City Manager Chris Lagerbloom will quit his $293,000-a-year job to take a job as city administrator in Alpharetta, Georgia — where he served as an officer and police captain early on in his career.
Lagerbloom, who has been top boss at Fort Lauderdale City Hall since January 2019, notified the entire commission by text Tuesday morning. His last day as city manager will be July 22.
“Returning to Georgia will allow me to continue advancing my lifelong passion for serving the public, it will allow me to return to the city where that passion for service began almost thirty years ago, and it will allow me to return home and be closer to immediate and extended family,” Lagerbloom wrote.
Lagerbloom, 47, also explained why he chose to share the news via text.
“Let me start by recognizing this communication format is less than perfect,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, on most days, our rumor mill significantly outpaces me, and this is at least simultaneous and timely. I sincerely want each of you to receive this message at exactly the same moment, and I know of no other way to accomplish that.”
Lagerbloom could not be reached for comment.
Since taking over as city manager, he has earned high praise from his five commission bosses.
“I think we’re very lucky to have him,” Vice Mayor Ben Sorensen said during one recent annual review. “I think he hires really good people. He cares about our city, he cares about our people. He deals with conflict well. And I think we should give him a raise.”
Not all of Lagerbloom’s decisions have been without controversy.
It was Lagerbloom who hired Larry Scirotto in August 2021 as Fort Lauderdale’s first gay and biracial police chief. And it was Lagerbloom who fired him six months later amid allegations he promoted minority officers based on skin color.
Scirotto has argued he was wrongly terminated for pushing diversity in the ranks.
Lagerbloom has since walked a tightrope, stating that the officers Scirotto promoted were qualified.
As city manager, Lagerbloom has frequently found himself in the hot seat, putting out fires. He was forced to find a fix when Fort Lauderdale was hit with a series of record-breaking sewage spills in late 2019 into early 2020. Not long after, he was dealing with another kind of threat: The coronavirus pandemic.
Lagerbloom has had a front-row seat to other dramatic scenes, including the commission’s recent late-night firing of John Herbst, Fort Lauderdale’s longtime city auditor. The commission fired Herbst in February, saying it had lost confidence in him after learning he was investigating the police chief after getting an anonymous tip.
In his text to the commission on Tuesday, Lagerbloom said his decision did not come easily.
“Over the last several months, I have come to a very personal, very difficult and very thought through career decision,” he wrote.
Lagerbloom told commissioners he, his wife and son had “fallen in love” with Fort Lauderdale.
“For the past six and a half years, Fort Lauderdale has been our home,” he wrote. “It will continue to be our ‘home away from home’ and we plan to return often.”
Some were stunned by the news, including the commission.
“We are disappointed but we respect his decision,” Mayor Dean Trantalis said of Lagerbloom. “As the city manager, he’s like the conductor of the orchestra. But the music will keep on playing.”
The mayor and commissioners will likely name an interim city manager in the coming days. They have two assistant city managers to choose from: Tarlesha Smith and Greg Chavarria.
The commission may decide to hire from within or do a local or nationwide search for a new city manager, the mayor said.
“There’s a lot of talent out there,” Trantalis said. “We feel we will be able to find the right person very quickly and keep up the momentum this commission started when it was elected five years ago.”
Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com or on Twitter @Susannah_Bryan
