By Janelle Sears, Capital Outlook
Heading into the third full week of October as Tallahassee’s newly hired city manager, Karen Jumonville says she is approaching the new position with a listening ear.
Entering the national search process as the sole internal candidate and with the endorsement of her predecessor, Reese Goad, Jumonville was hired with a 3-2 city commission vote on Sept. 2, 2026.
Spending over 27 years with the city of Tallahassee, Jumonville worked her way through several positions in growth management, land development and permitting. Her most recent post was deputy city manager.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science, a master’s degree in urban and regional planning and a doctorate in public administration from Florida State University. Additionally, she holds certification from the American Institute of Certified Planners.
“It’s an honor and a privilege, and I look forward to working with the new commission to achieve great things,” Jumonville told Capital Outlook during an interview on Oct. 16.
Jumonville, 54, has spent her first days on the job meeting one-on-one with the city commissioners establishing rapport and priorities under her new leadership. She has also been meeting with department heads and frontline staff, evaluating the current state of the city’s resources.
“It’s really been meeting with people, a listening tour, meeting with some of our key external stakeholders, and then really looking to make sure that we’re on track with achieving the goals that are outlined in our city strategic plan,” Jumonville said.
Jumonville encourages Tallahassee residents to stay updated with city commission agendas and meetings to stay involved with opportunities for participation.
Here are her responses during a question-and-answer interview with Capital Outlook:
Q: As you begin your first 100 days as city manager, what are the top priorities you want to address, and what would success look like by the end of that period?
A: “The first 100-day period starts with listening and learning for me. Establishing a high level of trust with the commission, I want them to feel heard and to understand that operationally we are top notch. Meeting with my department heads so that they understand my expectations for them and my style. And then continuing to deliver the best-in-class service. Our mission is to be the national leader in the delivery of public service. We’re continuing that every day. “
Q: You have spent more than 27 years working within Tallahassee city government. What have you learned during that time that will shape how you lead the city differently as manager?
A: “The most important thing is being able to balance the long-term vision of where we want to go as a community with the daily realities of running a 4,000-person organization. We own and operate our own utilities, water, sewer, stormwater, electric, airport; there are a lot of things day-to-day that come up so it’s easy to be consumed with the day-to-day issues. You really have to be able to focus on the long-term goals and doing the things that we need to do to make sure that we’re successful in achieving the city commission’s vision for our community.
Adaptability is critical. The ability to be able to pivot.
The storm that we had last week, Hurricane Isaias, when that moved through our area, we had 37,000 outages and that’s more than we experienced with Hurricane Debbie in 2024. Our crews were able to restore 98% of the grid within 15 hours of the impact to our area.
What you have planned on the calendar for a day, very rarely is what happens, but you have to be able to pivot when things like that happen to be successful.”
Q: How will you make sure Southside residents have a meaningful role in determining how their neighborhoods develop? And what do you see as a priority to tackle in the Frenchtown/Southside communities?
A: “The city has made meaningful efforts to make sure that our Southside residents are directly involved in shaping their community’s future through collaboration and a real community driven approach. You may have heard of the city’s Neighborhood First plans, and we have a Southside Action Plan and those focus on direct input from residents and helping them to establish and implement efforts to drive beautification in their neighborhoods, investment, and to truly be engaged in what’s going on in their neighborhoods.
Another component of that is that we focus on connecting the residents and the businesses in the neighborhoods with the resources that they need and we support some of their community-led projects and really focus on active participation from the residents in the neighborhood in defining what improvements they’d like to see and what investments they’d like to see and what investments they’d like to make in their communities.”
Q: How do you plan to build public trust and make residents feel more connected to City Hall?
A: “It’s about transparency, accessibility, and being available to residents. Doing what we say we will do, being honest, communicating early; you know, that’s what I’ll do.
Being responsive to the community’s needs.
Focusing on training our staff to treat every interaction that they have with citizens as an opportunity for them to demonstrate their competence and their service to the community. We want to be the national leaders in the delivery of public service so every time, every day that our crews are out in the community, it’s an opportunity for them to shine and demonstrate that they’re the best.”
Q: With the November election bringing changes to the city commission, how do you plan to maintain continuity and work effectively with whatever new commission takes office?
A: “I see myself as a bridge between the established operational, the history and the new commission’s vision, so my institutional knowledge provides stability in operations and that was seen with the storm that we had. I’m really a bridge between the operations and the commission’s vision. I’ve been here over 27 years, I’m a professional city manager and it’s my job to really be agile and know how to pivot to match the priorities of the new commission.
They set policy and long-term vision and goals; we’re here to deliver.”
Janelle Sears is a senior journalism student at Florida A&M University working as a freelance reporter for The Capital Outlook. This article is supported by Press Forward North Florida, an initiative of the Community Foundation of North Florida. To learn more and to support local journalism like this, visitcfnf.org/press-forward (https://www.cfnf.org/press-forward/).
