County picks top candidate for administrator’s job
By SUZETTE PORTER
Article published on Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2008  |
CLEARWATER – The Board of Pinellas County Commissioners directed staff on Aug. 5 to begin negotiations with its top pick for the job of county administrator.
The board chose Robert S. LaSala from a field of three remaining candidates.
The commissioners are expected to meet with LaSala in September for final job negotiations. If all goes according to plan, he would start working with Interim County Administrator Fred Marquis in October and take over the job in November.
According to a schedule approved by the commissioners, the new county administrator would conduct his first board meeting on Nov. 18, the same date that newly elected commissioners would be sworn in and elections held for new BCC officers.
According to LaSala’s resume, he is no stranger to Pinellas County, having served as chief assistant county administrator from 1980-1989 and assistant county administrator from 1979-1980.
He is currently an independent consultant in Lancaster, Calif., working on assignments ranging from information systems solutions project management, project analysis and research and analysis of new business development in the local government marketplace
LaSala has “34 years of city and county management experience coupled with a broad range of authority, responsibility and innovation in the overall management of local government services,” according to his general background information.
Among his major accomplishments, he lists results and performance based budgeting, growth management, change management, cost control and performance enhancement and labor and management relations.
He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history in 1971 from LeMoyne College in Syracuse, N.Y. He received his masters of public administration from Syracuse University, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in 1976.
He started off his career as the director of Children’s Programs in Huntington Family Center in Syracuse in 1971 and worked as program coordinator for the Model Cities Agency and Department of Parks and Recreation from 1972 to 1974.
His five-page resume includes government jobs in Jersey City, N.J., Niagara Falls, N.Y., Baca Raton, Coral Spring, Sarasota County, Sunnyvale, Calif., and Lancaster, Calif., where he served as city manager from 2005 to 2008.
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Article published on Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2008
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