Based on Tuesday's city council meeting and these articles in the El Paso Times and the El Paso Inc, its pretty freaking difficult to see how the city manager survives the recent developments having to do with the financial advisor.
A few months ago the very same reps that are expressing disappointment in the city manager were the ones pushing for his raise.
That led to some going to city council and calling an agenda item to revisit the raise "an embarrassment".
I wonder where those people are now.
But back to my point, when City Rep Cortney Niland, who was once one of Gonzalez's biggest supporters is now openly critical of the city manager and seems to be on a quest to find out who is responsible for several developments relating to the RFQ for a new financial advisor, you know the city manager is in some trouble.
Now I've heard several people say that the city manager is "going to take the fall" for the fiasco but frankly I don't see that as his intention at all. Niland very bluntly pointed out the CFO "falling on the sword". I think several high-level staffers will take the fall before the city manager does.
Why?
Because the city manager is essentially the city's version of Jim Valenti. He's become a lightning rod for a lot of things and has had a lot of negative coverage. Ironically, both of them over how much they get paid.
The reality is that both guys know its going to be difficult to find another job comparable to what they are doing now when they leave El Paso no matter what the circumstances.
El Paso is the city of second chances. It always has been. But if you did any searching of Gonzalez before he was selected as the city manager you would've found countless number of news stories that should have at the very least, raised some eyebrows. Which is why I couldn't, and can't, understand the raise.
But now that it appears council is going to get rid of Gonzalez, the question is what is the future for Romero?
Also there was a suspicious package found in front of city hall today that was at one point reported to be a briefcase. There were unconfirmed reports that the briefcase contained City Manager Tommy Gonzalez's future in it. It was going to be detonated as a precautionary measure.
But it turns out it was an old worn out seat cushion. Word around the camp fire at city hall is that Gonzalez is going to see it back together and add it to the total amount of money he has "saved" the city.
Just kidding, I made those last two paragraphs up.
Here's a cat video: