got to a point where we said 30,000 is about where we can do reduction. So we negotiated. Right? That's what you need to do. You know, it's not always a right and a wrong. It's just getting to a point where you can live with. So he felt good because he was able to say we reduced the ‸ millage.
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and the level of service you expect even though we reduced it. So I think there's,
you
know, again, I could do that in strategic plan, but I really think it's better served to someone else does it.
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we'll take one more question and then we'll just let her just give us a little speech in closing.
Okay. I believe the next question by Mr. Hathaway has already been answered.
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skip over it, believing that she answered it ‸ with writing the ship.
Okay.
The question was how do you handle disagreements with council members? So I believe that you may have thoroughly answered that.
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Uh-huh. This was the question you asked before. How do we, you know, do, are things affecting the city, are affecting the city?
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‸ Defunding does not mean the police department goes away. Let's get that clear. Okay. Uh-huh. Defunding police means reallocating or redistributing funds that were allocated to the police department and bringing it to another department or another area. Okay.
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policy decision.
Exactly. It
is not an administrator's position. Now, you've heard me before. I believe there should be inclusion and diversity. Is this one way of accomplishing it? Maybe. But that is not my decision to be made. This question is more appropriately to be given to the council. And for the council to determine whether that's a mechanism or to ask the administrator to come back and say, give us some options on how we can do different things. I'll tell you, in Delray, you know what we did? We added on a social worker in our police department. And they worked with the homeless. And it was a home run. So we didn't defund it. We added to the police department a social worker. It was perfect. I would recommend it here, by the way. It was so successful. But-
Thank you.
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some words in closing.
Great. Again, first of all, thank you for the opportunity. Thank you all for taking your night and coming in and being here.
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particularly in these days and times where all I see them now is on GoToMeetings or team meetings. So it's great to see people. I'm definitely a people person. I'd be honored to be your city manager. I truly feel deep down in my heart that it's a great match. Look, the next two days is an interview for you guys to think- to determine whether I'm a good fit for you.
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Because that's what really- where we really want to be, right? We really want to make ‸ sure. There are two of the most important decisions that this council has. Budget and city manager. And so, you know, ‸ the amount of time, the energy that you're spending is most appropriate for the position. I know I can do the job. You know, I've already showed you the interest.
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I've talked to your police chief.
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I came here tonight and before tomorrow morning that I got a good feel for- for what's going in the city. Because unless you live here, you really don't know. You know, I- I feel that the opportunities and the challenges that we have here are not unusual. I've had them in other locations. I have the expertise. Look, I've got a planning background.
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I mean, how many phone calls do you get from somebody and you have to go, sorry, it's in the county? You know, it doesn't make any sense. You know, opportunity. Okay. Water utility. Opportunity. Image. Branding. Opportunity. You know,
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I, you know, looked at what's going on. I've watched,
you
know, ‸ read your minutes. You know, so I am very interested in this position. I think that again, my background, ‸ I'm from Florida, distinguishes me from another one of the candidates.
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You know, I once hired a planner from Georgia. She didn't make more than six months here because they didn't understand the processes and the procedures. We have sunshine law, you know, laws we have to deal with, public records we have to deal with. I can bet you nobody in Georgia had to deal with the ADA complaints that we got with our websites and what we had to do. So I think that Florida experience is extremely important. You know, I have the legal background, not that I'm taking over your job, Anthony. Trust me, I don't want your job. But it does allow me to understand things that some others, I understand evident domain. I understand, you know, lawsuits. I understand I can draft resolutions and ordinances. So there's a lot of the background that I can understand. But I think the important thing that you keep in mind, I've been in local government, not county. There's a huge difference, guys, between county and city. I don't know about you.
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It's not in my neighborhood. Your residents will generally not go to the county. But they will show up in City Hall because they know where it is. ‸ And your administrator needs to understand that when they go to a supermarket, you can bet that there may be people stopping them. You need to understand every aspect of government operations. You're in a county, you have a sheriff. You don't deal with police. I was on the phone for an hour with the police chief. Body cameras, you know, crime rates. Tell me you had a Walmart. Go up! Half your police force is over at the Walmart. I get it.
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Walmart from coming in. For the reason. Do you have a substation there?
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So I understand enough
about
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Fire. What's your response time?
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It's not what you have to deal with. You don't have to deal with boil water orders.
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Okay? So again, I think there's a big difference between a county administrator and a local government, long tenured, almost ten years city manager. That shows you the commitment made to the community. So I hope to bring all that to your city. I hope that I become the city manager. And I hope that I provided you enough today and look forward to the session tomorrow. And appreciate the time and the opportunity.
Thank you. Thank you, ma'am.
Thank you.
‸ Mr. Mayor, would you like to take five minutes while I? Yes.
Yes. So we can get some fresh air from behind these masks. Yeah. ‸ Change out the mask.
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No, no,
you're fine. I
won't say anything. I said you needed to stretch your legs.
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But, um, but,
um,
and
then I had a friend who was working for the county and he went to Walton Manor's and I was talking to him and he was up there. So, it was, it was really, they're great guys. I have a lot of,
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working against them.
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How
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I
think the Deputy Mayor ran to the restaurant, so we'll
get started as soon as we get that.
Thank
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Okay,
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Let's
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You got the floor.
