Delray Beach has a new City Manager

Came across this story about the new city manager chosen to lead Delray Beach, Mr. Don Cooper. This story comes from BocaMag where Randy Schultz now contributes to their online blog. Mr. Schultz was the former managing editor for the Palm Beach Post if you recall. The story by Mr. Schultz purports to be a news item but quickly you come to learn the story relies heavily on opinion with a clear bias and slant. Mr. Schultz still has his feet firmly in the opinion business it seems but I did manage to find these two excerpts newsworthy. 

From five finalists, the commission unanimously chose Don Cooper, going with experience over potential. Cooper ran Port St. Lucie for nearly 20 years and was manager of two small cities in Colorado before that. He has more experience than even Terry Stewart, who has been Delray’s interim city manager since June. Neither Assistant Broward County Administrator Roberto Hernandez nor Assistant Boca Raton City Manager Mike Woika has had a top job, however qualified they might be. The lone out-of-state candidate, Andrea McCue, had no Florida experience.

[Later in article...]

Of his approach to management, Cooper wrote that his staff in Port St. Lucie, if asked, “would say I was demanding, supportive, and fair. I feel it is extremely important to create an environment where the staff and the policymakers are challenged and achieve the goals they set for themselves. That they constantly strive to be better and make their community and the organization better. My team members would say I’m protective, blunt, politically aware but not political and maybe push too hard to achieve the goals of the organization.”
It does remain for Delray Beach to work out a contract with Cooper. He noted that he made $161,000 in Port St. Lucie, though that was four years ago. The target salary for the Delray Beach job is $165,000. Cooper currently works in Port St. Lucie for the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies as chief financial officer.