HOLMES BEACH – Public Works Director and City Engineer Sage Kamiya tendered his resignation and will soon serve as the city engineer for the city of Sarasota.
After serving as Holmes Beach’s public works director, city engineer and traffic engineer for slightly more than four years, Thursday, Oct. 9 will be Kamiya’s last day with the city.
Mayor Judy Titsworth said Senior Project Manager Anthony Benitez will serve as the interim public works directors and the permanent position will be advertised. Tray Thorpe will continue serving as the maintenance supervisor.
After making Titsworth aware of the anticipated offer from the city of Sarasota, Kamiya sent Titsworth his resignation letter on Sept. 24.
“It is with heavy heart that I’m tendering my resignation with a little over two-week notice. I have received an offer which is a great next step opportunity for me, both professionally and for my family. I sincerely appreciate that you’ve entrusted me with the leadership of our great public works team. I’m proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish during my time here,” his letter said in part.
When contacted by phone on Oct. 2, Kamiya was asked if anyone with the city encouraged him to leave.
“No, it was on my own volition. It’s a conversation I’d been having with the city of Sarasota for over a year. I told them ‘no’ a couple times previously and it got to the point where I decided to take it,” he said.
“In some ways, it’s a lateral move, but in other ways it’s an advancement because I’ll be able to work on some bigger projects. As an engineer, it’ll be good for me professionally to do some things that are larger and have a bigger scope. The largest project I worked on in Holmes Beach was the City Center project, which was about $3 million. One of the projects I’m going to be involved with in Sarasota is over $45 million. As an engineer, you like bigger and more complicated challenges, so that’s exciting and interesting to me,” he said.
“I’ll miss my team. We have a really good public works department and there are some great people there. We’re taking care of yesterday, fighting today’s fires and preparing for tomorrow – and things weren’t quite that way when I inherited the department. I’ll miss Mayor Judy and the community. She has been super supportive and she provided the resources we needed to get the job done; and the community has been welcoming.”
Mayor’s comments
“Sage will be missed. He was a tremendous asset to our city and he was able to shape the public works department into something I am most proud of,” Titsworth said.
“He and I were able to shape a tremendous public works department that went after and received a lot of grant money. He was awesome to work with. He allows me to sleep better at night. The commissioners absolutely love him.
“Sage has a great opportunity with the city of Sarasota with room for advancement. I can match his pay. It wasn’t about the pay, but I can never give him that advancement he’d get with Sarasota,” Titsworth said. “I told him I was proud of him and I can understand why he’d want to take it.”
When asked if Kamiya was forced out or encouraged to leave Holmes Beach, Titsworth said, “No. Neither.”
Looking ahead, Titsworth said, “We’ve got a lot of projects and a lot of things going on right now. We’ll lose Sage’s knowledge but Anthony and Tray will step up. We’ve used RESPEC as our stormwater consultants and they’ve got a good handle on our stormwater projects. Hopefully, the citizens won’t feel Sage’s departure too much.”
