STEVE REID
Editor & Publisher
sreid@lbknews.com
The Sarasota City Commission unanimously appointed former Longboat Key Town Manager Dave Bullock as its next interim city manager at a special meeting last week. Bullock will replace former city public works director Doug Jeffcoat, who has held the role since former city manager Marlon Brown’s retirement last October.
Bullock starts May 27 and told the commissioners that he will be out of the office for two weeks “in the very beginning of June,” because of previous commitments. He will return to the office on June 16.
The agreement that the City Commission approved on May 20 calls for Bullock to receive an annual salary of $228,000.
Bullock told the commissioners that he served on the Sarasota County Government staff from 1994 to 2011as deputy county administrator for the majority of that time in which he dealt with all of the county operations. He specifically oversaw the budget development during his last 10 years with the county and helped run an operation of 2,300 employees serving the overall population, which is over 450,000.
In 2011, Bullock was hired as the Town Manager of the Town of Longboat Key where he remained in that position until 2018 when he retired.
In his six years as manager of Longboat Key, Bullock made a strong and lasting impression on residents, the Town Commission and his fellow staff.
“I agreed to three years, and it ended up being six,” said Bullock who described working with the commission and residents as a privilege.
Bullock said when he retired from Longboat, “I love because wherever I go on Longboat Key, I’m never the smartest person in the room.”
In 2019, Bullock was named the CEO of the Economic Development Corp. of Sarasota County — just for a three-month period.”
Bullock’s tenure is uncertain, though a typical city manager search takes anywhere from four to six months.
Jeffcoat will return to his public works role and assist with the city manager transition. Though he was set to retire June 1, Jeffcoat indicated he’d stay through September’s budget hearings.
Bullock’s appointment comes a week after the commission voted to reboot the troubled search to replace Brown, which faltered as a result of a communication breakdown between the commission and the first executive search firm it brought on to recruit candidates.