Honorable Mayor, Council Members, I would like to introduce Dr. Keith Moffitt. Welcome.
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a credentialed manager with ICMA. He holds a PhD in educational leadership and an executive master's of business administration. He is currently the county manager
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Thank you. Thank
you.
I have a total of 27 questions. We'll get to as many as we can. We did pretty well the last time. Okay. The first question is from Candace Rogers, Managing Director of the Cocoa Village Neighborhood Coalition. She asked, what do you hope to get out of the position in a city like Cocoa?
Well, what I hope to get out of it is me adding value that at the end of the day
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day before. When we talk about redevelopment, I believe it has to be purposeful,
it
has to be dedicated, and it has to be something that can be measured over time to make sure that we get the impact. So in my day to day operations, it is my goal to always work with the people in the community to accomplish those objectives and those goals on a daily basis.
Pels
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to resign or resigned under pressure from a previous job? If so, for what reason?
No, ma'am, I would not classify it as being let go from a previous job. I was the county manager in Butts County when we had a change of leadership. And in my profession, that is quite common when new leadership comes in that the governing body said they want to go in a different direction. And at that time, we worked out an amicable deal and from there, but I've never been disciplined or fired from any position.
David Prather asks, how would you as city manager improve the business climate in this difficult environment?
That is a great question because the business climate now is forever changed. The landscape is forever changed with COVID. So
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has and what they can do differently. I believe we've all experienced even how we conduct meetings, how we ‸ interact with our customers. One of the things that I'm amazed is I was not an online customer ever until probably this last year. And now my Amazon driver, my wife and kids picking me every day because I'm the one that has a package almost every day. So
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But again, you work with the business owner to look at their marketing, to look at their strategies of how they can incorporate the technologies ‸ and embrace the change that we are now under. So my answer to that is the business climate is forever changed and it's going to take time working the business owners, they reevaluate how they want to do their business.
Mrs.
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I'm going to try to lump it all together in the interest of time. What is your philosophy regarding the use of consultants to help guide policy and operational decisions such as recommending or selecting a vendor for trash collection. For directional input, such as creating architectural guidelines and or small ‸ scale parking studies. And for large scale strategic visioning and capital improvements such as those
invites
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slash encourage public input that result in a long term plan, such as addressing parking issues and improvements to our waterfront and parks.
Well, consultants are business like like like like we discussed earlier, and
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consultant for. For the project. It's often criticized that sometimes you have the in house expertise and they don't have the credibility to give an opinion for for the project. And
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in such as a consultant. So it is a process that needs to be carefully evaluated and make sure that you get what you're going to pay for because consultants come at a price. And
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hire ‸ consultant.
They
present a plan and then we never use it. And that's kind of the base of what people feel like we have so many plans that collect dust on the shelf. So my experience in consultants is if you know that you need a particular expertise that you don't have in house, then that is the one and main reason go out and get a consultant. The
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if you need to get additional
buy-in.
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that sometimes you do need that outside voice to help get the
ideas
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or to look at some of the plans in the project. We mentioned directional input. Sometimes consultants really can come in and help create the plan by doing the strategic informational sessions to come in and do facilitate the conversation. And again, it's good to have that outside voice that doesn't have a bias that doesn't already have an opinion. And so you can find a consultant to help in that in that regard for large scale projects. Again, that goes back to the expertise that you're looking for in the plan. So it's kind of difficult to say when to use a consultant, but my guidelines ‸ use consulting one if we do not have the in house expertise for the project or the plan. And two if we really need that outside voice to help with the planning of the project.
Anthony
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How do you
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On a number of scales. I was just reading. Me
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I picked up some literature and one of the things that stuck out to me was the article on tourism and how it's really affecting this area. Like, I believe the article cited 67 cent of every tourism dollar comes back into the local community. And
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that I'm staying at. And so I immediately thought about, okay, it's Thursday. Anybody coming in for the weekend? What's going on? How is that affecting this community? So
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I went into the hotel room and turned the news on, and
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going back to school. The ‸ teachers union versus the ‸ governor's office and things of that nature. So ‸ this new phenomenon that we live in is challenging every community. So every community needs to really focus on its assets and what is best at the end of the day for the citizens in this community and make those decisions to move forward. Because we're all in this new phenomenon. And, you know, we call it the new normal. That's probably overly used. But it is right. Every day there's new data being presented. And it's going to cause us to refocus almost ‸ every meeting.
As
city manager, I would probably have to bring you changing data every meeting that just two weeks ago, I said,
we
need to go this direction. And in the next two weeks, we probably need to go a different direction. So we have to be flexible ‸ in how we're living today.
Jerry Blanco asks,
if
you are selected as the new city manager and choose to accept the position, my question to you is this. Coco
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generates a significant amount of revenue for the city. This revenue has allowed the city to accumulate a generous balance in the reserve account. As
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How would you manage the current reserve balance? Would you be in favor of maintaining the current level of reserves? Or would you look at that balance as an opportunity to expand on capital improvement projects in the city?
