By Pam Nicholls, GSAC Board Member
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Deputy City Manager Gary Young was already planning his retirement when Jay Boodheshwar announced his departure from the City Manager’s job in December. Two months later, Young, a 40-year public service veteran, was sworn in with the unanimous support of Council, postponing his leap to greener pastures and committing to a three-year term as City Manager.

“I had already written my resignation letter,” Young says.

“My plan was to finish up next April which would have given me 15 months to bake out my finance department.”

While Boodheshwar’s decision to leave civil service for the private sector thwarted Young’s retirement it also presented an opportunity. As CFO Young was already involved in the City’s most significant capital projects and had been keeper of the purse strings for nigh on a decade. He had also been a mainstay while five City Managers came and went.

“I figured I can do 36 months and finish the major lifts the city has plus and primarily, provide some stability for staff,” says Young. Taking the promotion “seemed like a natural fit. It made sense.”

Those major lifts include multimillion dollar projects like the stormwater beach outfall project and the re-building of Naples Pier and the 30 beach entrances damaged by Hurricanes Ian, Helene and Milton. “My knowledge of those projects and all the processes put me in a good position to bring them to a close.”

He had also contributed to the resolution of lengthy contract negotiations with Police and Fire unions which thankfully have now come ostensibly to a close.

“We had a bit of catching up to do but we were focused on retention and being competitive in the marketplace and I think

that has been accomplished with the new contracts now in place through September 2027.”

Thanks to unprecedented growth in the tax base and to his fiscal acumen, the City finds itself on solid financial footing with a General Fund unrestricted fund balance of $26.5m – in spite of absorbing the costs of three hurricanes. The General Fund pays for primary services like police, fire, governmental infrastructure and community services.

“Of course, we are not immune to a downturn which I remind council every year during budget season,” says Young. “Hedging against that by providing stable fund balances and not reaching too far with those fund balances is the safe fiscal conservative approach while trying to get as much done for the constituents as you can.”

He points out that having substantial reserves is one thing but there are also substantial capital investments that need to be made in the community, particularly in terms of resiliency and hardening the community against the challenges of climate change.

As an example, he cites the $100m stormwater outfall project which had been under design for a decade and is currently underway to improve water quality and provide residents with better flood protection.

“We utilized all resources available to us and yet we still had to issue bonds for $27m and raise stormwater rates by 40% to get to that project.”

There’s much more to do on the horizon in terms of resiliency and around $600m to find to correct the deficiencies in the city’s aging stormwater system.

Young is waiting on the implementation plan for the Multi basin assessment study so he can start planning short term, medium term and long term funding solutions to protect vulnerable areas and critical infrastructure from both surges and heavy rainfall.

He’s also working closely with his first hire, Director of Critical Infrastructure Dr. George Yilmaz, and Bob Middleton, Public Works Director, on developing an overall resiliency masterplan. “George has come from the County and is very familiar with all manner of resiliency measures being taken county and statewide.  If we plan on leveraging both county and state resources to assist us then fostering relationships now should bode well for us in the future,” says Young.

“I want to come back in the fall with a multi-year resiliency masterplan which will address flooding, protect people, property, critical infrastructure and city assets. “We need to remain operational; we need to remain open in an emergency to respond to those in difficulty,” he insists.

“Everyone is still reeling emotionally and economically from the last three hurricanes. If I can provide stability for staff by having a City Manager committed for a period of time; if I can get contracts across the finish line; if I can finalize major projects that were at the drawing board or underway or just beginning as part of a resiliency masterplan; If I can accomplish those things in three years I will have done what I set out to do.”