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Consultant did sloppy job, some say

Commissioners are happy with their choice for the county's top post, but some take issue with the consultant whom they say omitted vital facts.

By CATHERINE E. SHOICHET
Published June 28, 2006

After paying a consultant $20,000 to help find a new county administrator, commissioners figured they knew everything they needed to about their choice.

But now, several unhappy commissioners say consultant Tom Freijo never told them Charles Saddler had been fired from a county administrator job in Washington state in 2002.

And although it appears Saddler was caught in a political tug of war when he was dismissed, Citrus commissioners say they feel shortchanged by their consultant.

"Mr. Saddler's not a bad man. He did not do anything criminally wrong or do anything wrong. He's no different than anybody else that's in the field of administration," commission chairman Gary Bartell told his fellow commissioners Monday evening. "He got caught up in a political situation, but we should have been told some of this prior to our selection, not found out afterward."

The information came to light in a background check of Saddler performed by Human Resources director Randy Petitt on Wednesday.

In contract negotiation conversations with Bartell and County Attorney Robert "Butch" Battista last week, Saddler said he had disclosed information about his firing to Freijo and "he was surprised that Dr. Freijo did not convey that" to commissioners, Bartell said.

Freijo did not return repeated calls requesting comment this week.

According to meeting minutes and news reports published around the time of Saddler's ouster, controversy over a possible $1-million budget shortfall in Jefferson County sparked his firing.

Saddler asked elected officers like the sheriff and court officials to cut their budgets, and the requests didn't sit well.

Saddler provided Petitt with a letter from the former chairman of the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners explaining his firing.

Saddler said with a shortfall on the horizon, commissioners asked him to start cutting line items from constitutional officers' budgets.

"The constitutional officers came unglued and I became the focus," Saddler said.

He said he did not agree with the policy guidelines they set and made his disagreement clear.

In a letter dated March 26, 2002, Jefferson County Commissioner Richard Wojt wrote that Saddler "did as we instructed him."

"Unfortunately, the Board underestimated the political opposition our approach would encounter from the other independently elected officials of the County. In an effort to mend the rift we created, we found it necessary to exercise the severance provision of Mr. Saddler's contract," Wojt wrote.

Former Jefferson County Commissioner Dan Titterness, who voted to fire Saddler in 2002, said in an interview Tuesday that the administrator "got a raw deal" as a result of political tension.

"His leaving here was a product of circumstances beyond his control," Titterness said. "There was a lot of political pressure, but he was doing an excellent job, and his leaving here did not have to do with his job performance . ... I would hire him back in a heartbeat. He was a really sharp individual, and he knows how to get to the root of the problem and deal with it."

Petitt said his background checks last week revealed that there was "no malfeasance, no illegality and no mismanagement" surrounding Saddler's career.

Bartell said he didn't ask Saddler about his departure from Jefferson County during the interview process.

"I would have to admit I was remiss. Other than one or two candidates, I really didn't talk about their departure from their former jobs," he said. "We were told that's what Dr. Freijo was doing, and I didn't do it."

Bartell said negotiations with Saddler were proceeding, but he said he was "extremely disappointed in the consultant."

"I'm not trying to degrade Dr. Freijo, but this is serious," Bartell said. "Had we known some of these things maybe we all would have reacted differently.

"Let's not put a cloud over Mr. Saddler before he gets here, but it was a good learning experience, and Saddler did ... disclose every single thing," Bartell said.

Commissioner Jim Fowler said he wanted to be sure that the communication problems were between the county and the consultant, not between Saddler and the county.

"The reason we got rid of our former county administrator was a perceived lack of communication, and we certainly didn't want to start off on the wrong foot with this one," he said.

Saddler said he planned to have a good relationship with elected officers in Citrus, and added that negotiations were going well so far.

"We'll find a way of at least getting a happy medium," he said.

He said he came to Citrus with his family over the weekend to start looking for a house.

Fowler said if negotiations with Saddler fail, Assistant County Administrator Tom Dick would be the obvious choice for the county's top administrative job.

"I wouldn't hesitate a moment from recommending Mr. Dick as administrator," he said.

On April 11, just two weeks after firing Richard Wesch from the county's top administrative job in a 3-2 vote, commissioners asked Petitt to begin negotiations with a private consulting company to help select the next county administrator. That would keep local politics out of the process, they said.

Petitt provided them with a list of consultants.

They decided unanimously to go with The Mercer Group Inc. of Winter Haven because of the company's Florida experience.

Consultant Freijo addressed commissioners for the first time April 25, outlining a schedule for the search. He returned May 23 and helped them pare down the list of possible semifinalists from 10 to eight.

On June 9, he returned and gave commissioners bound notebooks with information about the six finalists.

During each visit, commissioners praised Freijo for the work he had done - and that included assembling a booklet about each of the finalists, introduced by a cover sheet summarizing background checks.

Each sheet said: "Internet/newspaper checks revealed nothing questionable."

Times researcher Angie Drobnic Holan contributed to this report. Catherine E. Shoichet can be reached at cshoichet@sptimes.com or 860-7309.

[Last modified June 28, 2006, 07:55:03]