City Council approves hiring Tommy Gonzalez as city manager

El Paso City Council voted unanimously Tuesday afternoon to hire Tommy Gonzalez as the City’s second city manager in its history. Gonzalez is set to start on June 23 when he wraps up consulting work and speaking engagements, he said.

When asked by City Rep. Cortney Niland if he could start sooner, Gonzalez said he could but couldn’t commit to being there on a daily basis until June 23rd .

From now until then, Gonzalez will be traveling to El Paso on a weekly basis to meet with city staff and the council to work on the city budget, which is due to be filed on June 30th . Mayor Oscar Leeser likened Gonzalez’s weekly visits before his start date to “working a month for free.”

The City Council also unanimously voted to have Deputy City Manager Sean McGlynn step in as interim City Manager from Tuesday until Gonzalez officially begins on June 23rd . Even though McGlynn will be Interim, he will be receiving direct orders and input from Gonzalez. Former City Manager Joyce Wilson will serve as a consultant until Gonzalez begins.

City Representatives Ann Morgan Lilly and Cortney Niland expressed concern city projects could lose momentum or direction while the City is led by an Interim City Manager. Wilson said her institutional knowledge of the city’s organization will help McGlynn navigate the projects but she and the Mayor said it’d be beneficial to have an interim so city employees will not report to two leaders.

“It’s really critical for him (Gonzalez) to establish his presence and began to really transition the loyalty of the team to him immediately and to help shape the budget so that we’re not really having competing loyalties here,” said Wilson.

She said that was especially important because the budget must be filed June 30th , a few days after Gonzalez’s official start date. She said if she were to stay on as City Manager, she’d have more control of the budget and it’d be different than what Gonzalez would do. With the Interim in place, Gonzalez is able to direct the city budget through McGlynn, according to City officials.

City leaders said they chose Gonzalez mainly because of his experience managing a large city and saving money. His management style was scrutinized when he was City Manager in Irving. City Rep. Michiel Noe appeared to allude to his management style when he asked Gonzalez his first question in public in El Paso.

“I know you’re a no nonsense kind of guy and I personally like that. But you have to temper it a little bit and I know you will. I want to ask you: do you commit to treat every employee, uniformed or not, with fairness and respect?” Gonzalez answered “Of course I will” and referenced employee surveys and high morale in his past positions.

Noe also said he chose Gonzalez because of his “thick skin” and because he wanted someone who was strong enough to stand up to the City Council. “I wanted somebody that I knew would stand up to me, and everyone else on council when he felt we were going in the wrong direction. We don’t have to listen to him but I want someone who will tell me when I’m screwing up. I don’t want someone who’s going to sit back there and say aw man, he shouldn’t be doing this but he’s the boss – ‘whatever.”

Before taking the final vote to hire Gonzalez, Niland and the Mayor did not want to allow for the public to speak about Gonzalez’s hiring during the public meeting but after learning in executive session, the vote could not be considered a personnel matter because Gonzalez was not yet an employee, the Council allowed the public comment.

Government watchdog Lisa Turner said she was concerned Gonzalez would travel too much for speaking engagements and treat the City Manager position “as a part time job.” Gonzalez said he planned to coordinate any future speaking engagement with the City Council and discuss if the City still wanted him to that.

Gonzalez’s voice broke when he became emotional talking about his migrant parents’ humble beginning.

“My mom and dad, the reason I am who I am today – is because of them. And they worked hard.They worked hard their entire lives and they still – my mom still works in a manual labor job. So definitely I have a strong commitment for people who actually do the work.”

His pay mirrors Wilson’s with an annual base salary of $239,000.