El Paso Matters – El Paso’s 3rd city manager to be appointed amid hiring concerns

El Paso’s third city manager, likely a top executive currently working for the city, will be hired amid controversy over the selection process and looming concerns that advisory panels appointed by council members won’t be allowed to freely interview the four finalists.

Chief Financial Officer Robert Cortinas, Deputy City Manager Mario D’Agostino, Community and Human Development Director Nicole Alderete-Ferrini and Deputy City Manager Dionne Mack were named finalists July 12, emerging from a field of 80 applicants.

The city created two council-appointed panels, each composed of nine community members, former elected officials and local leaders, to interview the finalists and provide feedback to the mayor and council. Panelists were just recently told they will meet with the four finalists Aug. 14. The City Council is expected to select a city manager Aug. 19. The city had planned only one community meeting for the public to meet the finalists and provide feedback through a survey, but last week added three more meet-and-greets to be held starting Tuesday, Aug. 6.

Several of those appointed to the panels expressed concerns that they have not been given much direction or information on how the interviews will be held or provided any background on the candidates. Some also said they question why only current city employees made the cut.

“I’m in the dark at this point, which is not the way that you would think that this would be done,” said Rick Bonart, who was appointed by city Rep. Joe Molinar to serve on the citizen advisory committee panel July 9. “Maybe as time rolls on, we’ll know a little bit more, and maybe it’ll be OK.”

Bonart said he has not been given any information about how the process will unfold and whether the panels will be able to ask their own questions. He was asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement and to disclose if he had “publicly endorsed” any of the finalists.

“Information has not been forthcoming,” said former city Rep. Eddie Holguin, who was appointed to the community leader panel by Mayor Oscar Leeser. Holguin said he did not want to comment further.

Former city Rep. Emma Acosta, who was selected to serve on one of the panels by city Rep. Henry Rivera, also said she hadn’t been notified about the Aug. 14 interview date until late last week. She was initially told it would be Aug. 7 and rearranged travel plans to attend.

“We can’t be in limbo and so I finally got an email directly from the consultant,” Acosta said. “The only thing that I have received is the notice that I am on one of the panels, I signed a confidentiality agreement, and the time I should be there, and that’s it.”

Acosta said she hasn’t been told anything about the panel interview process. She is concerned  the nine-member panel will only have 45 minutes with each candidate.

“It’s a big decision (for the city) you can see we have four local candidates – I mean, that’s all I could say – I don’t know who else was out there initially,” she said.

Tyler Grossman, the El Paso Police and Fire Pension Fund executive director and chief investment officer, was appointed to the community leader panel by Molinar. He said they are not allowed to share questions or information, but has not been told much else.

“I’m still hoping, I hope, that I’m going to get an email today that says, ‘OK, now we’re gonna meet, or at least confer, or have a Zoom call or something’ – that would be nice,” Grossman said.

Bonart said he’s concerned the process has not been equitable or transparent.

The City Council fired former City Manager Tommy Gonzalez in February 2023, and in March of that year appointed a former city executive, Cary Westin, to serve as interim. Part of the delay in a search to replace him was a months-long, back-and-forth between the mayor and council about whether to hire internally or conduct a national search, ultimately hiring a national search firm.

“They had 80-some-odd applications and narrowed it down to four – all of whom are current employees of the city – well, that’s pretty bogus,” Bonart said. “It was not long ago that the mayor was advocating, ‘Well, let’s just skip this whole thing and we’ll just pick someone from here.’”

Bonart said it is suspicious that only city employees made the final cut.

Grossman said he is not sure how the finalists were selected, but knows three of the four and thinks they are good people and would do a good job.

“I don’t want to act like because there was nobody from the outside that any of these four are not good candidates,” Grossman said.

Leeser, in an interview with El Paso Matters, said he is adamant that the process has been followed correctly and is disappointed doubts are being raised. Leeser said the process to select the finalists was democratic.

“The names that were picked were picked by the eight city council members and the mayor of the city of El Paso,” Leeser said. “That was all done independently. Nobody knew what the other one was voting for and the top four people are people within the city. I’m really proud that that’s what happened.”

The city is also not allowing the media to interview the finalists one-on-one “to ensure the integrity of the process,” according to a media release. Instead, news organizations were asked to submit two questions. None did, Leeser said.

“El Paso Matters considered it inappropriate to give government veto power over what questions the media are allowed to ask,” El Paso Matters founder and CEO Robert Moore said. 

Chicago-based Baker Tilly, the firm hired to conduct the national search, started the search in March after being delayed since last year. The firm was also hired by the city to fill the health director vacancy that resulted in the controversial hiring of Dr. Veerinder “Vinny” Taneja. Taneja was the former public health director of Tarrant County who resigned after current and former employees accused him of creating a toxic and hostile work environment.

Edward Williams, the director in the public sector executive recruitment team for Baker Tilly, answered various questions from the City Council during an, at times, contentious work session July 29.

Baker Tilly declined an interview request stating that they do not comment on matters involving clients.

During the work session, Williams responded to pushback regarding an abruptly-called news conference July 12 to announce the finalists by stating his firm had nothing to do with the news conference and that the firm’s process with the City Council has been transparent.

City reps at odds over finalists selection

City Rep. Josh Acevedo, who got into a heated exchange with Williams on July 29 about his accessibility, among other issues, told El Paso Matters that he does not believe the process has been transparent.

