Leading candidate announced for Fort Myers Beach town manager

While candidates are beginning to narrow down, it appears that the Fort Myers Beach Town Council knows who they want to be their town manager.

At first, there was a pool of 80 candidates for the job, which has since been narrowed to four.

Those four were put through an extensive and sometimes public interviewing process to see if they were right for the job.

It’s the most important decision the town council has had to make. They swiftly made the decision by majority vote, but it wasn’t easy.

Andrew Hyatt is the leading candidate as the new Fort Myers Beach town manager.

Hyatt was the city manager of Surfside when the deadly condo collapse happened in June 2021. He suddenly resigned from his position as town manager of Surfside last December. In his resignation letter, Hyatt did not say why.

“This is a huge day. This is something that’s going to have a lasting impact for a long time,” Fort Myers Beach councilman John King said.

After a morning meet-and-greet, private one-on-ones, and then public interviews Kng and councilwoman Karen Woodson were not convinced Hyatt was their guy.

Both of them wanted to hear more from other candidates. But, councilman Bill Veach and vice-mayor Jim Atterholt disagreed. The tiebreaker went to Mayor Dan Allers.

WINK News talked exclusively with the mayor in the wake of the town’s decision.

“I felt like he had the most potential. He had the most upside … knowing the community like I know the community. His answers and what he went through in terms of crisis management with Surfside. That was a moving thing for me,” Fort Myers Beach mayor Dan Allers said.

The town policy states that once they’ve named Hyatt the top candidate for town manager, they immediately enter into contract negotiations. No word on how long that will take.