All-Time Influential - Randy Knight City Manager, City of Winter Park Since 1949, Winter Park has operated under a commission-manager form of government. The city manager is essentially the chief executive officer, responsible for implementing the commission’s policies while ensuring that the city remains on solid fiscal footing. Sounds straightforward enough, except that in Winter Park, the makeup of the commission changes every year. That all but guarantees ever-shifting balances of power and, at times, abrupt policy reversals. Randy Knight, who has been city manager for 18 years and was finance director and assistant city manager for 16 years prior to that, has navigated the turbulence and now runs the day-to-day operation of a city with an enviable AAA bond rating, a healthy reserve fund of nearly $22 million (about 27 percent of the city’s annual operating costs) and a millage rate that hasn’t changed since the Great Recession of 2009. He is most proud of the fact that the city bought its electric utility system from Duke Energy in 2003—a decision that was controversial at the time but is now widely lauded—and has undergrounded about 80 percent of the utility’s power lines. (The undergrounding project, which is credited with preventing significant power outages during Hurricane Milton, should be complete by 2030.) Says Knight: “I had hoped it would be done before I retire—but maybe they’ll invite me back to pull out the last pole.” Knight, a CPA who graduated from Florida Southern College, also oversaw purchase of the 18-hole Winter Pines Golf Course in 2022 as well as an extension and expansion of the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency in 2024. He plans to retire in January 2027 but will leave behind a legacy of stability and a blueprint for aspiring city managers everywhere to follow that essentially says: “Listen more than you talk and understand your role. It’s the city commission’s job to set policy and it’s your job to carry it out whether you agree with it or not. Then move on to the next thing.” @winterparkfla #winterparkfl #winterparkmagazine #mostinfluential