City council makes plan as Zimomra set for retirement
The Sanibel City Council held a special meeting last week to discuss and decide its next steps following an announcement from the city manager of her intention to retire in September.
On May 5, City Manager Judie Zimomra provided the following email to council:
“Please be advised that at this time it is my plan to retire from my position as City Manager of Sanibel on Friday, September 24, 2021. The reason for providing a significantly longer lead time than contractually required is to provide City Council time to adequately implement a succession plan.
“I fully understand it is City Council’s sole decision to select the next City Manager. I am available to discuss my personal recommendations that City Council may choose to take into consideration as Council proceeds through this transition.”
During the May 11 special meeting, council began transition planning for the city manager’s office. Before diving into the conversation, each council member shared their thoughts and kind words.
“The city manager will end her tenure after a 20-year incomparable commitment,” Mayor Holly Smith said. “We’ve been extremely fortunate for the dedication she has exhibited.”
“Our community is unique, it’s special in so many ways, and we’ve had a city manager who’s worked hard to protect what our founding fathers had the vision for. To say Judie is a celebrity here is an understatement,” she added, expressing her greatest respect and admiration for Zimomra and her work.
“It comes with mixed emotions,” Vice Mayor Richard Johnson said of the retirement news. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you’ve done for the city of Sanibel over the last 20 years and what you’ve done for us and supporting us as a council, so thank you for that.”
“Judie, thank you for all your service to the city of Sanibel,” Councilmember Mike Miller said, adding that over the years of living on the island he has worked with Zimomra in different capacities. “You’ve always been very accepting of citizen input. Your work habitats are legendary. You are the very role model of professionalism, so thank you for everything that you’ve done.”
Councilmember John Henshaw explained that he has only been working with Zimomra since joining the council two months ago, but that the city manager has been excellent to work with every day.
“I, too, believe that your shoes are going to be very, very very difficult to fill,” he said.
Councilmember Dr. Scott Crater echoed the previous comments.
“Everybody in this room and everybody listening at home knows that they’re going to be some very big shoes to fill, so this is going to be a difficult process and decision because it’s going to be hard to replace our current city manager,” he said. “It’s bittersweet because we’re going to miss her dedication to the job, which has been unsurpassed. But at the same time, everybody needs to do what’s right for them.”
In deciding the council’s next steps, Smith opened the discussion by asking the other council members whether the city should consider only in-house applicants or open the process to external candidates.
“We’re here tonight as we look toward the next steps in choosing our next city manager,” she said. “This will be the most important decision that we will make from this dais.”
All four voiced support for looking at both internal and external candidates.
“I think we need to look both within, as well as outside,” Johnson said. “I think we have a responsibility as a council to make sure we select the next city manager and we select the absolutely best city manager that we can.”
Smith noted that the city would not have found Zimomra in Ohio without an external search.
“We absolutely owe it to this island, to the citizens and to the future of this island to make sure that we have a search that includes local, regional and national,” she said. “We have to be dedicated to making sure that we are picking the best person for that position. Wherever they come in, they come in. Inside, outside, it will be the best candidate.”
Smith explained that she had done some preliminary work to identify possible firms to work with by speaking with the cities of Cape Coral and Fort Myers, which recently hired new city managers, and by talking with the Florida League of Cities, which referred her to additional municipalities to examine.
She reported that the names of three firms kept rising to the top: The Mercer Group Florida; Colin Baenziger & Associates, which the Cape has used twice; and Strategic Government Resources.
During discussion, some council members shared that they also would like to do their research and provide the names of any additional firms for consideration. They agreed that the city attorney should directly solicit the first three firms, as well as any others provided, to present at the meeting in June.
A motion to direct staff to follow through with the plan as discussed passed 5-0.
According to her biography from the city, Zimomra has served as city manager since 2001.
Among the challenges she has dealt with during her tenure are the recoveries from Hurricanes Charley and Wilma. Her accomplishments include reducing the tax burden on property owners by obtaining over $35.8 million in grants in the past 10 years, as well as developing a user fee system to recover costs for municipal services. The city also completed construction of a $14.5 million recreation center, and Zimomra oversaw the completion of a $73 million sanitary sewer and effluent reuse system.
During her tenure, the city has received two Program Excellence Awards from the Florida City and County Managers Association for the construction of the Sanibel Recreation Center and the restoration of the Historical Old Schoolhouse at the Sanibel Historical Museum and Village. In 2012, Zimomra was elected to the association’s board of directors to serve a two-year term as the District VI director.
She holds a Juris Doctorate from Capital University and a master’s degree in public administration from Ohio State University, with a specialization in fiscal administration. Zimomra is an alumnus of Harvard University JFK School of Government Program for Senior State and Local Officials. She has served as an adjunct professor at Cleveland State University, where she taught graduates in public administration, and an adjunct professor at Edison State College’s School of Law and Public Safety.
Over the years, Zimomra has been honored with the Paul Harris “Citizen of the Year” award by the Sanibel-Captiva Rotary Club, the “Citizen of the Year” award by the Sanibel & Captiva Islands Chamber of Commerce, and the “Citizen of the Year” award by the Committee of the Islands.
To reach TIFFANY REPECKI / trepecki@breezenewspapers.com, please email