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am doing well. Although I will be honest, it's about to have a major rain shower here. So if you hear thunder, it's not coming from you guys. It's coming from the weather down here in West Palm. So I just wanted to let you know.
Sounds good. Okay, we're going to go ahead and get started here. If you can, just please take a moment to tell us about yourself and why you're interested in the city of Cocoa.
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the good, the bad, and the ugly. I'm very inclusive, great communication. And I'm really looking forward to hearing from you and me showing you why I should be your next city manager.
That was perfect. Thank you very much, Commissioner, Councilmember. You know, I've addressed this in Delray Beach. Delray Beach is also in a situation, there was one area in the city that actually had a 17% unemployment rate. And so we were really trying to figure out how do we bring some sort of money worth without gentrifying the area and forcing people to have to leave. You know, it's not an easy answer. You know, you have to work a lot with the community groups. You have to work, again, with your downtown. If it's downtown, you have your CRA. You deal with your CRA.
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We actually worked with a developer in a P3, which is a public-private partnership, where typically the city provides something and a developer provides something.
And the developer came in and promised to build affordable housing, as well as bring in a shopping center, as well as the opportunity in order to also bring in other businesses that the neighborhood could use. I think you also need to work with your housing authorities that are there. Obviously, you can build houses. We actually, again, in Delray, we worked with our high school, in which we donated land.
students with a trade. So when they came out of school, they had a job. And we helped them build houses that people could go into and left those houses with some restrictions so that the value of the homes wouldn't increase so substantially.
like, whether they have to leave. I think the third thing you have to look at is the historic nature of the community. And how much that community's identity matters to the people who are residing there. And I think that, again, if you can work all those things together, I think you would be able to create an environment that would encourage, you know, ‸ development or redevelopment.
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all cities. Cybersecurity, you know, active shooters, you know, so those are always in the back of the mind. You know, from my ‸ research, I think there are I can't I don't
there are several. You know, one certainly is the image of the city, right? And I think that's important because that's what drives your population. That's what drives your development. You know what? Let me backtrack. I think I can. The one I would say is sustainability, okay? And for me, sustainability is broad. So it's environmental sustainability. So we've got to address if there's any flooding, seawalls, you know, pollution in the water, whatever it is. Then
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financial sustainability. Do we have enough money to sustain ourselves for the future? Because we're not only living for today, but we're living for tomorrow. You then have people sustainability. Is there inclusion, diversity? And that could mean young to old, families to
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It could mean, you know, backgrounds where you come from. It could be race. It could be nationality. It could be religion. All these things are what ultimately gives you a quality of life. And, you know, obviously, again, crime is in that sustainability
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We want people to come there. We want parks. These are the things that will drive your community to want to stay there, the next generation to come in there,
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Oh, man. I'm glad I'm not in your shoes. This has got to be like the interview, you know, they do to make you sweat, right? Yeah. Okay. So we live in tumultuous times. I think we all can agree to that with the events of the last year. And sitting on the dais or ‸ as in the most important position, our city manager requires courage.
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And, you know, I know you know, probably all I know about Parkland. Fortunately for me, I left before the shooting happened. So I did have to, I didn't personally have to deal with that. But during the time I was there, there was a lot of controversy regarding a charter school coming in. And, you know, the concern from some of the commissioners
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level students would end up leaving the public schools and going to the private schools and ‸ bring down the school rating of the schools. Another issue they had was traffic because they felt that a lot of the individuals would be coming from outside of Parkland. And therefore the local roadways would fill up with non-residents,
On the other hand, on the other side, was the issue that the public schools in Parkland were overcrowded. That the opportunity that a private school could give is different than what ‸ a public school could give.
closed community and really have the diversity and the knowledge of other cities and other individuals coming in was a benefit, was an experience for the kids. The commission received a lot of adverse from particularly the communities that ‸ surrounded the property. You know, unfortunately, and again, my strength is in planning and zoning is kind of where I came up from previous job for me was as an attorney. You know, I told him, I said, look, you know, when you've got zoning,
And at the point where this property was, the charter school was actually permitted. And I, you know, discussed with the commissioners and look, if you hire me as your city manager, I'm a very strong believer in communication. I ‸ treasure the opportunity to talk with each and every one of you individually in order for soundbites to be discussed, to think about your thoughts, for me to talk about what the facts and figures show.
So I told the commission, look, at this point, the only discretion you have would be to end up in a lawsuit. And would it be advantageous to the city of Parkland to end up in a lawsuit where that money could be spent for other purposes? And, you know, it took a lot of courage in order for a staff, including myself and my planning director, in order to get up and say, you know, commission, you have some discretion. We can help negotiate what some of the impacts may be.
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be addressed. And that's how it worked out. It actually, I had already left before the approvals, but I took a look at the conditions. And that's exactly what they did. They ended up not prohibiting it. They ended up working with the developer. And that, like I said, took a lot of courage because a lot of the residents were against it. ‸ It took a lot of meetings to talk with those residents and to provide them the opportunity. I will tell you, in most instances, when you're in a heated situation, people want to be heard. You can't always give them the answer they want, but as long as you're listening to them, that matters to them. And I think that's important. That's one of the things that I do strive on.
