On the eve of the anniversary of Trayvon Martin's death, Sanford City Manager Norton Bonaparte is getting rave reviews for the way he handled the aftermath.

"We made a good pick in Norton Bonaparte when he came in. I don't know if anyone else could do what he did through that time," said Sanford Mayor Jeff Triplett.

Bonaparte had only been on the job a few months when George Zimmerman shot and killed the unarmed teen.

At the time, a number of activists were called for Bonaparte's resignation.

On Monday, some who live in Sanford told WFTV that he's doing a good job.

"It seems to be going well, I think," said resident Nicki Casterline.

"It's a harsh thing. That's what's going on, and it's hard to solve that, but he did the best that he could," said resident Alberta Davis.

In commissioner evaluations obtained by Channel 9 Bonaparte's bosses determined he "handled the Trayvon Martin incident exceptionally well," and "showed confidence under extreme fire."

In each city commissioner's evaluation Bonaparte scored extremely well, scoring mostly 4s out of a possible 5.

"Obviously last year was a tough year, so there are some other things with the budget to continue working on the future of our capital improvement projects," said Triplett.

The commissioners wrote that one area they do want to see improvement is in the city's police department, something Bonaparte is hoping to see as well with the recent hiring of a new police chief.