Since Kerrith Fiddler stepped down as city administrator, not much has been said about Mayor D.C. Reeves’ national search for his replacement until this week.
At his weekly press conference yesterday, the mayor introduced Capt. Tim Kinsella, Jr., USN (Ret), his choice for the position.
- After reviewing Kinsella’s resume, Mayor Reeves said, “Tim will be stepping in to run the day-to-day operations and help free me up to focus more on overall strategic planning, visioning for the city and getting more engaged with our citizens and employees. His skill set will be invaluable for me as mayor, our directors, and the 825 amazing people who work here and make this city go.”
I asked the mayor and the city administrator how the hiring happened.
“I think the stars aligned really with the right time,” Mayor Reeves said. “Our intent was, as I told you guys, to go through a national search. We had gone through just kind of the initial phases, discussing strengths and weaknesses, strengths, I guess what we would want to see from the city administrator, an understanding of employee engagement structure.”
He continued, “And I like to think that I’ve got a pretty good gauge of what my strengths are and what my opportunities for improvement are personally–what do I handle well, and where can my skillset be improved? And certainly, when you think about Tim and all of his experience, his organization, and his structure that’s been built over decades of time, I think that helps fill a need for experience that I have less.
“And so I think it happened relatively quickly. This wasn’t something that was on our radar. Certainly, we wouldn’t even have started down that process if I knew that 30 days ago or 60 days ago that this was a possibility.”
I pressed, “So who called who?”
“Well, you have to understand; Tim and I have known each other for a long time. So this was kind of a conversational thing, an organic thing,” said the mayor. “We talk outside of just what’s going on at his job and at our job. So I think, I guess to answer your question, it was kind of a personal connection at the right time thing. But the city’s the great benefactor of his availability to us.”
I asked Kinsella, “What appealed to you to make the jump (from the University of West Florida to the City of Pensacola)?”
Pointing to Mayor Reeves, he said, “This guy, I think, has had a lot to do with it. The things that our mayor has done to move our city forward. The idea of being part of that and helping to see his vision come to fruition.”
He added, “My loyalty lies with the people of Pensacola, and the best way for me to serve the people of Pensacola is to enact their elected representative’s vision. And I fully believe in our mayor. I fully believe in everything that he’s doing.
“And there was something about it that just spoke to him. When the president asks somebody to serve in his cabinet, the right answer is yes. And when the mayor asked to serve in a role like this to help him move the city forward, there was no other answer but yes.”
Feature Photo Licensed under the Unsplash+ License
