City Council votes to hire David Miguet as city attorney

City Council votes to hire

David Miguet as city attorney

BY TERRY SCHMIDA

The City Council voted July 14 to hire David Migut to head up its first ever in-house legal department. The decision to bring Migut aboard was taken by secret ballot by the four council members and Mayor Chris Bull, following a day of interviews with Miguet and his closest competitor, Jim Minix.

A third finalist for the job, Maura Kiefer, bowed out prior to the meeting day.

The winning candidate has practiced law in St. Johns County, south of Jacksonville, since 2011. Before that, Migut served as the assistant city attorney for the City of Fort Myers, between April 2002 and June 2011. He holds a law degree from the University of Florida.

Migut and Minix were among 15 applicants for the position, and survived a 5 person short-list process headed up by a volunteer committee including the city’s current council, Dirk Smits of Vernis & Bowling, of Islamorada.

Marathon decided to consolidate its legal needs in-house, following 16 years of outsourcing to private firms. One of those companies, GrayRobinson, bailed on the city after a billing dispute.

Both Migut and Minix received praise from the council for their responses during a 30 minute interview process, with each council member, and Bull.

Smits himself lauded the pair, saying “I think you have two great candidates in front of you to pick from.”

The council members then repeated some of their queries for the benefit of the public, ahead of the vote.

Councilman Dan Zieg wanted to know how soon Migut would be able to start, and was told that he could be available on three weeks’ notice. Migut’s Key West-born wife Shannon is a teacher, whom he said, would be seeking employment with the School District. The couple have a school-age daughter, Chloe.

Zieg’s colleague Bill Kelly then asked Migut about his experience with hurricanes.

The candidate replied that he had been in Fort Myers during Hurricane Charley, in 2004 and “from a legal perspective . . . learned on the fly . . . got some emergency proclamations drafted . . . curfews.”

During Wilma, the following year, Migut said, he was able to help his employers to be “even better prepared for that one.”

Mayor Bull reminded Migut that he was being tasked with building a legal department from scratch, and asked him if he felt up to the challenge. Migut said he would be able to “work within [the] framework” of the $395,000 being budgeted for the department’s first year.

“We might even be able to shave that a little bit,” he added.

Just before the final vote was cast, the board-certified Migut said that he was “Excited about the possibility” of taking the job.

“I think this will a great place for us,” he asserted.

Also at the meeting, the council discussed the filling of the city manager position, and decided upon holding Special Call meetings, at 3 p.m. July 23 and 24 at the Marathon firehouse, to narrow down the list. In all, 50 candidates applied for the job.