That's a very great, good question. In
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It's our own separate entity. And
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And we always talk about if we had it, we could probably do more. But
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managing it right. So I'm very thoughtful in this answer to that question is the answer for me is to present you with the numbers and ask what it is you would like to do. Because
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If we have infrastructure needs, I would try to present that to you and say we would need to make an investment in this particular project or this particular plan. And if those revenues are there, one thing that has to happen is you have to maintain a reserve for any type of emergency. So what is the ‸ level of reserve that we feel comfortable with? And ‸ now ‸ with the new pandemic, we may have to increase those numbers because, again, the data is changing every day of how we are being able to finance services in this community. In my current position just today,
I
lost, we run a landfill. I had two employees test positives and I had to shut the landfill down probably for about a week. And ‸ again, ‸ that's going to dictate a loss of services. But when I get back on Monday, I'm probably going to have to go out and find a vendor that can come in and help operate that. And
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to have a reserve account, that is something that's a blessing, but at the same time, it definitely has to be managed and it has to be maintained at a certain level that we can always know that if a true emergency happens, that we ‸ are prepared to handle it.
Christopher
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what was the outcome?
Simple answer, no.
Candice
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What will your goal be for the first year and then the third year? How do you set those goals and do you have a process?
Well, yes, my process is to talk to commissioners and find out what they would like my goals to be in the short term and the long term. From there, we would document that and try to figure out how we can measure that over time. My
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we are, present that data to you, to work with the department heads, to find out what has worked in the past and what those things that have worked, we continue to do them. Those
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go in a different direction for that. But
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change. And
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I'm
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And again, data can be qualitative or quantitative. It can be asking questions. I love walking around and meeting with employees and just asking them what's going on. And again, I try to respect the chain of command at all times, but it's the people that are the boots on the ground that kind of give me the best information of what's working and what's not working. And
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sure they have the resources they need to do their job. So
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if we need to make some changes, that we can be well on our way to doing that.
David
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would you use citizen advisory boards?
I'm
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when I go to these trainings, we talk about that often. Because sometimes citizen ‸ advisory boards can convolute the process. I found them to be very helpful. But it also has to be kind of structured, ‸ of how we take that information. Because the last thing you want to do is engage a citizen, get their input, and then not use it. That ‸ sets a stage of losing credibility for the next time when you need them. So if
you're
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going to engage the citizens, then it needs to be able to, we need to make sure we show that we listen to them. Even if we don't implement what they want, at least if they know that they were heard and that input was received, and then we can explain why we did not use their input, I think that goes a long way. So again, I'm a fan of citizen advisory boards that are structured and well thought out. And at the end of the day, we can show the results of whether we
use
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the information or we didn't use the information. I believe that we owe that to the citizens. And matter of fact, I love this format here. I've
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like this on rapid fire and taking questions from the citizens. I think this is great. But again, this is just another example of using that information and letting the citizens have a voice in the process.
Anthony Colombo asks, what qualities can you bring to make a positive impact on the city?
My two, well, I have several great qualities. But the two that I want to focus on is that I'm very flexible and open-minded. When I say flexible, in my role as city manager, every day is something new. Every phone call is something different. And so you have to be flexible to change gears. You can come in and have a plan for the day and anything can happen, especially if you have an angry citizen that you have to deal with. And again, you have to be open-minded. ‸ You have to listen to what's going on. You can't be set in any way. I believe I
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good decision. But my primary job is not to make the worst decision. And I think in order to do that, you have to listen to all the information. And you have to be open-minded and flexible in how I carry out those actions.
Christopher
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I currently have not resigned. I plan to be at work on Monday morning. The reason why ‸ I even applied is because, as I mentioned earlier, politics do change. We just had an election. A new mayor was elected on Tuesday. So he
would
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be sworn in on January 1. He
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But we have since then,
and
he has indicated to me that he does not plan on making any changes. But
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When I saw this position posted, me and my wife talked about it. We talked about where my future would go, especially for like the next 15 to 20 years. And
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I'm here in
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of you today telling you that I'm very interested in this opportunity. And I would think I can bring value to this position.
Candace Rogers asks, how do you incorporate citizen input into the city planning process? And how much weight do you think should be given it in the development of those plans?
i'll
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answer
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I believe a lot of weight should be given to it. The first part of that question is, how do you do it? I'm still a student and learning that. As the world has changed, we use technology now. Some people use social media to reach citizens. Some people are using polls. What I would like to do is work with my staff to find out what is the best way to communicate with citizens. Everyone communicates a little differently now. I
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I look at the news tonight and
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I
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But again, I believe that those are avenues that we can engage citizens, especially since the virtual world is now probably the way that we're going to start communicating more. Face-to-face meetings will probably be minimized. But as you can tell, I'm a people person. I believe in face-to-face meetings. I
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especially as a city manager, county manager, ‸ my current position. You know, it's my job to go and take the abuse. It's my job to go and get fussed at by the citizens. That's ‸ the best engagement ‸ that I'm most familiar with. But I do know that people can get their message across over social media. So, again, I don't have a direct answer to that question because I'm still learning.
I
would depend on somebody on my staff to be the expert in social media and public relations to help me guide that, to help me get your message out because I think that is very important
again,
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how we update. If we know anything today, getting information out to the citizens is a daily, daily need, especially
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we
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have changed for that day. The
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I did something and didn't notify them. I think that that would be a great disservice to you that
is
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city manager that ‸ I left you out there like that.
David Prather asks, please give an example of how you ‸ have empowered your staff to lead or complete a complex project.
