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In an unusual arrangement, the Palm Coast City Council is set to vote on an agreement that would bring Mark Strobridge, Sheriff Rick Staly’s chief of staff and right-hand man, as assistant city manager for a few months, with a focus on operations and the city’s leaderless Utilities Department. Acting Palm Coast City Manager Lauren Johnston finalized the plans today after approaching Strobridge about it a few weeks ago.
Strobridge will seek to hire a new utilities director and “improve efficiencies across the city,” Strobridge said. “I would be looking at all operations of the city.”
“City council’s priorities are very important and I want to make sure they stay on track through this time of transition, and an extra set of eyes and hands, all of that is helpful,” Johnston said. “We all have good intentions with this. We’re trying to do better, have an outside person review our processes, our policies, and ultimately make a recommendation of things we should change.”
It isn’t unusual for local governments to borrow personnel from each other for targeted purposes. As Johnston notes, Chief Bradd Clark, second in command at the Palm Coast Fire Department, served as interim fire chief for the county before Michael Tucker was appointed chief. The county lent its accounting staff to the East Flagler Mosquito Control District to clean up a severe deficit in 2017. The county’s finance staff helped Bunnell government after an exodus of personnel there in 2019.
What’s unusual in the Palm Coast arrangement is that the city has a $9 million contract with the Sheriff’s Office (as of the beginning of the fiscal year), the general fund’s single-largest contract with an outside entity. Strobridge negotiates those contracts. And budget season is just beginning. The sheriff has not yet turned in his budget to Palm Coast for next year, Brittany Kershaw, the city’s chief spokesperson, said today, except for “rough numbers.” Next year’s budget is expected to be $11.38 million. Strobridge will not be negotiating this year’s agreement beyond what his work on it so far.
Florida law prohibits public employees from having contractual relationships or employment with any entity that does business with their agency. In the law’s wording: “No public officer or employee of an agency shall have or hold any employment or contractual relationship with any business entity or any agency which is subject to the regulation of, or is doing business with, an agency of which he or she is an officer or employee.”
In what appears to be an effort to answer questions raised to that effect, the city opted to craft a joint agreement with the Sheriff’s Office–called an interlocal agreement–where the sheriff himself is assigning Strobridge to the city. State law allows local governments to enter into such agreements for the sake of efficiencies and the public good. Whether that’s enough to clear the law’s hurdle is a matter of interpretation. The agreement leaves it in the hands of Johnston to define the scope of the arrangement with Strobridge, who will be considered an assistant city manager. The agreement goes in effect this evening. It includes a conflict-of-interest clause, but it is very general.
Strobridge will be reporting to Johnston, who said she’s bringing him on precisely so she can focus on the budget over the next few months. Strobridge, she said, will not have eyes on the sheriff’s budget, which she said is “pretty much wrapped up.”
Though it is an administrative hire that does not require the council’s approval, Johnston this afternoon added the Strobridge hire on this evening’s council agenda to seek that approval anyway since it is now a joint agreement–an indication of the sensitivity of the move tha at some point in the last 24 hours, after a reporter inquired about it, kicked in the interlocal approach.
A majority of council members are fully supportive of the arrangement. They had been briefed on the hire last week and this week. They do not see conflict-of-interest issues.
“Chief Strobridge has the utmost amount of integrity and I don’t think would be self-serving with his limited role with the city,” Council member Theresa Pontieri said. “I don’t know what conflict his role would play. For me it’ll be a non-issue.” Pontieri said Johnston intends to assign Strobridge to projects she herself hasn’t had time to take “deep dives” into. The city has itself relied on Strobridge as Staly’s right-hand man, she said, and “to now impugn his integrity would be inappropriate.”
Pontieri spoke of the matter on Monday, when the hire was not yet in final form, and wasn’t on tonight’s agenda. But she did see it as a matter for discussion. “We as council make the final decision as to whether or not we move in this vein,” she said. “Not an official vote, but is the majority of the council comfortable with taking this step forward.”
Unlike, say. Bunnell’s city government, the Palm Coast council does not “confirm” directors’ hires. But this particular hire would be different.
“I think it’s a great opportunity to have an executive from a highly effective organization give us a second set of eyes on process and efficiencies as well as take on some of the management burden even if temporary,” Council member Ty Miller said. “Because of his role in the Sheriff’s Office I think it lends immediate credibility to city staff. I’m looking forward to him helping us out and very appreciative of his willingness to do this.”
As for any conflicts, “we’re always operating on an assumption of good faith between us and the sheriff’s department, and we already have a multi-year plan in place in terms of bridging a gap in service level,” he said. “So barring an ask to make a large departure from that, I think we have 99 percent of the contract defined.”
The city is in the middle of a three-year agreement with the sheriff to add nine deputies to the city’s contract every year. The coming fiscal year would be the second year of that cycle. That’s generally the chief sticking point in negotiations. But since the council settled that question two years ago, Johnston considers the rest of the budget process with the sheriff to be mostly routine and unlikely to be controversial.
Strobridge will not be leaving the Sheriff’s Office in any way. He is merely on loan. The Sheriff’s Office continues to pay his salary of around $146,000 a year. But Palm Coast will reimburse his salary and benefits for the period he is employed with the city ($22,700 a month). The joint agreement calls for a 90-day stint, extendable in 30-day increments.
Strobridge will be wearing civilian clothes when he is with the city. He will continue some functions at the Sheriff’s Office. “There’s a couple of items I’ll continue to have oversight on, like for example the sheriff’s budget with the BOCC and such,” Strobridge said, referring to the County Commission, which has oversight and approval power on the sheriff’s overall budget. “It will be limited.” The sheriff did not respond to an inquiry before this article initially published.
Reached on Monday, Council member Dave Sullivan said the city administration “just asked me not to say anything about it,” but allowed that “it needs explanation publicly by the people who are involved doing it, and I think we have to make sure all five council members are briefed on it before everything goes through.” A reporter’s inquiries may have spurred the administration to add the item to tonight’s agenda.
Regarding the city’s contractual relationship with the Sheriff’s Office, Strobridge “won’t be able to touch that contract, I would guess,” Sullivan said, or “any individual coming in from the Sheriff’s Office.” He added: “If there’s a big uproar about it, I guess we’ll get into it.”
Johnston said she reached out to Strobridge to discuss the possibility of a temporary move after the city’s efforts to hire a city manager collapsed last month. She said Strobridge’s long connection to the community, familiarity with the city and his skill set, which includes numerous responsibilities that echo municipal government management–human resources, efficiencies, policies and procedures–would be to the administration’s benefit. Johnston said the hire would be vetted by the city attorney.
Johnston had been the assistant city manager before she took on her role as acting manager after the council’s firing of Denise Bevan a year ago. The council hoped to have a new city manager in place by now. Council instability last year and internecine conflict on the council since November scared off applicants. The search is ongoing. That’s left Johnston filling both her roles, with Jason DeLorenzo continuing as chief of staff. It’s taken a toll.
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