The Dallas city manager search has unspooled in the chaotic style we’ve come to expect from this City Council. There was the ho-hum recruitment brochure draft featuring the wrong skyline. There was the council civil war over the timeline of the search and the flow of information about candidates. And nothing says “we’ve got our act together” like eleventh-hour candidate interviews the day before Christmas Eve.

When two original semifinalists and a former Dallas city official dropped out of the race, no one was surprised.

We wish the next city manager the best of luck because no amount of talent and hard work can overcome a fundamental flaw of this search, and that is the lack of formal, measurable goals by the City Council. Our city is about to hire its CEO, but its board of directors has no metrics to set expectations or hold that person accountable for the most important job in Dallas.

If you want to understand how dysfunctional the situation is, start with the fact that the council’s appointees — the city manager, city attorney, city secretary and city auditor — haven’t had a performance review in more than two years. Our last city manager, T.C. Broadnax, had his last evaluation in August 2022. He left in May 2024. Interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, the front-runner for the job, hasn’t had an evaluation since her appointment last spring.

The council has hired a consultant over the years to help conduct the evaluations of its appointees. But no consultant can fix this council’s main problem, and that is its inability to come together to develop a consensus around four or five priorities and the metrics to measure progress in those areas.

Even when performance reviews for council appointees were happening, the process was broken. The council’s consultant called council members individually to solicit feedback, with the consultant identifying “themes” shared verbally with the council, and with no particular comments attributed to specific people, according to a 2022 memorandum from Management Partners, the firm hired to do the work. The city manager and other appointees were “invited” to prepare a report on their accomplishments and goals for next year, with the potential for “refinements” based on council input.

There was no written report from the performance evaluation, other than any goals reports produced by the appointees.

It’s a shockingly wishy-washy approach to evaluating an employee, let alone a C-suite executive.

And don’t expect even a veneer of transparency for taxpayers. Last year, we requested Broadnax’s goal reports and were told by the city that there were no responsive records, only to hear a council member remind her colleagues last week that Broadnax produced a memo with his goals after his last performance review in 2022. City staff failed to release this memo in response to our request. Such a document should be public under the Texas Public Information Act.

Now, on the brink of hiring its next city manager, the council is panicking about the fact that it hasn’t evaluated its council appointees in a long time and that it has no measurable goals for any of them. The council committee whose job it is to codify the annual review process can’t seem to agree on how to move forward.

Mayor Pro Tem Tennell Atkins chairs the committee. In a December meeting, he led a discussion on next steps to resume performance reviews of council appointees. Council members learned that their previous consulting firm, Management Partners, had been acquired by Baker Tilly, the company that is leading the messy city manager search. But the woman who had worked closely with the council on previous performance reviews was no longer associated with either company.

The committee gave city staff mixed signals on how to proceed. Some council members said they wanted to continue working with the previous consultant. Others asked to hear from Baker Tilly. Some said they were dissatisfied with the previous consultant or concerned about Baker Tilly and wanted to hear from other vendors. Council members said to move quickly.

By the time the council committee picked the conversation back up this month, confusion reigned. Baker Tilly prepared a presentation that described a performance review process very similar to what the council had with its previous partner. Atkins indicated that the council was moving forward with Baker Tilly using an existing contract, and other committee members pushed back. Meanwhile, an assistant city manager and an assistant human resources director couldn’t answer a council member’s simple question about when the council appointees were last evaluated.

“Yes, we are overdue for these reviews, but I think that they should be pursued seriously with the appropriate time periods involved,” said council member Paul Ridley. “I don’t think we should out of convenience select someone who is doing other work for the city at the present time.”

Council member Jesse Moreno asked whether Baker Tilly would have a conflict of interest in facilitating the performance review of an executive the firm helped hire. A representative tried to assuage Moreno, but he is right to bring that up, given that Baker Tilly would be required to conduct a new search at no cost to Dallas if the city manager doesn’t last a year. Council members should be skeptical. (Keep in mind it was Baker Tilly that produced the hiring brochure for Dallas city manager. The cover photo was a shining image of the Houston skyline.)

The council now seems poised to consider other consultants for the performance evaluations. Council members should do their due diligence instead of repeating their sloppiness for the sake of comfort.

Hire a consultant, if you must, to moderate the conversation or offer pointers, but a management firm can’t do the hard work for you.

