By Red Tape Florida
Four months ago, Madam Sunshine looked into her crystal ball. Today, the City Commission made her prediction official.
TALLAHASSEE — We hereby inform you that Madam Sunshine remains undefeated.
Four months ago, Red Tape Florida’s Notary of Inevitable Outcomes peered into her crystal ball and told readers how Tallahassee’s national search for a new city manager would end.
An internal candidate would get the job.
More specifically, Deputy City Manager Karen Jumonville.
On Wednesday, after a $30,000 national search, 37 applicants, a search firm, candidate screening, interviews, a public meet-and-greet and presentations before the City Commission, commissioners reached their decision.
Karen Jumonville.
Imagine our surprise.
Actually, don’t.
We’ve waited four months for this, so we’re going to take a thoroughly obnoxious victory lap. But the point of our May story wasn’t simply to play Carnac the Magnificent and guess the winner.
It was that Tallahassee never should have rushed this decision in the first place.
Three of the five seats on the Tallahassee City Commission are on the ballot this year. Voters are in the middle of deciding who they want running City Hall, and the new commission takes office after the November election.
Yet the current commission decided it needed to choose the next city manager before voters finish choosing the next commission.
We called it “Lame Duck Timing” in May. We wrote that rather than hand the decision to the incoming commission — “the one voters are about to elect in a change election” — the current commission was determined to conduct a nationwide search and make the hire first.
That wasn’t just a philosophical objection. We argued that the timing would damage the search itself.
Why would an accomplished city manager somewhere else uproot a family, leave a secure job and move to Tallahassee knowing that the commission doing the hiring could look very different almost immediately afterward?
Four months later, we don’t need Madam Sunshine to answer that question.
The City’s own search consultant did it for us.
Renée Narloch told commissioners, during a process update, that some people her firm approached declined to apply, and that one of the reasons was the pending election and uncertainty about who would be sitting on the commission. Another reason: a belief that an internal candidate would prevail.
In other words: The exact problem Madam Sunshine warned about actually happened.
Here is exactly how she saw it in her all-knowing sphere:
“I see city managers in Ohio and Oregon and places that end in -ville. 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.
By the way, please don’t fall for the idea that this was some sort of grass roots process.
At Wednesday’s meeting where the commission voted to move forward with an offer to Jumonville, Commissioner Jack Porter also questioned just how much public involvement the process actually produced. She said Tuesday’s community gathering appeared to be “95 percent” City staff and noted that, even as of the night before, it wasn’t clear to the public that Wednesday morning’s meeting — where commissioners would actually make their choice — would include an opportunity for public comment.
That’s a curious way to wrap up what the City had advertised as a process designed to give the public meaningful opportunities to engage with the finalists.
And here’s where Madam Sunshine really earns her turban.
We wrote in May:
“What is left when serious external candidates self-select out? Internal candidates.”
And then:
“The best candidate was here all along!”
That was May 5.
Today, the best candidate was here all along.
To be clear, this isn’t an argument that Jumonville is unqualified. She’s spent years in Tallahassee city government and has served as deputy city manager. If a commission elected with a fresh mandate considered a strong national field and concluded that Jumonville was the best person to lead the city, so be it.
The problem is the process that produced her.
There was no emergency requiring this commission to make a permanent hire before the election. Reese Goad is leaving Sept. 30. Tallahassee has multiple senior administrators capable of keeping the lights on for a matter of weeks. In May, we suggested appointing an interim manager and letting the newly elected commission make one of the most consequential decisions it will face.
Instead, City Hall spent $30,000 to launch a nationwide search during an election, potential candidates apparently stayed away because of that election, and the outgoing commission rushed to make the selection anyway.
And after all that?
They hired the deputy city manager who was already sitting inside City Hall.
As we wrote then: “Let’s be clear: What Mayor Dailey is proposing is not a national search. It is the performance of one.”
So, yes, we’re going to enjoy this one.
Madam Sunshine: 1.
Nationwide search: 0.
INVOICE
Client: City of Tallahassee
Service: Identification of next city manager
Prediction delivered: May 5, 2026
Result: Karen Jumonville
National search fee: $30,000
Madam Sunshine fee: $0
Potential taxpayer savings: $30,000
Payment is due upon receipt.
Madam Sunshine accepts cash, check or public records produced without a $480 special service charge.