Integrity, communication skills and experience were among the top qualities the Odessa City Council agreed they’d like to see in the city’s next city manager.
Six of the council’s seven members met with Mica Lunt from T2 Professional Consulting for about 90 minutes Tuesday to start a process that will likely result in a new city manager being hired by mid-July, early August.
City Councilmember Chris Hanie was absent because he was recently hospitalized following a stroke, Councilmember Greg Connell said.
The council voted 5-2 on Dec. 13 to terminate City Manager Michael Marrero and City Attorney Natasha Brooks without explanation. Billings and Collections Director Agapito Bernal has been named Interim City Manager and Senior Assistant City Attorney Dan Jones was named interim city attorney.
T2 was hired the next day by Mayor Javier Joven for $338,000 to help hire Marrero’s replacement.
Lunt asked each council member to write their top three to five preferred qualities on sticky notes and then led a discussion on each one.
The council members may not have ordered their priorities in exactly the same way, but they came up with several of the same qualities. When different qualities were mentioned, none of them were openly opposed.
Mayor Javier Joven, Connell and Councilmember Denise Swanner said their first priority would be to find someone with integrity. Joven defined that as someone who “does the right thing when no one is looking.”
Connell said he’s always liked the saying “If it’s not yours, don’t take it. If it’s not true, don’t say it. If it’s not right, don’t do it.”
Councilmember Gilbert Vasquez said he’d like to see a city manager with three to five years experience in a like-size community, while Councilmember Mark Matta said he wants to see a “leader with a servant’s heart.”
Councilmember Steve Thompson said his priority would be to find a city manager who understands the city charter, his duties and “the way things are supposed to be run.” His second priority, would be to find someone who understands Odessa has a strong manager form of government and wouldn’t be intimidated by anyone on the council.
He further expressed a desire for the council to be more proactive under a new city manager rather than reactive and Swanner concurred, noting as her second priority, a city manager with good time management skills.
The new city manager should be self-motivated, bring ideas to the table and constantly be looking for ways to improve things, Swanner said.
“We have all these surveys and strategies that we don’t seem to accomplish what we’re supposed to be. So I think that falls into some of that time management and how you manage your time,” Swanner said.
The council also spent time discussing the importance of communication.
“(I’d like to see) an effective communicator, which is different than a good communicator. A good communicator can just talk B.S., but an effective communicator can actually say things and with a purpose,” Matta said.
Joven stressed he wants someone who can provide “unbiased” communication to the council, mid-management and staff members.
After the meeting, Joven explained what he meant about integrity and communication.
“I can only speak for myself and I think integrity is very integral to any relationship, whether it’s business or a marriage. It isn’t a good marriage if there’s no integrity,” Joven said. “The other (priority) is communication…Unbiased information going back and forth is what helps council to administer and policy. That’s one of the main basics of council, but we need to know what we need to know. If we don’t know, we don’t know.”
Asked to explain “unbiased communication,” Joven said he wants someone to disseminate one message.
“I’m seeking a city manager that’s able to disseminate information unbiased, not pick this person, this person,” Joven said.
Whether it’s a business or private enterprise, Joven said “if everybody’s on a different page, if you don’t have unity, you’re going in different directions or you’re staying stagnant.”
Asked if he meant consistent, Joven laughed.
“Unbiased is real. Consistent? You can communicate consistently, but you can do it unbiased because what I’m basically saying is if you’re not informing your board equitably, you’re not giving the same information, one message, one communication, you’re not keeping everyone on the same page,” Joven said.
When discussing a third priority, the mayor said he’d like someone who has experience with finance, budgeting, city charters, Texas state statutes and human resources.
Matta, Joven, Swanner and Connell agreed they’d like someone who will invest in the city’s employees by promoting training, education and growth, while Thompson said he’d like a city manager who can form a team with his assistant city managers.
Vaquez said it was important for him the city have an effective city manager and someone who “will represent Odessa with dignity and professionalism.”
To sum up, Lunt said, “The council expects a city manager with strong integrity. If it’s not right, don’t do it. If it’s not true, don’t say it. If it’s not yours, don’t take it. The ability to do the right thing when no one is looking and then ‘I will act with the utmost integrity, pursue my work in an honest and ethical manner. I will obey the letter and spirit of the law. I will lead by example…I will take responsibility for my actions and consider their effect on others.”
In terms of qualifications, Thompson said he’d like to see a city manager with a master’s degree in public administration, and several of the council members said they’d like to see someone with at least a four-year degree, but noted it could be in finance or business instead of public administration.
Most agreed they’d like to see someone with at least three to five years experience in more than one city of 50,000 to 150,000 people. Preferably that person would have experience managing an employee pool of 890 or more, which is how many the city currently has.
“Education, hugely important. It adds to that diverse knowledge and different ways of thinking. I have not seen very many city manager positions that have a specific area of study delineated. There will be a minimum level of education and it will say something like ‘in public administration, business administration or a related degree,” Lunt said.
Joven, however, said he was worried about limiting the pool of potential candidates. He is not opposed to hiring someone from the private sector or without those specific degrees.
“I want to keep it vast to try to get as many applicants as we can. It’d be a good problem to have 100 applicants that are qualified from throughout the state. That’d be a good problem, but if we narrowed it down to three, who did we cut out? I just want to be careful. I’m not discouraging the city council to put those criterias in, just cautioning them ‘Don’t narrow the line,’” Joven said after the meeting.
Joven acknowledged that by not requiring specific degrees, Bernal could theoretically be named the city manager.
“He’s free to apply. Never said that he couldn’t. Will he apply? I haven’t talked to him about it,” but he earned an excellent reputation during his time as the billings and collections department head, Joven said.
According to Bernal’s job application, he started as a Midland animal control officer in October 1994 before becoming the assistant director in July 1996. He left that position in March 2000. He became the director of animal control for the City of Mansfield in April 2001 before accepting the job as billing and collection manager with the City of Odessa in April 2006.
The council was asked by Lunt to take a job quiz by Thursday morning. They’ll then meet at 3 p.m. Tuesday to finalize their priorities.
Suzie Price, a hiring assessment expert from Georgia, was unable to participate in Tuesday’s meeting as expected because Jones determined a Zoom meeting would violate state laws. It’s unknown if she’ll be able to attend next week’s meeting.
After the T2 meeting, the council went into its normally scheduled work session. However, a planned discussion on fentanyl was postponed until March 28 because Tony Surles, the scheduled speaker, had a family emergency.
