Merrett Stierheim: Coral Gables' extra city manager for $50K

When former Coral Gables City Manager Pat Salerno resigned abruptly in April, city commissioners apparently did not have enough confidence in Acting City Manager Carmen Olazabal to leave her alone on the job as the city’s top administrator — even though she got a 20 percent raise to rise to the occasion.

So they hired former Miami-Dade County and City of Miami Manager Merrett Stierheim — who has been a pinch hitter for several cities, including Doral, and even served as a public school superintendent — on an as-needed basis.

He’s a consultant getting paid $150 an hour.

And that means that he’s worked a whopping 155 hours on city business — or almost four entire work weeks. Because, so far, he’s cost the city a little more than $23,000 since May.

Invoices provided by the city show that Stierheim was paid $6,262 on June 5 for services provided in May, $8,150 on July 3 for services provided in June and $8,853.75 three weeks later for services provided from July 7 to July 23.

Ladra didn’t get any invoices for work done in August and September, although City Hall insiders tell me ol’ Merrett has been around. Among the things he’s done is negotiate the contracts with all the labor unions, the budget process and the settlement of the lawsuit on the trolley station development — most of which would have been labor intensive in the past couple months.

Commissioners approved a purchase order in May that allows Stierheim to work until he bills $50,000. How much you wanna bet he’s close to that already?

“He’s been advising on a lot of different matters,” said Commissioner Frank Quesada. “Carmen Olazabal has no experience negotiating with unions and he has a lot. I thought it was a very smart move on her part to bring him in.”

Commissioner Pat Keon nominated Steirheim for the full-time temporary gig while the city searched for a new city manager — a process that has taken longer than expected and now hit a snag with the rejection last week of the first pick — but then backed Olazabal when the assistant manager said she would not apply for the job permanently.

“I think he has made a difference,” Keon said Monday of Stierheim. “He’s done a very good job for the things he was brought in for.”

But maybe now that the contracts are signed and the budget process is through and the lawsuit is settled, the Gables should see less hours billed to them by the parachute city manager du jeur.

Said Keon: “The big issues have been addressed.”

Then again, commissioners may want to increase the original purchase order and keep Stierheim around for the next couple of months of services since they failed to name a new city manager last week in a fiasco that had them withdrawing their offer to one man based on his background search.

Nobody wants to leave Olazabal on her own.

Coral Gables

Merrett Stierheim: Coral Gables’ extra city manager for $50K added by Ladra on September 29, 2014
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