With current Town Manager Andy Hyatt expected to leave on April 30th, he, along with Fort Myers Beach Human Resources Director Talissa Oliveira are closing in on finalists for the Town Council to look at to replace him.
On Beach Talk Radio Sunday Hyatt said of the 40 or so applications the town received he expects to have that list down to between 5 and 7 finalists by the end of this week. He’s now making phone calls to those finalists and conducting background checks. The expectation is to get 5 finalists in for interviews with the full Town Council and for a meet-and-greet with the community on March 25th. 2 additional candidates will be “on-deck” in case the first five do not make the cut.
A very interesting comment from Hyatt on the show yesterday when he said he called his wife 3 weeks into taking the job 2 years ago and said he thought he may have accepted a job he wasn’t capable of doing. The town was in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Ian, town hall was gone, Fort Myers Beach did not have a finance manager thanks to the way the previous manager ran things, and it was unclear if the staff he was now asked to run was onboard with his philosophy.
Hyatt was the hands down choice of the Town Council two years ago. A big part of why the Town Council chose Hyatt was his experience as the manager when a condo building collapsed in Surfside, Florida in June of 2021. Fort Myers Beach was dealing with its own disaster recovery from Hurricane Ian. Hyatt went on to say that how he operated as the manager back in the early days after being hired was, “I was trying to get a win every day.” Eventually Hyatt made staff moves that led to a team that was given more freedom to do their jobs. They were given a seat at the table at every Town Council meeting and when a question came up from the Town Council about an issue impacting a specific area, that department head stepped up to the mic and answered it. Hyatt created a team that liked to come to work for the town. Now, they face an uncertain future with a new manager coming in. Hyatt said Sunday he’s encouraged them all to give the new manager a chance and when they have an issue to go to the new manager directly and address it.
When he was asked to give potential town manager candidates 3 challenges they’ll face if hired, the first one was traffic. Hyatt also admitted that he doubts that’s a challenge that can even be solved. Traffic, especially during the busy season has always been an issue for Fort Myers Beach. When you add hundreds of contractors trying to rebuild the island, the bridge construction and beach renourishment projects, it adds another layer of traffic to the busy island.
Another challenge Hyatt mentioned was keeping strong relationships with Lee County, State and Federal representatives. Under the previous regime Fort Myers beach had a horrible relationship with Lee County which did not serve the beach well being that Lee County owns the main road on the island and three beach parks. Under Hyatt and this Town Council that relationship has drastically improved.
And, the final challenge Hyatt mentioned for potential candidates was continuing to improve the town’s water towers and storm water system.
Once the community forum to meet the Town Manager candidates is set we’ll share that with everyone and our plan would be to carry that meeting live with hopes of interviewing all 5 finalists during that meeting as we did with the 4 finalists 2 years ago.
The Town Manager salary is about $220,000 per year.
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BTW former Fort Myers Beach town managers also had their department heads at meetings to answer questions so that was not unique to this guy.
And the absence of any coherent process in responding to the errant owners of all that dangerous ruin and ruble in the neighborhoods and along the Boulevard for 29 months was abysmal. So there’s that too. It’s a good bet those 5,000 residents would still have that discount on their their flood insurance with a more aggressive process.
What happened to the assistant they announced they hired?