The City Council is looking for a new city attorney with real estate and development expertise to help oversee economic expansion efforts on 1,100 acres of city-owned land in Tradition Commerce Center.
The deadline to apply for the $150,000-to-$220,000-per-year job passed Monday. The council is scheduled to select the finalists on March 11 and pick the winner after interviews on March 29.
The council started looking for its fifth city attorney in five years in December after Interim City Attorney Jim Stokes concluded he could not show up at City Hall four days per week and maintain his municipal law practice. His duties include serving as Sebastian’s city attorney.
Stokes has been overseeing the legal details involved in the city’s handling of the commerce center land acquired in June 2018 from Tradition Land Co., along with $5 million per year in property taxes and assessments.
“The management of the property until it can be sold and the actual disposition of the land will be complicated,” says a help wanted brochure on the Colin Baenziger & Associates executive recruiting web site. “Overall, it is anticipated the process will take 10 to 15 years.”
The city retained the law firm of Weiss Serota Helfman Cole & Bierman to assist Stokes with the process.
The commerce center, also known as “Tradition Jobs Corridor,” is part of the Southern Grove development of regional impact. The center includes five community development districts, a community redevelopment agency and special assessment district, which add to the legal and financial complexity.
The city is in the process of selling 9.75 acres on Discovery Way to ophthalmic device manufacturer Oculus Surgical and three acres to commercial developer Capital Brands. The city is also negotiating several other potential deals for land in the commerce center.
In addition, the new city attorney will be required to help cope with the fallout of several failed economic development projects, the help wanted brochure says. That includes efforts to sell the former Vaccine Gene Therapy Institute Florida building in Tradition and 20 acres at City Center on U.S. 1 that had been seized by the federal government.
Several City Council members credited Stokes with restoring order to a City Attorney’s Office that had been wracked by scandal and dissension since 2014.
Stokes replaced Reggie Osenton, who resigned in February 2018 after a city investigation found he allowed staff relations to deteriorate and violated city hiring policy by listing “attractive” as a criterion for job candidates.
The council fired Osenton’s predecessor, Pam Booker, in February 2016, citing dissatisfaction with legal strategies and communications.
The tumult started in April 2014 when longtime City Attorney Roger Orr retired after a State Attorney’s Office investigation found he acted as an intermediary between two council members in a Sunshine violation.
The city attorney oversees an office with an annual budget of $2.5 million. It has eight attorneys, five paralegals and a legal secretary.