“July 11, I am out to dinner, and while I’m out to dinner – my dinner started at 6 (p.m.) and then at 7:30 (p.m.) the conversation died at the table,” Acevedo said. “I started looking through my email, and I saw that I had an email from Laura (Cruz-Acosta, city spokesperson) saying they are about to announce the finalists.”

Acevedo said he expected the City Council to meet to review the ranked finalists either during a council meeting or executive session to determine who would move forward to the next round of interviews.

Leeser said there could have been a better process surrounding the news conference and notifying the City Council, but that it would not have changed the outcome.

When the city representatives received the instructions to submit their choices from the list of 14 semifinalists, the email from the city’s Chief Human Resources Officer Marry Wiggins states, “The survey results are non-binding but provide a starting point for a discussion to determine the candidates who will be invited to participate in interviews.”

“From the beginning, in terms of kickoff, we met with each of the individual council members. We presented a proposed timeline for the search,” Williams said during the work session.

He said the searches typically last from 90 to 120 days, depending on several factors and the position is advertised for 30 days. He also said the firm has been providing weekly updates to the city on how many applications were received.

“We presented a semi final report to the council with 14 candidates, including the four internal candidates,” Williams said. “There were other applicants from the city that did not meet the profile design developed and approved by this council, and we basically independently asked the council to select their top candidates.”

Williams said the finalists were selected based on a request that the elected officials submit four applicant names without ranking them from the 14 and one alternate.

“I think obviously in anything like this, there’s going to be disagreement about how the process should go,” city Rep. Chris Canales told El Paso Matters. “I can’t say that I got 100% of the way of how I wanted it to happen either, but I also don’t think any part of the process has been a surprise to us. This is what we understood was going to happen from the beginning.”

Canales said narrowing down the list of candidates went as it was described and there was always a narrow timeline, but the city news conference to name the finalists “happened pretty abruptly.”

“I found out about it the day before,” Canales said. “It’s not surprising to me that they would do the press conference quickly, but it did happen with less than 24 hours notice to the council.”

He said the City Council discussed the process with the firm extensively and he feels the city received very clear information about how things would unfold.

“I’m not saying that I think it’s a perfect process, or that I got everything that I wanted in how that would go for a nine-person council that makes decisions collectively,” he said. “Not everybody is going to get what they want every time, but none of it was a surprise.”

City Rep. Cassandra Hernandez said she did not realize that by submitting her choices from the list of 14 semifinalists that the council would not meet to choose finalists as a group.

“I was already very suspicious of the process, because Mayor Leeser had a failed attempt where he tried to exclude anyone else from (applying) other than city employees. So, I wasn’t surprised that only city employees rose to the top,” Hernandez said.

Leeser said he wanted to hire internally because there are good people working for the city.

“I wanted to start there, and then we could go to Baker Tilly or someone else if we didn’t come up with any finalists, but there was a lot of discussion and I said, ‘OK, for transparency purposes let’s go through the process,’” Leeser said. 

“We spent between $40,000 and $50,000 to arrive at what we were talking about originally,” Leeser added, referring to what the search firm was paid.

City Rep. Brian Kennedy said whether or not he agrees with the finalists, they were the highest-scoring.

“I will say that while I won’t disclose who I did or did not vote for – I may not have chosen some of those who are in the final four, but I am willing to say (that) if that’s what was the will of the council, then I understand.,” Kennedy said.

Both Kennedy and Hernandez are among the candidates running for mayor in the Nov. 5 general election. 

City manager role, power

Joyce Wilson, El Paso’s first city manager in 2004, has been critical of the process and said the way finalists were named raises concerns about who is ultimately in charge of the selection.

“The issue is this: it is the council that makes that decision, not a consultant, not HR (human resources), not the mayor, not a couple of city council reps,” Wilson said. “It’s been what I consider a sham process that’s been deliberately … manipulated by a few people to give a certain outcome and it’s really inappropriate, because the manager is hired by the entire city council.”

The city operates under a council-manager form of government, which combines elected officials’ leadership with the managerial experience of an appointed city manager to run the city. Under that structure, council members, aside from their individual legislative office staff, hire only two executive employees – the city manager and city attorney. 

The city has operated under this structure since 2004, after voters in a charter election approved moving away from a strong mayor form of government – which gives the mayor and council more control, including the ability to hire and fire department heads.

In 2021, ahead of the 2023 City Charter amendment election, Molinar brought up discussions about returning to a strong mayor form of government – then saying, “the seed has been planted” – but didn’t garner much support to be placed on the ballot. The proposition that voters narrowly approved in 2023 was to remove the city manager’s authority over the internal auditor, instead putting that oversight in the hands of the City Council and the chair of the Financial Oversight and Audit Committee. The FOAC is now chaired by Kennedy.

The next city manager will oversee the municipality that employs close to 7,000 people, and will be responsible for preparing the annual budget, which stands at about $1.3 billion. The city manager also appoints executive leadership to oversee staff operations and city services and reports to the mayor and council, among other responsibilities.

The search firm listed the city manager salary between $325,000 to $375,000. The position is contract-based, with its term, compensation and other stipulations set in an agreement approved by council. Gonzalez was paid a base salary of about $431,000 before he was fired, while Wilson had an annual salary of $239,000 before she retired in 2014.

The post El Paso’s 3rd city manager to be appointed amid hiring concerns appeared first on El Paso Matters.

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