Madam Sunshine already knows how it ends
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida
Madam Sunshine — RTF’s Notary of Inevitable Outcomes — doesn’t predict the future. She reads the pattern. And in Tallahassee’s city manager search, the pattern is already complete.
She has lit her candle. Her notepad is open. Three items are already checked: Divided Board. Lame Duck Timing. Predictable Outcome. She peers into her crystal ball — which, it should be noted, is fully subject to Florida’s public records law — and sees the Tallahassee Capitol dome staring back at her.
“I see a press release,” she says, not looking up. “It uses the words ‘rigorous,’ ‘transparent,’ and ‘the best candidate for Tallahassee’s future.’ I have read this press release before.”
She seems unsurprised. She is always unsurprised.
The setup
City Manager Reese Goad is leaving on September 30. A new commission takes office in November. Rather than pass this decision to the incoming body — the one voters are about to elect in a change election — outgoing Mayor John Dailey has announced that the current commission will conduct a nationwide search and hire before the new commission is seated. His justification: “Collectively, that’s over 65 years of public service.” He did not mention that virtually every significant decision this commission has confronted ended in a 3-2 vote, or that his math includes the two commissioners whose opinions his majority has routinely ignored.
He also left out that those years of experience have presided over the nation’s most expensive airport, a giant tax increase, a high crime rate and stagnant population growth.
Let’s be clear: What Mayor Dailey is proposing is not a national search. It is the performance of one.
Madam Sunshine checks her notepad. All three boxes were already checked. She takes a sip from her mug.
The precedents
History, it turns out, has opinions about what happens next.
Palm Bay, Florida — 2018. The city conducted a genuine national search — 79 applicants, seven finalists, outside candidate hired. His name was Gregg Lynk. In November 2018, a newly elected council member was sworn in and promptly cast the deciding vote to fire him. The vote was 3-2. Lynk’s offense: being hired by the wrong commission.
Portsmouth, Virginia — 2023. City Manager Tonya Chapman was fired by a new council after six months on the job. Six months. A national search. A new council. A firing. The headline wrote itself.
Spokane Valley, Washington — 2016. A new council majority ousted City Manager Mike Jackson despite the mayor acknowledging there was “no malfeasance or incompetence or wrongdoing.” A new majority wanted its own direction. Jackson’s qualifications were never the issue. His hiring commission was.
But wait, there is a different way!
Palm Coast, Florida — the city that said no. Facing the identical situation, Palm Coast looked at the risk and chose to wait. New commission seated. Search conducted. Hire made. No drama. No 3-2 firing on night one.
This is what the search firm said about Palm Coast waiting: “Realistically, most qualified city managers are not going to want to step into that uncertain landscape of who their direct reports are going to be, the five that are going to be sitting at this dais.”
Tallahassee is choosing to be Palm Bay. It has the option to be Palm Coast.
“I see city managers in Ohio and Oregon and places that end in -ville,” Madam Sunshine continues, peering deeper into the glass. “Impressive people. Impressive resumes. I see them reading about Tallahassee. I see Google search results like ‘divided Tallahassee commission’ and ‘Palm Bay city manager fired.’ I see them quietly closing their browsers. I see them returning to their current jobs, where nobody is about to fire them.”
She watches the inbox. It is not filling up the way one might hope.
She does not appear surprised.
Why qualified candidates will pass
Any city manager worth recruiting has a career to protect. They have a family. They have a mortgage. They are not going to relocate to Tallahassee — or even submit an application — knowing that a new commission takes office sixty days after they’re hired, that the hiring body has a 3-2 dysfunction record, and that the precedent in cities exactly like this one is termination with prejudice.
What is left when serious external candidates self-select out? Internal candidates. People who are already here. People who have nothing to lose by applying because their current job exists regardless of the outcome. People, in other words, who were always going to get this job.
What Madam Sunshine sees next is not just a hiring decision. It is a protection mechanism. The bureaucracy protecting itself. The status quo preserving continuity — not because it is working, but because it is comfortable. Red Tape Florida has documented that record: weak job growth, underwhelming economic developmentand mind-boggling permitting policies and practices. This process does not challenge that record. It guarantees it.
“Now the crystal ball gets interesting,” Madam Sunshine says, leaning forward. “I see a search firm. I see marginally qualified external finalists. I see community forums where residents ask thoughtful questions and nothing is decided. And then — oh, here it is — the commission reaches a stunning conclusion.”
She pauses for effect. She doesn’t need to. She has known this part since the beginning.
“The best candidate was here all along!”
Madam Sunshine sets down her mug. She affixes her notarial seal. She blows out the candle.
What should happen instead
There is no emergency here. Goad leaves September 30. The new commission arrives in November. A senior staff member serves in an interim capacity for sixty days. It has been done in cities far larger than Tallahassee. It is not complicated.
The new commission — with a voter mandate and at least the possibility of a more collegial majority — deserves to choose the person who will report to them. That is not a radical idea. It is what Palm Coast did. It is what good governance looks like.
If Madam Sunshine is indeed clairvoyant. If a “national search” doesn’t find out-of-market candidates worthy of leading the capital city of the nation’s third largest state. If the disingenuous fallback is an internal candidate …
… then you won’t need a crystal ball to know what has happened:
Tallahassee’s insiders are protecting an embarrassing status quo by stacking the Tarot card deck.