Administrator's son may be deployed to Middle East | 4/9/2026

A county administrator and his wife are forced to reckon with the prospect that their son may be deployed to the Middle East during the Iran conflict. A text gaffe continues to haunt a city manager and there are questions as to whether she can survive. A new city manager in Florida is looking for a deputy city manager — but I think the job should be avoided because the city is a dumpster fire.

All that and more news after the job postings.

It is free to post all of your senior and executive level recruitments over at the AAME job board. If you would like to include them in this newsletter, select the $199 option.

Roanoke County Administrator Richard Caywood raised a badass. And while he is incredibly proud of his son — it does not come without its angst and trepidation. You see, 26-year-old Andrew is a West Point graduate who serves as a First Lieutenant with the 82nd Airborne Division.

And word has come down that 1,000 members of the division are being sent to the Middle East as the Iran conflict rages on. When you read the article you will learn a couple of fascinating things about Andrew’s wife, the equipment he uses during warfighting, and how there is a connection to his dad.

May all our brave men and women return home to their loved ones and grateful nation, safely. Sending thoughts and prayers your way, Richard.

Coweta residents have the swagger of Mike Tyson in his prime after defeating a data center project. Now, they have blood in their eyes and have trained their sights on city manager Julie Casteen. They are calling upon their city manager to resign or be terminated.

You may recall in a previous issue of the newsletter that Casteen committed the faux pas of denigrating some residents who were critics of the data center by implying that they weren’t too smart and would never accept change. Hey — we all know that each community has its fair share of idiots. You just can’t say it or type it!

Momentum, or the “Big Mo”, can be an incredibly powerful and destructive force depending upon what side of the tide you are on. Casteen is fighting that tide now and it remains to be seen if her council can withstand the barrage of citizen complaints.

Last meeting’s public comment period was ugly. One article stated that Casteen “sat and listened as speaker after speaker read her the riot act.”

I have no animus towards newly hired Palm Coast City Manager Mike McGlothlin and I do not wish to intentionally cause him harm or difficulty. But, I consider it my moral obligation to call a spade, a spade — or in this case — a turd, a turd.

He is looking for “dynamic leader” to assume the deputy city manager role. But Palm Coast is where city management careers go to die because they have an elected body comprised of some individuals who are assholes.

Matt Morton tapped out a few years back and left the business entirely before returning recently to lead another community after a stint in the private sector. He was replaced by Denise Bevan who had been with the organization since 2007 on a unanimous vote and then fired about a year into her city manager tenure. She went into the private sector to do government consulting.

And then you had the hiring of McGlothlin itself — that recruitment conducted by Doug Thomas over at SGR was an absolute cluster who. He said, “I’ve never lost three finalists after they’ve been selected.”

Oh, and don’t get me started on how Thomas screwed the city management community over by encouraging the governing body to not list a salary range, etc. Because we all know that our favorite thing to do as a candidate is to guess what our potential salary is going to be.

And what did Thomas (and SGR) get for the 40 pieces of silver — their contract terminated.

And for those who think I am being unnecessarily harsh toward Thomas, I will say this. I gave him an opportunity to respond and like representatives of the now defunct Baker Tilly — he ignored me. The only reason I have not beaten the drum louder on this front is because Ron Holifield has always returned my calls and we have had many consequential conversations that were on and off the record.

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