LESLIE WILLIAMS / Staff

To keep track of council votes for each applicant, Mercer Group Vice President Tom Freijo (pictured) kept tally on an easel pad Monday night. Three candidates, Richard Gestrich, Mark Lauzier and Dale Sugerman, received unanimous votes of interest from the council. Freijo will now conduct background checks to further narrow the field of 11 to five or six. Leslie Williams/Staff

Interim city manager Tony Shoemaker

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Forget dipping their toes into the water to start, Marco Island’s newly sworn in City Council members were thrown into the thick of things Monday night.

They found themselves staring a huge task in the face: considering a list of 15 city manager candidates and paring it down to eight or nine.

Newly sworn in councilor Frank Recker expressed discomfort with sorting through resumes without being able to see the candidates on video or in person, but search director Tom Freijo convinced the council to move forward.

"When you start the search, there’s always a pool of people that are available," Freijo said. "We’ve got some very good people, and we’re not going to be the only ones that are interested in them."

Freijo, vice president of the Mercer Group, directed a similar search for the City of Naples in 2007, helping the city select former Marco City Manager Bill Moss. By not striking now, Freijo said, Marco Island could stand to lose some of its top candidates to other jobs.

"To the degree that we start changing things, I guarantee that we’re going to end up with a less qualified candidate pool."

Thus, council delved into an energetic discussion of the applicants, critically eyeing a candidate’s experience — or lack thereof — in Florida or other coastal cities and pressing Freijo on each man’s ability to hold up under pressure. In some cases, typographical errors in resumes were even raised as a disconcerting details.

"It shows a tremendous lack of attention to detail," new Councilor Jerry Gibson said of the resume for Michael Copp, who was not selected in the narrowing process.

By way of votes from each councilor for the top eight to nine candidates, the council narrowed the list to 11: Donald Crawford, Richard Finn, John Fischbach, Steve Garman, Richard Gestrich, James Hock, Mark Lauzier, James Malloy, Jeffrey Muzzy, Michael Stampfler, Dale Sugerman and Steven Thompson.

Only one, Stampfler, was an applicant to the city of Naples when the search was conducted in the city in 2007. He did not make the Naples City Council’s short list of 10 candidates at the time.

Of the candidates selected, most had between four and seven votes. The exceptions were Muzzy and Malloy, both of whom came highly recommended by Freijo. Muzzy has been an applicant through searches conducted by Freijo in the past, and expressed high regard for him.

"I was extremely impressed with Jeff Muzzy, not only with his background materials, but with meeting him," Freijo said. "He has a lot of experience with the electric utility arena."

Malloy has extensive experience with utilities as well, a point of interest for the council. He is currently city manager in Sturbridge, Mass., which Freijo said Malloy described as "an upscale community."

"He wants to move from a nice community to a nice community," Freijo said.

Three candidates received unanimous votes of interest from the council: Richard Gestrich, Mark Lauzier and Dale Sugerman. All three have experience in Florida cities. Gestrich had a brief stint as town manager in Jupiter Island; Lauzier most recently served as manager of Parkland for three years and assistant manager of Pompano Beach for nine years; and Sugerman is current town manager for Highland Beach.

Now that Freijo has received a slimmer list, he will conduct more extensive background checks on the 11 applicants, eventually bringing a list of five to six before the council to interview in person.

Council requested that, in the absence of serious infractions in the applicants’ histories — what Freijo called "the kiss of death" — he would not unduly trim a candidate from the list.

"If you’ve done your checks and there are still eight, are you going to do my job and select two to get ride of?" asked Gibson.

Freijo explained that the background checks usually weed a few candidates out by way of illegal activities, like frequent drunk driving arrests, and dishonest interview answers. He said it is not unusual to catch a candidate lying about having been fired from a position or suing a former employer.

Freijo is expected to deliver the shorter list with an interview guide to the council at the next meeting, slated for April 7.