Former Escambia County Administrator Randy Oliver has died suddenly at his Pensacola home, just weeks after retiring as the administrator for Citrus County.
His engineering and accounting backgrounds were a good fit for Escambia County that was recovering from the BP oil disaster, real estate market collapse and shrinking revenues. He was a professional administrator, not a fishing, hunting or golfing buddy of the developers and county vendors.
Oliver was fired by then-Commissioners Gene Valentino, Wilson Robertson and Kevin White in October 2021 before Commissioners Steven Barry and Lumon May took office. Oliver had one year remaining on his contract, but Valentino and Robertson wanted George Touart to return as administrator. The rumor was White had been promised a job by a local contractor but the job materialized after he left office. Read more.
Oliver worked as a consultant for a couple years before being hired by Citrus County in 2015. He served as their county administrator from 2015 until retiring Nov. 8, 2022.
Upon hearing the news, former Citrius County Commissioner Scott Carnahan told the Chronicle his heart just sank.
“It’s very hard to process,” said Carnahan, who was part of the Board that hired Oliver. “I had a close relationship with Randy. I don’t have any words to describe it. I don’t. He was supposed to be living his retirement. It’s devastating.”
Carnahan said Oliver’s legacy will go down as being the best county administrator that Citrus County has ever had.
“He took Citrus County, financially, to whole other level,” Carnahan said. “There’s huge, huge shoes to fill. Randy gave it his all. Randy taught me a lot. His legacy as far as I’m concerned, is the best administrator Citrus County has ever hired.”