The Commission Whisperer & the Lobbyist
Former City Manager Marlon Brown made sure his City Commission "coach" would be in place long after he left City Hall. Why?
The City Commission is engaged in one of the most important decisions a local government body can make: hiring a new administrator. Former City Manager Marlon Brown announced his retirement last August, and the City Commission is engaged in picking his successor. But you won’t find any information about the selection process on the City of Sarasota website. The lack of information is strange. Who will be influencing the process? Does the public have an opportunity to meet with candidates? Who knows? I also wonder what influence the Sarasota Chamber of Commerce’s new “Director of Governmental Relations” will have on the process. The Chamber’s new Director of Governmental Relations took steps to insure that he has a very helpful ally in place - Commission “coach” Marty Hurwitz.
Former City Manager Marlon Brown began his position as the Chamber’s Director of Governmental Relations in January, just three months after leaving his post as City Manager. You’d think there would be some ethical guardrails precluding a City Manager from accepting a position with a lobbying organization just months after leaving his position. But this is a community where a sitting County Commissioner, Christine Robinson, became the President of the Argus Foundation (another business lobbying group) while she was in office. Residents protested the obvious conflict of interest, but their protests did not move Robinson to relinquish either position. When Brown left City Hall, he mentioned in his farewell comments his appreciation for his frequent coffee meetings with Robinson, where they talked about the direction of the City.
Departing City Manager Marlon Brown shares his thoughts as he says goodbye to the City Commission
Brown and his “Commission Whisperer”
From the beginning of his tenure in 2021, Brown created a City Commission “coaching” position for a consultant to meet regularly with each Commissioner and report back to Brown on these coaching meetings. For a fuller picture on the ethical problems with Brown’s hired agent to influence Commissioners, check out the article I wrote last week, The Tail is Wagging the Dog at City Hall. There is a lot to unpack regarding how consultant Marty Hurwitz’s City Commission “coaching” creates ethical and legal issues, like potential sunshine law violations. Taxpayers have forked over $333,000 (and counting) for this fiasco. Suffice it to say government experts in Florida tell me this arrangement doesn’t exist anywhere else in the state. There’s a reason for that. It’s not supposed to.
There’s more to that story.
Brown announced his retirement on August 15th, 2024, indicating he would leave his position as City Manager on October 15, 2024.
At that time, Brown already had a signed agreement with Marty Hurwitz which contracted for Hurwitz to continue coaching Commissioners and reporting to the City Manager until December 31, 2024. Brown and Hurwitz signed this one-page, back of the envelope agreement on January 3, 2024, to cover the 2024 calendar year, from January 1st to December 31st. So Brown’s “coaching” agent, Mr. Hurwitz, was to remain in place for two and a half months after Brown’s departure.
But Brown’s agreements with Mr. Hurwitz to “coach” and “foster consensus” among the Commission didn’t end there.
A few weeks after he gave notice of his resignation, City Manager Marlon Brown signed yet another agreement with Mr. Hurwitz on August 27, 2024. This agreement covered October 1, 2024 through September 30, 2025, and gave Mr. Hurwitz a pay bump (from $6,875 per month to $7,218.75 per month). Mr. Brown chose to obligate his successor(s) to pay for this unethical, inappropriate and expensive Commission “coaching” service for a year after Brown’s departure.
Like all the other agreements City Manager Brown signed with Mr. Hurwitz, these “contracts” lack the most basic protections for the City of Sarasota. There is no termination clause, and no measureable deliverables. It is devoid of safeguards to ensure compliance with laws, performance expectations, or avoidance of problems of interpretation, misunderstandings, or noncompliance. ALL of Brown’s contracts with Mr. Hurwitz are devoid of these standards. I’ll save the 2022 and 2023 contracts for another time.
Hurwitz’s mission to “foster consensus” among Commissioners using one on one meetings flies in the face of the open government rigors of Florida’s sunshine law. This arrangement - having a Commission coach who meets with Commissioners and reports on these meetings to the City Manager - also sets up an unacceptable power dynamic. The City Manager manages City staff, not the Commission.
Brown is now a lobbyist
In January, the Sarasota Chamber of Commerce announced Brown is their new Director of Governmental Relations. Again, this means that within three months of leaving his role as City Manager, Brown has become a lobbyist for the local Chamber of Commerce. At the state level, government officials are required to wait at least two years before lobbying the government offices where they used to work. State statute permits local governments to pass similar laws. Sounds like a good idea.
Putting a Commission “coach” in place and extending their employment well beyond your departure date could be very helpful for a City Manager turned Chamber of Commerce lobbyist.
It definitely doesn’t smell right.
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Way to go, Cathy! Corruption in broad daylight has become commonplace locally. We’ve seen it in County governments (Manatee and Sarasota) as well as cities like Sarasota and Holmes Beach. It is our duty to use this information to make our voice heard and especially to vote accordingly.
You are a valuable searchlight illuminating the dark corners of local government. It's people like you who really make us great, not those who bluster about it. Keep up the good work.