The Flagler County Commission will interview six short-listed candidates for the county administrator’s job in individual but public zoom sessions on Aug. 10. The commission will short-list the six down to two or three finalists who will be invited for in-person interviews in September.
The six finalists are Shawn Boatright, Stanley Hawthorne, Thomas Hutka, Tracy Miller, Richard Reade and Aaron Van Kleeck.
Discussing the process at a workshop on Monday, the commission was ready to hold individual, one-on-one, non-public zoom sessions with each candidate until Commissioner Andy Dance suggested that the session be held as a public meeting, with each candidate interviewed in turn by zoom.
That’s how the Aug. 10 meeting will be conducted, with a caveat: the commission will not stream the meeting on its YouTube channel, so as to prevent candidates from seeing each other’s performances and giving some an advantage over others. But the meeting will be video-recorded and the video will be available on the county’s YouTube channel after the meeting, County Attorney Michael Rodriguez said.
The commission has been at this for most of the year. The job was posted for a month starting in late April. A search committee of three current county administrators–Alachua County’s Michele Lieberman, Sumter’s Bradley Arnold and Nassau’s Taco Pope–reviewed and culled the applications in cooperation with the county’s Human Resources Department to produce the shortlist.
Some 90 people applied, but only 30 qualified in accordance with application requirements. The commission pared down the number to eight in July. Two dropped out since. Commissioners might have narrowed the list further on Monday. Commission Chair Leann Pennington, for example, is not comfortable with candidates who lack Florida experience.
They opted instead for a first round of interviews even as the county, and some of the commissioners, will be absorbed by the Aug. 18 primary, with two commissioners serving on the county Canvassing Board before and after that date. Commissioner Pam Richardson is a member of that board, Commissioner Kim Carney is an alternate.
“We’ve been taking this way too long, way too long,” Richardson said. “We need to get moving. Because these people will get other jobs while we’re waiting for us to get it together.” Richardson would have cut a couple of names on Monday.
Based on the current schedule, the commission would hold one-on-one interviews with the finalists on Aug. 24 and open interviews, as a body, the morning of Aug. 25, with a decision expected later that day.
The winning candidate will fill the seat vacated by Heidi Petito, whom the commission pushed out in February. Growth Management Director Adam Mengel has been the acting county administrator since.
Shawn Boatright: Boatright has been a county administrator and assistant county manager in Southeast Georgia, including county administrator and deputy county administrator in Camden County (where he was appointed manager in 2022), and briefly, assistant county manager in Glynn County and county administrator in Charlton County. “I have always wanted to make a positive impact where I have lived and worked,” he said in a questionnaire when the Camden County Tribune and Georgian chose him among its 40 Under 40 in 2023. “Being a county administrator gives me that opportunity, as well as the opportunity to collaborate with several of our community leaders to identify ways to improve services to our citizens.”
Stanley Hawthorne: Hawthorne has been the city manager of Pine Lake, Ga., since January 2025, was briefly the city manager of College Park, Ga., a town manager in Connecticut and an assistant city manager in Fort Lauderdale from 2011 to 2019 and assistant city manager in Lakeland from 2005 to 2011. He is also self-employed in his company of one, DoyleSH Corporation, which he describes as providing retail and governmental contractual services. He describes himself as a “ caring, competent, and committed public servant; empathetic and ethical leader; responsive and accountable professional; transparent and forthright purveyor of public information; and team-oriented, appreciative and collaborative colleague.”
Thomas Hutka: Hutka, who has an undergraduate degree from Princeton and a master’s in public administration from Harvard, has past Florida experience as the deputy county manager in Osceola County (from 1997 to 2001) and the director of public works in Broward County (from 2009 to 2020). He has since been city manager in Port Huron, Mich., and was briefly the town manager in Newington, Conn. He’s also worked for Hennepin County, Minn., the city of Cleveland, Ohio, and the municipal bond rating agency Standard and Poor’s (now S&P Global). He was a finalist for Daytona Beach city manager and Lake Worth a few years ago but fell short.
Tracy Miller: Miller is the vice president of the Alliance for Innovation, a Kilgore, Texas-based nonprofit that has been consulting with local governments since 1979. She was an assistant city manager in Bartow (Polk County’s county seat) for two years and has worked in Florida governments in Oldsmar and Sarasota County. “I have consistently sought opportunities to make government more effective, responsive, and accountable. Today, as Vice President of Member Experience for the Alliance for Innovation, I work with local governments across the nation to identify emerging trends, implement best practices, and build organizational capacity to address increasingly complex challenges,” she wrote in her cover letter. She was a finalist for Marco’s city manager position last spring but fell short.
Richard Reade: Reade has been an assistant county and city manager and city and county manager in several Florida governments–Okeechobee County, Lake Park, Palm Springs, Delray Beach. “His responsibilities have spanned finance and budget, human resources, economic development, fire and rescue, emergency management, capital improvements, public works, engineering, community development, parks and recreation, information technology, legislative affairs, grants, public information, utilities, and other local-government functions,” a Flagler County human resources summary states.
Aaron Van Kleeck: Van Kleeck has been the Volusia County Emergency Service Director since November 2024, supervising a staff of over 500, including the fire services. He’s been in Volusia county government since 2003, working in finance and budget, parks and recreations, roads and bridges, with a few years’ break when he worked for the Volusia-Flagler YMCA as a sports supervisor. “I know what it is like to work on the front line and what it is like to make decisions at the management level,” he writes.
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