No Decision on Possible Punishment for City Manager

while an independent investigator reviews the aborted search for a new financial adviser. it took more than six hours for council to make that decision today. developing now on abc-seven… we’ve been at city hall all day waiting for the news to break of what will happen to tommy gonzalez. our maria garcia is live with what she learned tonight. the city council discussed gonzalez for more than six hours in executive session today. but at the end of they decided not to to place him on paid administrative leave. in an unusual move council recessed the meeting until tomorrow and the mayor said the council could possibly take action against gonzalez then. two other developments today though: the city attorney says she will prepare a report for council detailing what the city manager has the power to do and not do. and gonzalez said he’s going to work on a game plan to improve processes. gonzalez has been under scrutiny for authorizing the search for a new financial advisor without the full vote of city council. he says he followed procedure but the mayor is still concerned why the city changed the way it scores companies just for this contract. gonzalez green-lighted the search after city rep. larry romero suggested it in a public meeting – but without a vote by council: tommy gonzalez 03:56:00 we’re committed to putting in stronger safeguards. i will tell you that the existing policies were followed. i’m going to go back and look at the rfq and rf. process and make sure we bring to council ahead of time instead of in the back end like the existing policy speaks to. mayor oscar leeser 03:47:16 “no that’s why i want to know why we changed some policies. that’s why it’s really important that mr fisher gets in here why we changed policies and procedures. whether it’s legal or not that’s not the discussion but why we changed what we’ve always done.” throughout the meeting, well known local attorney jim darnell was in city council chambers. gonzalez would not say if darnell was representing him in this matter but when asked did admit darnell is his lawyer. maria, live tonight at el paso city hall. abc-seven is following a major bust of an alleged meth operation in