City Manager Finalists Make Their Pitch

Four candidates were given their opportunity to convince Marco’s six sitting city council members that they’re best equipped to become the island’s new city manager during a candidate interview workshop on Monday, May 11, in the city’s Community Meeting Room. Each candidate had an hour to impress council members. Ironically, in a related matter, the noon deadline for candidates to apply for the city's vacant council seat passed during the workshop. The city council seat was vacated when council member Erik Brechnitz died on April 21. Council is expected to vote on the city manager opening and the vacant city council seat during their Monday, May 18, meeting.

Five finalists were selected after city council members evaluated a pool of 18 city manager applicants and ranked their top candidates from one through five. One of the five finalists, Jeremy Marshall, withdrew, leaving four finalists: interim city manager Casey Lucius, Kevin Greenville, Tracy Miller, and Ricardo Mendez-Saldivia. Lucius was the top-ranked candidate with 37 points, Greenville had 18 points, Tracy Miller 17, and Ricardo Mendez-Saldivia 14.

Greenville was the first finalist to be interviewed by city council members during the workshop. Greenville, currently director of finance for the Village of Estero, highlighted his finance and CPA background, government stabilization work, union experience, and focus on long-term financial planning. Greenville acknowledged his limited experience managing a large staff (the City of Marco has a staff of 240).

"We operate under the model of Government Lite, so we only have 12 FTEs (full-time equivalent employees) for our $100 million budget, so it's a little different,” Greenville said. "My experience at Estero is managing contractors and our consultants more than it is managing staff.”

Greenville’s union experience came when he worked with the American Postal Workers Union.

"We had over 300 employees and about 200 of them were bargaining unit employees,” Greenville said. "I actually supervised seven bargaining unit employees. So I do have experience with unions and actual hands-on supervision of them. But I have never had 240 direct reports before. I think it's something that I could handle. It's just taking things sort of incrementally and understanding the organization. I would look to hire very competent staff, really guide and lead them, and sort of be on top of them.”

Greenville also discussed bike/pedestrian safety planning, vendor management, culture building, and readiness to relocate to Marco Island.

Miller, assistant city manager of Bartow, Florida, was up next. She presented herself as a change agent and strategic planner. She challenged council to update Marco’s 2019 strategic plan.

“How do you feel about strategic planning?” she asked. “Do you want to do it? Do you not want to do it? I mean, your goals are expired."

"It's a must,” admitted council chairman Darrin Palumbo. "We need to revisit it. It's going to be the way we conduct ourselves.”

"I'm not a status quo person,” Miller said in summary. “That's not what you hire me for. I'm not a maintainer. I'm going to refine. I'm going to make things better. If you just want to dial it in, it’s not a good fit for either of us. That's about as honest as I can get."

The next candidate, Mendez-Saldivia, detailed a blended executive engineer/administrator profile, prioritizing audit remediation, environmental stewardship, drainage and infrastructure hardening, quality of life, and rigorous land-development review. He cited experience leading water/wastewater systems, capital programs, and union relations.

Vice-chair Rene Champagne asked about Mendez-Saldivia’s resume.

"I'm a bit confused as I look at some of the positions you've held and some of the dates that you held them during,” Champagne said. "This is kind of convoluted to say the least. It appears to me most of your work experience is outside of the city government arena. You're mostly a civil engineer, isn't that correct? I would say based on your resume, for about 20 years, you don’t have any city government employment identified. So therefore, I'm assuming you were acting as a civil engineer.”

Mendez-Saldivia then detailed his experience.

“In regards to municipal government,” he said, "in addition to my approximately seven years with Miami-Dade County as a special administrator, I served as the finance director for the City of Sweetwater. I also served as the assistant public works director and acting public works director for the great City of Miami Beach. And I also served as an assistant city administrator for the City of West Palm Beach. And furthermore, as the chief operating officer and chief administrative officer for the capital city of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg. That is my involvement as a municipal employee."

Champagne then asked Mendez-Saldivia what his biggest challenges in his first 12-18 months as city manager of Marco Island would be.

"I did have an opportunity to review your latest annual financial comprehensive report,” Mendez-Saldivia said, "and your latest adopted budget for 2026. As a matter of fact, I conducted an analysis. I was very impressed with the 2019 15-year vision plan that the city has. I will ensure that we continue to build in the four pillars. Number one, financial soundness.” Mendez-Saldivia followed up by saying, “We start with effective and efficient management. By that I mean rigorous budget requests from department directors.”

The final candidate was Casey Lucius. Because of their familiarity with Lucius, council used a different approach with her than with the other candidates.

Lucius described her Navyhoned communication model, collaboration ethos, and six years with the city. She addressed last year’s budget process, current audit transparency, and differences from her predecessor, Mike McNees, in accountability and communication.

"Mr. McNees and I have very different personalities and very different communication styles,” Lucius said. “In some ways, that made working together very productive. I think where he had strengths, I was not as strong, or where he had weaknesses, I had strengths. So in that regard, I think we balanced each other out quite nicely. His communication style is different than mine. Hopefully, you've observed that over the past six months.”

Lucius took advantage of the opportunity to remind council of some of the initiatives she’s started during her time as interim city manager.

"When I took this interim position,” she said, "I asked each of you if you would meet with me once a week. I insisted on that. To me, that was a deal breaker. If the councilors weren't going to meet with me, then I wasn't going to be set up for success. So I insist on communication. I meet with all of you once a week, which I greatly appreciate. I meet with the department heads one-on-one. I started the city manager's report in the agenda. I also started the after-action report after each council meeting. Some would say I overcommunicate, but I will keep doing that until someone tells me otherwise. I'm a strong believer in documenting performance issues, documenting any issues of concern, and meeting regularly with employees to set my expectations and then hold them accountable to those expectations. And I think there is a difference there between the way I handle those issues and my predecessor."

She outlined a water quality framework (monitoring, stormwater projects, reclaimed upgrades, circulation, fertilizer policy, and potential sediment solutions), remote work controls, stronger internal controls and finance staffing, and leveraging relationships with state and federal offices. Lucius proposed rotating department heads as acting assistant city manager to build succession and relieve workload and pledged to complete council’s six annual goals while advocating openminded decision making by council.

Council was tasked with completing an interview evaluation sheet for each candidate and returning those forms to human resources director Diana Snover at the conclusion of the day. The interview evaluation sheets are intended only as a tool to assist council with discussion, and do not determine the final selection of the next city manager.