Former Miami Mayor Joe Carollo is the new city manager of nearby Doral.
“Having been a commissioner, been a vice mayor, been a mayor, I know what the role of a manager should be," he said Thursday. "I know what I wanted to see in a manager.”
The five-member city council unanimously accepted Doral Mayor Luigi Boria's nomination of Carollo on Wednesday night, The Miami Herald reported.
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Carollo, who hasn't held office since a failed reelection bid in 2001, replaces Merrett Stierheim. Stierheim was hired last month as the city's interim manager and abruptly resigned hours before Carollo was officially hired.
Carollo was a polarizing, controversial figure during his time as Miami's mayor.
When he was asked about how some people called him "Crazy Joe" during that time and if he was worried about that reputation coming back, Carollo had a blunt response.
“The people that attacked me were mainly lobbyists that didn’t get their way in the city in raping the coffers of Miami and government," he said.
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He channeled Rhett Butler to his past critics.
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!" he said.
Stierheim said that a professional manager should stay out of politics, but Carollo is "in it up to his ears."
But Stierheim said the problem "wasn’t that the selection of Carollo was terrible, it was that we didn’t go through the search process.” He was hired to lead the search for a new manager, but was not involved in the selection of Carollo.
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Carollo will earn $144,000 a year, plus benefits, and oversee a staff of 277 workers.
"We’re not coming here to be turning Doral upside-down," he said.
He said he would be a stabilizing factor in Doral. In 2001, the Herald praised Carollo for helping to fix Miami's fiscal mess.
"Part of what the Herald editorial said in thanking me was that when Miami was at its worst, I was at my best," he said.
