Eagle Pass Manager Admits To Lying; Council Hires Anyway

SAN ANTONIO (AP) – The City Council in the border city of Eagle Pass has moved to permanently hire its probationary city manager.

That’s even after manager Glen Starnes admitted that he lied about his accomplishments on his resume. Starnes gave an impassioned speech to the council on Tuesday, listing his accomplishments and denouncing his critics to the council.

That’s even as he admitted to lying on his resume. The council seems to agree. It scheduled a meeting for next Tuesday to consider hiring him permanently for the $85,000-a-year job. It also halted an ongoing probe into Starnes’ job history and education credentials.

A San Antonio Express-News investigation found that Starnes didn’t work as an assistant city manager in the San Antonio suburb of Converse.

The newspaper also found that he hadn’t worked as an aide to former Houston Congressman Jack Fields as claimed, nor did he have three degrees from the University of Maryland.

Starnes told the Express-News that his degrees weren’t from a fictitious University of Maryland at Rockville, but instead from “Rochville University.”

That’s an online organization that sells degrees promising “no studies, no attendance, no waiting, and no examinations.”

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)