BELLEAIR BEACH - In 60 days, Belleair Beach City Manager Reid Silverboard will be leaving for Treasure Island. Silverboard was hired by Belleair Beach two years ago.
He was recently chosen for the Treasure Island post after that city's council interviewed candidates including, Lester Baird, of Hendry County; Steve Cottrell, the town of Belleair's former manager; and Gary Word, the current Islamorada, Florida village manager.
At a Belleair Beach city meeting Monday, the question of whether an interim city manager should be hired or not before permanently filling the position was discussed by the council. Silverboard suggested that city clerk, Nancy McCollum, or public works manager, Pete Cavalli, act in that capacity as they are both qualified to do so. He said the council also has the option to hire a Florida City and Management Association member to assist them during the transition.
Silverboard advised the council to begin taking steps toward creating an administrative transition plan, beginning with running advertisements for his replacement as the process of advertising for applicants can take anywhere from 15-30 days.
It was agreed that ads for the city manager position should be placed with the Florida League of Cities and the International City/County Management Association and depending on how many applicants respond, 10 -20 will be screened by the council for consideration. All council members were in favor of having citizens participate in the final selection process, as in the past.
A recommendation was made to leave the salary information in the ad open and based upon the applicant's qualifications.
Councilmember Richard Crowl expressed concern that the city will not retain good people if the salary for the city manager position is low. He pointed out that in the relatively short time since he's been a council member, three administrative officers have left Belleair Beach. He said, "We continue to think that since we're a small town, we can pay a small salary. We don't save any money by short changing the salary situation."
The council decided to wait until after the upcoming election to take steps beyond advertising, especially since the city is one week away from knowing if managing a police department will fall under the new manager's duties or not.
Money and police were topics again during the meeting when a few council members took the opportunity to weigh in one last time before the election by voicing their conclusions after months of studying and analyzing the city's police situation.
Crowl stated, "It's my studied opinion that we should outsource the police...since 9/11 it just can't be met by a municipality this size. Those close to the police situation believe we should outsource."
Councilmember Mary Schoonover said after studying the data and hearing from residents, "We probably should not return the police as a charter organization in our city and we should contract out."
The meeting was the last regular meeting presided over by Mayor Rudy Davis. He said he was personally in favor of keeping the police department based on hiring a new chief.