I do that daily. I'm not a micromanager. I believe that you can tell someone how to do it or why to do it, but you can't do both. I believe in letting managers have the autonomy to do their job and checking in with them to make sure it got done. Examples of that are on a daily basis. As I mentioned today, the
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told me that she had to shut the
landfill
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down because employees tested positive. Normally, ‸ policy probably did say she needed my permission to do that, but she knows I trust her to make that decision, and that's the decision that she made. Another interesting one today was in this new world that we're
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or we closed the people cannot rent the public parks. We're seeing now that we're
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So, yes, and so my director called me, and ‸ I told him, hey, you have to figure this one out. You have to be very mindful of how you go to these families and these directors and tell them that, okay, we're okay with doing balloon releases, or we may be okay doing memorial services, but I don't think we ought to be having full funerals in our parks. So, again, that's working with the directors, empowering them to make those decisions and to kind of keep it at that level. The last thing I want to do is to raise
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Christopher Hathaway asks, why are you currently seeking employment as a city manager with the city of Cocoa?
Currently seeking it because I want to be in control of my own destiny. Again, as I mentioned, I have a new administration coming on board. I do not know the full extent of changes they want to make. I'm very confident that they do not want to make massive changes ‸ right away. But, again, I want to be in control of my own destiny.
Candice Rogers asks, how do you keep a ship on course? When the winds of politics are constantly trying to change your
course? Communicate, communicate, communicate. The winds are based on that ‸ communication. And, again, everyone communicates differently. I
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my favorite time is Saturday morning when I call each one of them and kind of go over the last week and the upcoming week. We don't always talk a long time. Sometimes we don't talk at all. I just leave a voicemail, give them a little update. But, again, I had to learn that over the last six months that that is a preferred way that ‸ they would like us to communicate. As
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like to communicate? I would have to give the department heads, and we would have to work out. I
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an assistant. But I tell them I need to hear from you at least once every 72 hours, even if it's just, hey, everything's okay. Because, normally, the fires are the ones that I spend most of the time communicating with. The ones that I don't communicate with, I don't want them to think I don't love them. But if there's not a fire going on and everything's going okay, then I probably won't be talking to them on that day. So, again, communication is the key to keep the sails going, to keep the ship on course.
Christopher
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Privately. One of the things is I will never, well, one, my job is really not to agree or disagree with you. My job is really to execute what it is that you want to happen. I will give you my opinion, and once you make a decision, I carry it out 110%. When
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And I give you a great example of that is currently, public works can't go work on private property. But,
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my land. Half is in the right of way. Half is on my property. Well, policy dictates that I can't send somebody to go get that tree off that property. That's just policy. So, of course, we're going to argue about that because there's no, as a council person, you see no reason why I can't go take care of that citizen. It ought to be taken care of. So, sometimes the disagreement will be on policies and things of that nature. But, again, that should be something that is done privately, publicly. You will always have my support publicly. We always present a united ‸ front. And from there, we will always move forward in that direction.
Candice
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a
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Have you been in a situation where two groups had opposing ideas on an issue and wanted you to take their position? If so, describe how it was resolved.
Yes, I've been in a situation several times. And it's normally resolved by some form of mediation, some form of compromise. I normally say that if everyone leaves a little unhappy, that means I did my job. Because I'd always strive for the win-win. And hopefully I can explain to both sides that, hey, this may not be the ideal situation. But, again, it's the good situation. Again, my job is to find out, is to make sure we don't make the worst decision. And the worst decision ‸ would be in a situation like this. The two sides not ever coming together and not accomplishing anything. If I can get two groups working together to accomplish something, then we've done good at the end of the day.
Christopher
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police department?
That
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I believe that every department would need the resources it needs to do its job. And I would ask for the budget to be put together. We would look at that budget to make sure that all needs are addressed. And I really don't understand this conversation of defunding a department unless it's in the context of punishing a department. That's just my personal opinion. Now, I would take my personal opinion out of that when we present the data. Because the data is the data. When
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that's all we have is to look at the numbers. And from there, if the budget comes in $1 less, I guess somebody could say you defunded it. But it depends on what's going on in that department, what the needs are, what the resources need for the department.
Candace Rogers asks, what do you bring to this job? The other two candidates may not.
Well, I don't know the other two candidates, but I would say that I bring to this job a willingness to work with everyone. I bring to this job a positivity in my attitude. I believe that I bring my own weather every day. It's my job to set the tone. It's my job. And when I say set the tone, it's like being the thermometer for the ‸ departments, for the workforce. If I'm hot on the project, then they should be hot on the project. If I come in lukewarm to something, then I think that that would trickle down into the workforce. And it's my job to keep everybody positive and motivated. And that's my goal. I consider myself to be a hard charger. I consider myself to be a go-getter. I consider myself to be a person that believes in getting the job done. So from there, I believe I bring that to the job every day.
Christopher
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member of the City of Cocoa Council privately outside
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Outside
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I had a couple ‸ calls of saying continue with the process.
candace rogers asked
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what do you think are the challenges and opportunities facing Cocoa?
As we've talked before, with the new normal that we live in, I think those challenges are still being determined. I think tourism is a challenge. I think providing services to the citizens is a challenge. And
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deal with that, I think we can address those challenges in a timely manner and ‸ continue to provide those services that we are obligated to provide to the citizens.
