Did you see the latest edition of ABC-7 Xtra?
I have to wonder what our City Council members are thinking.
Right now, as I write this, City Council is in Executive Session discussing City Manager Tommy Gonzalez’ contract. That contract still has two years to run.
District 3 Representative Cassandra Hernandez placed that item on the Council agenda. She starts talking at 10:30 into the video. If you don’t want to watch the whole half hour, you can just skip to that part, especially if you need another reason to be pissed off about local government.
Please discuss in the comments.
CHernandez: spinning positive narratives about our city and the the talent TommyG brings?! Running for mayor in two years?
Austin’s City Manager: from the AAStatesman 2021 Cronk, who makes $350,000 annually, has four assistant city managers and one deputy city manager. None were elected.”
Do our council reps do ‘due diligence’ in comparative market-based salaries?
Leeser: where’s the leadership on this?
TommyG: Political theater to get a contract extension…. 🙁 5 Council reps who voted on extending the contract for 5 years today: suckers?? (sorry to sound mean!)
Oscar Leeser is in the car business. He started out working for Wally Lowenfield running the Isuzu lot with moderate success. After that he went to work for Maury Kemp and basically did whatever Maury wanted until the s$&t hit the fan. After that he became the GM of a Ford store in La Jolla, California and actually tanked it. A Ford store. In one of the wealthiest communities in the country. After that he moved back to El Paso and tried his hand at wholesaling. Yikes. Hyundai was the weakest franchise in North America and after everybody else turned them down Oscar agreed to work for them. A large dealer group from the east coast owned the franchise and called Oscar up every morning at 7:30AM and told him what to do. They were smart operators and the brand and dealership had meteoric success. Oscar happened to be there when good fortune struck. Please don’t mistake that for managerial skill.
Sunk cost fallacy. Sounds like he never wanted to be here, has one foot out the door, and plans to run off with as much taxpayer money as possible. Hasn’t he put the city million in debt? Some silly award doesn’t make him any less of a turd
I can’t believe the stunning ignorance of Hernandez’ comments. She kept on repeating how Tommy was Exceptional…Talented…Superb. That El Paso must retain his Talent to continue our Exceptional Growth and Economy! #1. All those Orange Cones (I imagine she’s referring to traffic cones) are because of Gonzalez Exceptional Talent, etc, etc. etc. Gonzales has not even been chosen by the City of Frisco, and there are 3 others in the running. And as I’ve posted, my bets are on the current Frisco Assistant City Manager. So, City Council jumps the gun and eagerly give him an incredibly lucrative contract. Frisco’s Salary for that position was hard to pin down, as the numbers varied but I would think $275 to $300K would be in the ballpark. Certainly Not even close to $400K much less $450K. Then Hernandez goes on to say how El Paso is significantly more affordable to live in than other cities. Did she not read the article how El Paso is one of the LEAST Affordable cities to live in? Plus, she dismisses El Paso’s high home tax rate that one can simply go downtown and file a protest? Really, the Entire city of El Paso can now go and get their taxes rolled back? And, how Tommy oversees 6,000 employees. I guess because she has never worked in the Private or Corporate Sector—all of her job experiences are City/County/Government funded. TESLA employees 99,000 people. Does Elon Musk sit and talk to all of them? NO. That is what a command control type of situation that El Paso uses. The lowest man on the totem pole reports to his/her boss, who reports to his/her direct supervisor, etc….Then she goes on to say how El Paso wants industrial manufacturing, manufacturing period and that Gonzalez will El Paso to be Tops and Lead in the state of Texas. Well, all of those Silicon Valley are not settling in El Paso. They’re going to Austin. And isn’t there some assistant city Manager in Austin who would bring in “fresh blood” and a new perspective? Or, does Gonzalez even have a deep and seasoned team so El Paso could promote from within? It appears not. Corporations like to promote from within, as they have what is called “Corporate Knowledge” and usually are part an Executive Leadership Team. El Paso has just been screwed by the City Council of El Paso and I say that they be Voted Out come November. Starting with Hernandez who should get a “Real” job and not be living on Taxpayer funded jobs.
One last comment on Tommy Gonzalez, and this is a Direct Quote from today’s Dallas Morning News. “Gonzales was the city manager in Irving from 2006 to 2013. He resigned from the position after then-Mayor Beth Van Duyne called for an investigation into allegations that Gonzalez solicited free tickets from Irving companies. Irving City Council members moved to block the automatic renewal of Gonzalez’ contract. He then went to work for El Paso the following year. I’ve already written how he was forced to resign and sign a resignation letter written by the City of Harlingen. This was prior to his Irving gig. Do you think a leopard changes his spots? Especially in a City run by clueless city council members and a weak mayor system—-Oscar Leeser and Dee Margo? Those are Vanity Titles which they use to peddle more cars or stroke Margo’s inflated ego.
Go to “El Paso Politics” home page and there is an extensive article on how Gonzalez does not pay El Paso City property taxes plus some insightful writing. The article is a year old but if you click on the upper left hand article, it appears updated. The article was written by Martin Paredes.