Dallas council members say they want more options for city manager job, faster timeline

Some Dallas council members want to know if the four candidates on the shortlist for the city manager job are the best and only options.

A group of council members overseeing the search for the city’s top administrator met Thursday to discuss the next step in the hiring process. The meeting revealed frustrations with the pace and conduct of the search.

Council members laid into representatives from search firm Baker Tilly, asking why they were learning about 50 other candidates on the day of the Thursday meeting after a shortlist was released in November.

Art Davis, with Baker Tilly, told council members the firm identified four candidates as the best of the pool after several top contenders backed out due to issues surrounding the city’s finances and results of the Nov. 5 elections. They looked at education levels, professional experience and demographics.

Council member Paula Blackmon asked why the documents weren’t released immediately and got into a heated exchange with Mayor pro tem Tennell Atkins, chair of the ad hoc committee on administrative affairs.

Atkins said he, too, had only seen the list of 50 candidates as of Thursday morning. He said there is a process in place where not everyone on the council can see the information immediately.

“Once I get (the documents), everything becomes public information,” Atkins said, seemingly hinting at a behind-the-scenes fight over his leadership.

The four candidates on the shortlist for the city’s top job are Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, the city’s interim city manager; William Johnson, an assistant city manager in Fort Worth; Mark Washington, city manager of Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Zach Williams, executive assistant and chief operating officer for DeKalb County in Georgia.

Baker Tilly, which received a $134,000 contract from the city in May to lead the vetting process, said that as of last month, 50 of 616 possible applicants had sent in their resumes.

The city manager, appointed by the City Council, is the municipal government’s top administrative official. Some of the key responsibilities of the official include keeping the lights on across the city, managing more than 13,000 employees and managing a $5 billion budget.

There is a laundry list of issues at the moment. The city still needs to close a $4 billion gap in its uniformed and civilian pension funds, and officials are juggling the pressure to hire more than 900 cops after the passage of Propositions S and U in the Nov. 5 election. The two propositions waive the city’s municipal immunity and mandate that the city allocate 50% of any new revenue growth year-over-year to the police and fire pension system and other public safety initiatives.

The permanent office has been empty since former city manager T.C. Broadnax left for Austin in May to be the city manager. He wasn’t alone. Some of the city’s top brass, including Police Chief Eddie García, have also found jobs in Austin.

A final plan is set to be revealed next week on Monday.