Mr. Mayor, Council Members, that is the end of the questions submitted by the residents.
Okay, thank you, ma'am. Dr. Moffitt,
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and ‸ I'm glad, because I really want to get through all 27. ‸ And ‸ I apologize by answering any questions short. I'm trying to think of any questions I'd like to go back and expand upon, because some of them were all in the same broad subject matter of who am I, what I bring to the table, and where would I like to see this community go and how I could affect that. So let me ‸ address that. Again, Keith Moffitt, I've been in this business for about over 15 years, started out in economic development, working at the Chamber of Commerce, and ended with the state. Got in the local government, been with the city of Macon and Butts County, in county manager and county
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county
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I see my job as to be the daily manager of the operations, to accomplish the strategic plan that has been set out by this council. The current strategic plan has a lot of information in it, and I think it's probably up to be renewed. And again, ‸ to me, ‸ that presents a great opportunity of looking back, did we accomplish what we set out to do when we created this plan? If we did, how can we build upon that? If we didn't, what do we need to do to accomplish those things? And what new things need to be added to the plan? I think this is a great opportunity to do that, and I would love to be a part of that team that can get that done. And again, that's vision and ‸ planning. On the day-to-day operations, I believe that I'm a leader that can work with the department heads, because my job is to make sure they have the resources to get the job done. And I think I specialize in that in budgets. I've
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Currently, the city of Macon, when I got
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and due to consolidation, they had to decrease the budget over time. But
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I've done that through holding
the
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line with vacancies and working the department heads and right sides of some of the departments in their vacancies, and
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Again, the budget is something that's very dear to my heart. The question that was talked about budget is, should you spend the reserves?
I
think, again, that that is a question of where we want to be, how much we want to have in the reserve, and what do we want to invest in? I'll give you a great example. COVID has showed us that we need to invest more in technology, especially if you have to shut a building down and everyone in that building has to go home. Can
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We just had to buy a whole bunch of laptops with documentation to make sure that people, especially my HR and finance team, could still get the job done working from home. So, again, you talk about the budget and the reserves. Those are those type of investments that we will have to look at and make sure that we are spending the money appropriately. I hope I answered your question there and adding to it. But, again, I want to thank you for this opportunity. As
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I
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And I want to tell you I want the job. Thank
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is 7.15. We
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Yeah,
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You're not breathing.
Just
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Okay,
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Okay. We're ready. If you're ready, let's talk. If you're ready.
party
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here.
Honorable
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Mr. Whitten has a Master's of Business Administration degree. He
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currently the Associate Vice President of Facilities and Special Projects at Eastern Florida State College. I have a list of 27 questions
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I will begin. Mr.
witt
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Candace Rogers,
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what do you hope to get out of the position
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I think, first of all, it is moving the city forward. And so, anytime you are looking at these positions, it is, what can you do for the community? Unlike, you know, a lot of solicitations, I'm very selective on the cities that I actually, and the counties that I've actually gone after or been a part of the solicitation. And so, I feel as though this is my home. This is my community. And so, I want to be value added ‸ in terms of moving the city forward. Addressing all of the urban issues that you have. Addressing all of the infrastructure issues that you have. Addressing budgetary and economic issues there.
And so it really is about the science of public administration for me.
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have any of the candidates ever been let go or forced to resign or resigned
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under
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if so for what reason I've
never been let go I've never been forced to resign
under
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pressure and I forget the third scenario was
if so for what reason
so I've been very fortunate started working in 1990 as a budget analyst in Broward County and ‸ had continuous employment since then obviously three years ago three and a half years ago I transitioned over to the college but again that was of my own ‸ will a career choice that I made but obviously and certainly not forced out by the current County Commission so I've been very fortunate to have continuous and steady employment
David Prather asks how would you as city manager improve the business climate in this difficult environment?
And again, that will take some studying. You know, what's the business climate? You know, what actually does the business community feel are the impediments there? Are they regulatory? Are they process issues? And so,
that'll
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take, obviously, some time in the job. That'll take some conversation with the business community to actually get to know their issues and then to develop a plan from there. So, you know, if their issues are something that they can quantify, certainly their initiatives that we can undertake to address those issues but again I don't think that you any candidate sitting here today can actually answer that I think it takes listening sessions I think it takes some development of a plan based on those listening listening sessions. And ‸ obviously, conversation with the council mr.
Witten this next question is very lengthy and if you would like me to repeat it at any point, please let me know. what is miss Connie Harvey asks what is your philosophy regarding the use of consultants This ranges from their expertise to help guide policy and operational decisions, such as recommending or selecting a vendor for trash collection. For directional input, such as creating architectural guidelines and or small scale parking studies. And for large scale strategic visioning and capital improvements, such as those invites slash encourage public input that results in a
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and parts yeah
that was a long question you know I don't know a city or county that does not make use of consultants and so you know you're
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that is the role and function of the council and so consultants are used where there there is a gap a lack of knowledge or ‸ lack of expertise or some need to supplement knowledge and expertise of staff. of staff consultants are used to develop strategic plans to develop infrastructure plans obviously engineering consultants financial consultants ‸ bond issues are very complicated and so I think my philosophy on
consultancy
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is use them where they're needed but they certainly don't drive policy policy.
Anthony
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How do you think these issues affect.
