At the request of Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, the City Council's Ad Hoc Committee on Administrative Affairs met in an executive session Monday afternoon to discuss legal issues related to severance payment to former city manager T. C. Broadnax.
Broadnax in February said that several members of the City Council had requested that he resign, which would have required the city to pay more than $420,000 in severance. Now that Broadnax has taken up the city manager's position in Austin, Johnson is looking for a way out of paying the former city manager or any future holder of the office such a sum.
While the council debated legal avenues on the financial side of Broadnax’s departure, Interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert spent most of May making decisions about staffing. Since Broadnax’s resignation, other major players in the city manager's office have resigned. In a memo to the council last month, Tolbert said Deputy City Manager Jon Fortune and Chief of Staff Genesis Gavino both planned to follow their old boss south to the state capital. Gavino vacated his position last week, and Fortune’s last day in Dallas will be this Friday. Both Fortune and Gavino started working for the city in 2017, when Broadnax was hired.
Two assistant city managers, Robert Perez and Majed Al-Ghafry, also announced plans to leave shortly after Broadnax’s goodbye. The DeSoto City Council approved Al-Ghafry, who also came to the city of Dallas in 2017, as the new city manager last week. Perez will start as city manager in Topeka, Kansas, later this month.
"I assumed that some senior members of staff would depart." — Chad West, City Council Member
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The resignations of Perez, Al-Ghafry, Fortune and Gavino mean that half of the city's eight-person executive leadership team have parted ways with the city. In a city news release, Tolbert announced the appointment of former Sanger City Manager Alina Ciocan to replace Perez.
In April, Dallas’ chief information officer Bill Zielinski announced his resignation, although he told The Dallas Morning News his departure was not connected to Broadnax’s. One City Council member who requested Broadnax’s resignation, Chad West, told the Observer he felt some of the staff changes were “inevitable.”
“Some attrition will occur during major executive staff changes of this type. I can’t speak for my colleagues, but from my perspective, I assumed that some senior members of staff would depart,” West said.
Similar executive shake-ups are “quite common and expected” in the private sector, West said, and seem to be par for the course when it comes to the city manager’s office as well. In 2014, Broadnax’s predecessor, A.C. Gonzalez, made several major hiring decisions shortly after taking Dallas’ helm. One of those high-profile hires, Mark McDaniel, was a finalist along with Broadnax for the city manager position in 2016; he left the city staff in early 2017. Another former assistant city manager, Eric D. Campbell, was with the city from 2014 through 2017: in with Gonzalez and out with Broadnax.
Tolbert did put up a fight last month when it appeared that Police Chief Eddie Garcia’s tenure in Dallas was threatened. Tolbert responded to a report that Austin and Houston were interested in hiring the chief for the same role by telling the cities to “Turn around and go back home.” In one of the fastest City Council turnarounds on record, an “agreement” (not a contract, because the city charter does not allow for police chiefs to be offered contracts) was reached that Garcia will stay in Dallas through at least 2027.
West said he is “not aware” whether similar efforts were taken to keep Fortune, Gavino, Al-Ghafry or Perez in Dallas. As Tolbert works to fill their vacant positions, he has stressed the importance of city permitting being a “top priority” for the next Dallas city manager administration.
