Familiar Recruiter Returns to Palm Coast to Lead Search for Next City Manager

Strategic Government Resources Vie President Doug Thomas had last been in the Palm Coast City Council chamber in the fall of 2018, when his Texas-based recruiting company led the search for the manager that was to replace Jim Landon. The search and the council at the time landed on Matt Morton, the sharp-minded manager whose tenure had the misfortune of ill-timing with rancid politics in the city and Covid’s poisons beyond it. He was gone just after his second anniversary.

He was only the city’s third manager, but the hiring process had been the most open and welcoming of public input to date, thanks in part to the parameters the council had required, and to the way SGR goes about recruiting candidates and vetting them before local governments and the public.




Thomas was back last week before the council–a very different council that, with just one holdover from the time when his company was first hired (Council member Nick Klufas), was chosen again to lead the search for a permanent city manager. Lauren Johnston has been filling that role as interim, with strong results, but Johnston has said on a few occasion that she is not interested in the permanent job. She’s got her eyes on a longer managerial career in emergency services. She replaced Denise Bevan, who had been Morton’s replacement, and who was brusquely fired in a 3-2 vote in March.

The council agreed on SGR in mid-June, with the understanding that while SGR would start the recruiting, it would leave the key decisions to the next council: the current council lost Cathy heighter, who resigned abruptly last month, and three more members–Mayor David Alfin, who was defeated in his bid for re-election, and Ed Danko and Nick Klufas, who were defeated in bids for the County Commission–will be gone by the end of November. Theresa Pontieri, elected two years ago, will be the sole survivor, plus whoever the current council appoints to Heighter’s seat in two weeks.

Thomas last week gave the council an overview of the steps ahead: finalizing the city manager recruitment profile, generally a laborious effort by the council (in 2018, Thomas also held an open session with the public, but few people turned up), and creating a brochure to attract highly qualified candidates. That brochure will be submitted to the new council for review in late November. “It is easy for any recruiter to get a stack of qualified resumes. The hard part is finding a highly qualified candidate who is also the right match for you,” Thomas told the council. “Our focus is on fit, which is why our success rate is so strong.”




Once the profile is approved, SGR will advertise the position starting in the third week of November and until just before Christmas. It will do so in trade publications and on social media as well as through its own ongoing contacts with prospects. It will conduct all the initial screening, though all the resumes it receives will be public records, available for public and council inspection. SGR will produce briefs on top candidates to make it easier for the council to select finalists in January. The interviews will then take place, with the option of holding a public-interaction session. The appointment is expected in mid to late February. If it doesn’t stick, SGR, which has worked on similar drives with 450 local governments in 37 states, offers to restart the process.

SGR, a city release states, prioritizes diverse candidate outreach, partnering with groups such as the League of Women in Government, Alliance for Innovation, Local Government Hispanic Network, and the National Forum for Black Public Administrators to ensure candidate pools are representative of the community.