‸ I think they're I think they're the same I think we're microcosm of the nation. And so we're fortunate in Brevard that that that we don't see as many of the protests but I think the same the same urban issues
that we're
the
same urban issues
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of the
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But
again those issues are still present.
Jerry Blanco asks. If you are selected as the new city manager and choose to accept the position. My question to you is this.
COCO
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is in the unique position of owning a utility that generates a significant amount of revenue for the city. This revenue has allowed the city to accumulate a generous balance in the reserve account. As
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How would you manage the current reserve balance. Would you be in favor of maintaining the current level of reserves. Or would you look at that balance as an opportunity. To expand on capital improvement projects in the city.
Yeah and I did look at your budget. I'm
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I know you're taking. significant transfers from the water enterprise. And
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You're taking. I guess it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 23 million from the water account now. And is that not correct. I
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Besides just the return on investment.
Yeah and so and so and I
mean
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hopefully ‸ I'm pretty close to to to that number there. And so I think obviously there are
there
there are legal restrictions on how much you can take and what you can take and when you can take from the water reserve. Part of the budgetary problem and the fiscal problem is is that you you have to rely on those reserves to supplement the general fund. And so to to specifically answer the question there. You know, ‸ I think if the council is of a mind strategically to leverage more of those, then that's going to require ‸ discussion of legal. That's going to require input of a bond council. As I understand that you do have some bond covenants that you you have to cover and so again that's a deep dive into your general
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your water enterprise circumstances.
Christopher
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you ever been investigated for
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I have
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Candace Rogers. Asks should you be. Coco
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What will your goal be for the first year. And then the third year. How do you set those goals and
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Absolutely. And so the goal for the first
year
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is to to there. There is a new council in November. It is working with that council to understand strategically what their direction will be. It is understanding who you have on the team getting to know staff. It is certainly and hopefully we can get through the pandemic. It is certainly going on a listening tour of the city business social neighborhoods and assessing what are the issues out there. What
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What are the social issues. What
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And
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you listen to staff you listen to the board you workshop with the council to determine. What their goals are going to be. Is the strategic plan going to change. Are
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strategic plan. Obviously you have a big hire coming up and I understand that you have a strategic plan associated with the police department there. So it is basically the first year it is listening. Obviously there are those administrative things that always come along with the job developing the budget monitoring the budget implementing the budget. You know year three is absolutely at that point. You should know the job. You should know the city. You should be implementing the planks of the strategic plan. And so you know for me the process is. And
it's a it's a it's
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a ‸ involved process. But you know with regards to staff
they're
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Getting to know staff. And my experience has been. We do
distance
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assessments and this assessments are. Personality assessments because. To lead you have to know. What. Councilwoman
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Councilwoman costs. And so. In getting to know staff there. I require them and ask them to take a work personality assessment. So
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As a manager they know what motivates me and then I can in turn. Know what motivates them and then we know how to react to each other. And
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out into into the community making yourself available in the community. Homeowners associations. Advisory boards. Just any source where you can get the data. Year three. You should be running full speed and implementing. The
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direction of the board.
David Prather asks. How or in what role. Would you use citizen advisory boards.
Yeah. I'm very familiar with citizen advisory boards. The the the county had about 60 something advisory boards. And so. You know it is the traditional role. It is. It is to develop. Administrative policy or administrative direction. But also to. To make sure that you're in line with the community. And so if they are the voices of the community. It is. To certainly. Understand. Them. To get to know them. To have them to get to know us. To actually open it up and not be afraid of. The transparency that comes by having. Citizen advisory boards. ‸ So. I'm actually. ‸ Very comfortable. I welcome. Citizen advisory boards. At the county. There was the budget. Citizens advisory board. There were.
Citizens
advisory
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And. I actually implemented. A developers round table. Where we invited. The business community developers. To come in. And meet with the county manager and staff. And just. In a word. Or a couple of words. To just let us have it. You know. Tell us. Tell us what you see. Tell us what you think we're doing wrong there. And so. I'm very engaged. And very supportive of advisory boards. Please.
Anthony Colombo asks. And. What qualities can you bring. To make a positive impact. On the city.
Yeah.
I
think
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I
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Because
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I understand the community. I've been in the community. I have. And I'm sure all your other. Applicants and candidates. Will have the necessary years of experience. And
I have.
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I have the relationships. ‸ I have the city relationships, I have the county relationships, I have the constitutional or charter officer ‸ relationships, I have relationships in the business community,
I
have relationships, just regular citizens there. And then I am also, in terms of being in the catbird seat, I'm an outsider to your organization. I'm an outsider in some respects because I've not been the administrative head of the city of
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So I bring the advantage of knowing this community, knowing how we function, knowing the politics of it, ‸ knowing the players, but at the same time bringing that fresh perspective because again, I've not worked for within your organization.
Christopher
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your last city manager position? I did not believe that that results.
Actually, I could answer that real quickly and say I didn't.
I
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mean, I don't know if he wants to, if the council wants me to answer the county manager slot, you know. You know, I've
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I can't tell you how many commissioners I've worked with, ‸ very positively with most of them, and I'll say a large percentage of them. Well,
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to go on to other things. What ‸ I didn't do was I
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I still wanted to be value added in the community. I still wanted to do good things in the community because, you know, I do consider this my home. You know, I've lived in four places in Florida, in Gainesville as a student, born and raised in Jacksonville in the four years that I was down in Broward County. And
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been here. And so, this is home to me. So, you know, it was time for me to move on because, again, the tenor of the board was changing. Again, I wasn't forced out.