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So, you know, I guess this is the opportunity that I'm really going to tout myself. I bring a lot of strength. First of all, there are a lot of distinctions I have from the other candidates. As I said, I'm from Florida. I think there's a big difference between Georgia and Florida. If you've never dealt with Sunshine Law violations, you don't know what that's like, or the public records requests that are in Florida, or, you know, I've had to deal with ADA and your website. So I've dealt with a lot of the issues ‸ that have to be addressed in Florida that you don't get
and ‸ I think there's a big difference between those. You know, county, I mean, how many of us really will go to the county seat, but they'll certainly show up at your city hall because it's right nearby. So I understand that.
let me tell you, if you didn't respond to someone's email, like within three hours, you were late. So I understand that there's a huge demand, and you're competing with social media right now.
know, to educate my commission, which I think is another strength that I can provide to you is that when I was with my commission, we were friends. I mean, it wasn't only just a job. I mean, when I left Parkland, I left three years ago until the virus came in,
I happen to know my two commissioners advanced. As a matter of fact, one of my commissioners is the state of Florida emergency manager, Jared Moskowitz. So if you hire me and we have any FEMA problems, I've got a person to go to. So, you know, so I've become friends with them.
that trust. I've built that communication, and I've built that kind of relationship. I also believe that our staff is our number one asset. I mean, honestly, they can help us or hurt us the most. And so I'm a firm believer in, you know, empowering staff. I don't like to micromanage. I believe in compensating them appropriately. I believe that staff should be held accountable. You know, I'll tell you my management style is I am cooperative but result-oriented, and I think the two aren't separate. I think I'm ‸ very big on teams and working together, pulling people from different areas to come up with solutions, but you can't just sit in these meetings. You ultimately got to come up with a result because your residents are looking to see where the money's being spent.
I've probably been in charge of almost every department that the city of Cocoa has. One way or the other, I've done finance, IT, parks, public works, utilities, planning, building, HR, clerk's office.
So, I mean, I know enough about everything, but I don't have to be the expert, right? I need to have people around me who are smarter and who certainly can help me.
That's certainly my background. I've done studies. I've gone door to door with businesses. These are all areas I think that I can bring expertise to. And I certainly can work with the staff and work with the commission in order to make sure that we're meeting the demands and the needs and the desires of both the Council and of the residents.
Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. And I have one final question here for you. And it's, what do you feel is the difference between a good manager and a good leader?
but has additional skills. The leader is the one that's going to motivate the staff. The leader is going to talk about the vision, is going to talk about the traits and the core values. And as a leader, you have to be the one to be the first one to show that. You cannot expect your staff to do something that you wouldn't do. And that's what a leader does. So, you know, when I'm out on the street and I see a nice sign on the side that's illegal, I don't pass it. I stop. I put it in my car. I'm no better than anybody else. And that's a core value that a leader has to show to their staff to say, this is what is expected of us and ‸ this is what we're going to provide. Motivation is another one that I think is important for a leader.
if you all remember when there was the ice bucket challenge that they had. I used that as a motivational tool for my staff in which I did it as a fundraising to say whoever raised the most money would be the one to pour the bucket over me. And so it was like a race. It was just like, it was unbelievable.
But just because you're a manager doesn't make you a leader, but typically a leader will make you a manager. So I hope that gives you enough of a distinction or examples of what the difference is.
Yes, ma'am. That was a great answer. I appreciate that. And this right here is an opportunity right now for any other comments you'd like to make or just, you know, just that you want people to know about you.
Well, you know, you give somebody like me an opportunity to talk. We're always going to talk. So thank you for the opportunity. Look, I'm excited about being in this group. I hope I make it to the next step. As you can tell, I'm very personable. I won't sit behind my desk, guys.
the bad, and the ugly. I believe as being a facilitator. I believe in mentoring. I can tell you a story. I had a parks director in Parkland who was being hammered by his staff. He was young, one of the
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and didn't have great strength as a supervisor. I could have fired him, but I didn't. Instead, what I did is I took him under my wing. I made him my PIO, you know, public information officer, figuring as a generation X that he would, why he would be great in social media. He ‸ was. He rebuilt our entire website, helped us in social media. And in the interim, I helped on understanding what you need to be, to be a manager, to be a supervisor,
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premier parks department with everything they ‸ got going on there. I could have devastated him. But instead of doing that, because I believe our job is to make our people better, know their weaknesses, and help improve them, I've actually made him a better person and made him very successful. So
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My first 90 days would be ‸ listening, listening, listening. I'm not here to go do wholesale changes. I'm here to see what's the good, the bad, the ugly. However, I will say that I am a believer in reviewing processes and procedures, because I always feel there's always continuous improvement. We can always do better than what we've been doing. I'd like to take COCO to the next step. I believe I can take it to the next step. I'm excited about the opportunity that
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And I think it'll be great. I think a lot of what I can bring to it aligns very well with my history. And if there's any other questions, I'd be more than willing to answer them.
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