‸ If
you look at the meeting where I announced there, there was still a majority on the board that wanted me to remain. But it was a good time in my personal life to ‸ do other things. It was a good respite for me to try to be value added at Eastern Florida State College.
Candace Rogers asks, how do you incorporate citizen input into the city planning process? And how much weight do you think should be given it in the development of those plans? Yeah.
I would assume that there is a planning advisory board or ‸ some advisory board with regards to development and planning. And so, obviously, we're going to move at the direction of their charge or their charter. And
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give it all the respect and all the weight, the proper weight that it is due. Again, you know, most of what government is, is working up through citizen advisory boards.
You
know, you're never going to have enough staff to implement all of the things that need to be implemented or ‸ to actually tackle all of the issues that need to be tackled. And
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But
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And so, they're the reason that we're all here.
David Prather asks, please give an example of how you have empowered your staff to lead or complete a complex project.
Yeah,
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You know, I ‸ let staff be the experts. You know, I consider myself the coach, the vision leader. And
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You know, I sort of set the tone. I give them the playbook. I give them my visions. I give them my values, my moral compass. I ask them to model theirs after mine. And so, you know, again, mine is a collaborative leadership style. Specifically to the question, I think if you look at the Lagoon Plan, and you look at Virginia Barker developing that plan, and in consultation with consultants, because again, it's such a huge plan that staff, it was beyond the expertise of staff to do that. And so, that is as significant as it gets because that was a plan that was extremely important in terms of transparency of government and the confidence of the citizens in government. Because recall that that was a voted tax. That is a voted tax. That's
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But Virginia, along with the consultants, developed
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in terms of, you know, my oversight, it is simply making me understand the plan, you know. So, ‸ it is presenting the plan to me, but ‸ she developed that plan with her staff, with consultants, all on her own. And
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county manager, as deputy county manager, where, you know, staff is, staff has to do it. You know, you don't have enough time in the day to actually micromanage, to actually be in the weeds of the daily functions,
and
the
decisions
are the big tasks that they have to have to have.
Christopher
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city of Cocoa?
Yeah, I, again, I can, I can say very confidently that I'm not chasing city manager jobs. I'm not chasing county manager jobs. What I am chasing is to be value added, you know. At the end of the day, when my professional career is over, I want to be that guy where people look back and say, you know, he did great things at the county. He did transformational things at the city. ‸ And so there are, I'm sure, maybe hundreds of city manager, county manager openings right now. This is the only one I've applied for because, again, it's home, you know. And
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reason for me being in the profession. And so I have the skill set, I have the training, I have the ‸ expertise, and there's a wonderful job that came open in my community. And so that's why I'm here.
Candace Rogers asks, how do you keep a ship on course when the winds of politics are constantly trying to change your course?
That's a good question. ‸ You know, it has to be a very powerful wind to move a ship, you know. So, you know, because ships don't turn and move very easily. But I think you keep your professional standards. You obviously move at the direction of the council, the majority of the council. So you keep your focus on ‸ what their direction to you is, what the strategic plan is, what their mission is to you. And you don't worry about the politics. The politics will take care of itself. And so, for me, it's always been to sort of keep my head down and keep my head in the job.
You
know, now, that's not to say that you don't understand that there are politics going on. You know, you ‸ can feel it when you're in the barber shop. You can feel it when you're in the ‸ grocery store. But I ‸ think ‸ you maintain yourself as a professional. You do the job the way the job is written. You do the job the way the council wants you to do the job. And so, if you're ‸ steady in that approach, then the political winds aren't going to knock you off course.
Christopher
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I don't know that. It's almost like ‸ how you handle disagreements with your father. ‸ I mean, if he, you know, ‸ I'm very open. So, ‸ you know, if I tell you I am this, I am doing that, that's what I'm doing. And I pride myself ‸ on being that type of person. And so, you know, Mayor Williams, we have an issue. You know, I think you feel this way. You know, I've heard this. I've heard that. Can we talk about it? You know? And
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I'm not, I'm not, you know, obviously, you
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try to bring the benefit of your expertise and your, your, your, your wisdom and your experience. And
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here are the alternatives with regards to what ‸ you want to do. But, you know, disagreements are avoided if you have a clear path to doing the job, if you understand what the job is, and if you stay out of politics, you know.
So,
now, there are going to be times that you're not happy with the way things are going and the way things have happened. But, you know, you make adjustments. You, you understand that there's no more important relationship than that relationship with citizens, the council, and staff.
Candace Rogers asks, Coco
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Have you ‸ been in a situation where two groups had opposing ideas on an issue and wanted you to take their position? If so, describe how it was resolved.
I, I just think that's public administration, you know. I, I think there are always competing interests in, in any city, county job. There, there, there are parks issues. You got to get folks at the table. You got to get the competing sides at the table. And they always say
that
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you know, ‸ when everybody's won, when everybody feels like they've given up something or no one goes away happy. And so we've had, um,
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We have environmental issues all the time. Um, we have tax issues. You know, people feel a certain way about what the tax rate should be. Um, in particular, uh, parks issues are, have been, and, you know, Brevard
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so they, they came up all the time. It's either the use of facility, of the facility, or it's the use of one of the voted taxes, you know. Is
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by the citizens? And do we have to follow that plan, you know? But it is, it is a conflict management, just like any other conflict management in any other business. It is both sides together, uh, identify your problem. Are we sure we have an issue? Um, let's talk about what those issues are. Let's
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And let's see if we can come to common ground on them.
Christopher
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I, I, I don't think that the, the, uh, I guess you could make that as a recommendation if you're, if you're the city manager. Um,
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I don't think that, um, I don't think you're gonna ‸ get a whole lot of city or county managers that recommend defunding the police department. Uh, I think that's a, that's a council decision. Obviously the manager makes a recommend a recommended budget, but I, I would say no to that, uh, question.
Candace Rogers asks, what do you bring to this job the other two candidates may not?
Yeah. And I think, I think if I'm not mistaken, I think that's very similar to one of the earlier questions there. But, but again, it is knowing this community. It is, uh, being in this community and at the same time, bringing that fresh perspective to, to the organization. And
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I
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sophisticated, very, very, very, uh, uh,
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diverse and very complex urban issues. And in Brevard County, which, you know, as you know, uh, 72 miles long, um, there, there are different communities, um, within county government. And
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places, but I've been here long enough to, to know the lay of the land, to actually understand, uh, the folks, um, to have built those relationships. Again, to have those city relationships, to have, um, the, uh, charter officer relationships, to have, uh, constitutional officer relationships, to have the business relationships, to have the community relationships. But
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uh, the city of Cocoa.
Christopher
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member of the city of Cocoa Council privately outside of what was
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I, I, I have, uh, had conversations with, I think, most of the members of the, uh, council. Yes.
And
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What
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Yeah,
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I
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I think that the challenge is, and this is, this is, um, an applicant taking a very, um, um,
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up ‸ the transfer numbers because I think that is significant. I think that obviously, you know, not having a general fund budget that supports itself is ‸ very significant. You know, ‸ you have what I'll call a structural imbalance, you know. And some of that, some of that obviously would be good, you know, if revenues matched expenditures ‸ and there were transfers in that allowed you to focus on those strategic initiatives, those social projects, those special projects that you want to focus on, that would be good. So
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‸ bringing that
reducing
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that structural imbalance, I'll call it. You know, that's a challenge. Obviously, you have, because I live in the community, you have a perception that services are not equally or evenly provided. You have that, you know, I mean, you're going to have, you know, the challenge, it's an opportunity and both a challenge with regards to the selection of the next police chief. You know, so I see that as a challenge and an opportunity. You know, opportunities are, you know, it is both sides of the corn, corn with regards to the water system.
You
know, you have this ‸ significant enterprise fund that allows you to do things, but also at the same time, you're relying on that for, to balance out your general fund. You are in the perfect location to take advantage of, geographically, you're in the perfect location to take advantage ‸ of all of what's going on in the county. You know, all of the, all of the space ‸ initiatives, all of the Grumman initiatives, all of those things. You got to build your tax base in terms of businesses, in terms of residential. You,
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of model. So
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balanced against the economics of it, the social aspects of it, and the environmental aspects of it. And
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a new manager. You have an opportunity to reset because you are, you have, in essence, a new council. You know, so, and again, another challenge is perception. You know, there's, there's a perception of what COCO is and can
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you, can you change people's perception within the city and, and, and, and out of
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You know, you change that by performance. You know, you, you don't change perception just by hoping that people wake up and feel differently. You change perception of people by performing. So, so, so I,
so I
think you have, you know, you have some opportunities because you've expanded the footprint of the city. So you have land that can be developed. You have to develop that smartly. You know, certainly some areas north. And so I think you have just as many opportunities or a lot more opportunities than you do have challenges. Thank you, Ben.
Mayor,
council
members, that is the end of the questions by the residents.
Thank you, ma'am. Well,
Mr.
Wood, this is a time for you to just let us know what you want us to know or just.
Well, I'm, I'm a middle
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You
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youngest didn't kill each other, you know. So, you know, I'm,
I'm
happy for the opportunity. I'm encouraged by the, by the opportunity. I think I have the skill set. I think I have the experience to, to lead, you know. Again, I'll say to you and I've said to you, you all privately, what you, what you see is what you get. You
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And so, you know, I go about the job the way we've been taught to go about the job. I do it professionally. I am interested in results. I drive results, you know. And
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And, who understands that it takes team to, to get anything accomplished. Thank you, sir. We appreciate it.
Thank you, ma'am.
I
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appreciate all your hard work and efforts.
It's been my
pleasure.
To,
uh, to schedule for tomorrow, we're supposed to be here at 8.
The first interview here in chambers will be at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning. Each
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starting at 9 tomorrow.
Thank
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thank everyone that came out today and, and,
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probably watching us all. So, that, but that being said, we're going ahead and, uh, make a motion to adjourn. During this meeting. Thank you, sir. I
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appoint. Excuse me. What?
Delegates.
Did you say something to delegates,
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no, no,
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I was probably talking about delegates.
Oh, I'm sorry,
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Yeah. That
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Oh,
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Yeah,
what about.
Yeah.
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