Outgoing council member Jaynie Schultz said it best: “This problem is ours as a council. We have not done our work. And so we can try spending all of our time diverting all the problem and the blame on Baker Tilly. … The delay is us, 100% us.”

The council’s job is not to run the city but to set clear, measurable expectations for the people it hires to do that. It’s telling that council members have relied on a consultant to remind them to perform a fundamental duty.

We welcome your thoughts in a letter to the editor. See the guidelines and submit your letter here. If you have problems with the form, you can submit via email at letters@dallasnews.com

There’s only one surprising tidbit in the revelation that Jerry Jones and Deion Sanders have had a discussion about the head coaching vacancy with the Cowboys.

How was Jones able to place the call before Sanders picked up his cell to initiate contact?

Sanders gets to remind officials at the University of Colorado that he’s a hot commodity while he prods for an extension. Jones redirects the conversation from his culpability in the Cowboys’ current condition while offering fans and candidates a reminder that this is a high-profile job coaches crave.

Jones, the Cowboys owner and chief content creator, has done it again. Ryan Reynolds didn’t generate this much initial buzz for Deadpool & Wolverine.

But what happens in the coming days and weeks as the search unfolds and the idea of Jones and Sanders turns out to be more of a marriage of marketing convenience than a reality? Will the words of Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman, who pointed out Monday that the job can be high-profile without being coveted, prove to be right?

The Cowboys will have no shortage of qualified candidates. There are enough veteran coaches searching for a fond farewell along with young, up-and-coming talents looking for their first big break to keep that pool stocked.

Back to Aikman’s point, there are other dynamics in play. One is the relative value Jones places on the position of head coach.

It was nearly 31 years ago in a hotel bar that Jones told reporters, “there are 500 coaches who could have won the Super Bowl with our team.‘’ A few days later the partnership between Jones and Jimmy Johnson came to an acrimonious end.

As he stood outside of the Cowboys locker room a few days ago after the loss to Washington to end the regular season, Jones was asked if he had a list of coaches ready if he moved on from Mike McCarthy. Jones again landed on that number, saying there would be “about 500 of them down there (Senior Bowl trip) that would love to be on the staff.‘’

Hyperbole? Sure. Jones rarely makes a point without one.

What you haven’t heard Jones say is there are 500 pass rushers who can do what Micah Parsons does or 500 quarterbacks who could start for the Cowboys.

Jones is willing to pay his top players big money because he believes they add rare value to the team’s potential success. He doesn’t hold coaches in the same regard. To him, their value is squeezed by the players on one side and by the management structure in place on the other.

Here’s another point. Past coaching hires have allowed Jones to sell hope to the fan base that a new voice, a new approach, will make a difference. That’s a tougher sell than ever.

Why? More than any other time, the ire of fans feels directly aimed at Jones. This past season was as much of a referendum on what Jerry and Stephen Jones didn’t do to build on a team that went 12-5 in three consecutive seasons as it was on the job done by McCarthy and his staff.

If you think that’s hyperbole, you weren’t at AT&T Stadium for the playoff game between UT and Ohio State. When Jones’ face flashed on the jumbotron as one of the celebrities in attendance, the crowd broke out in a comically loud boo.

The search for the 10th head coach in franchise history began with a call to Deion Sanders.

It will be interesting to see how it ends.

Catch David Moore and co-host Robert Wilonsky on Intentional Grounding on The Ticket (KTCK-AM 1310 and 96.7 FM) every Wednesday night at 7 o’clock through the Super Bowl.

Find more Cowboys coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.

Mike McCarthy’s future has been sorted out in Dallas, and there won’t be one with the Cowboys. As for his defensive coordinator in Mike Zimmer? The question becomes a little more murky.

According to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, the 68-year old assistant is keeping his options open, even willing to return to the Cowboys should that be the desire of decision-makers. He could feasibly retire, or continue his coaching career elsewhere — nothing seems to be off the table.

“#Cowboys defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer tells me ‘all options are open’ on his future after Dallas and Mike McCarthy parted ways Monday,” Pelissero reported. “Zimmer and other Dallas assistants whose contracts expired are now allowed to interview elsewhere. ‘I really enjoy coaching,’ Zimmer said.”

Zimmer made a name for himself as an assistant in Dallas from 1994 until 2006. He finally got a chance to lead a franchise in 2014 with the Minnesota Vikings, where he coached until 2021. He spent two seasons with Deion Sanders at Jackson State and Colorado as an analyst until the Cowboys called upon him to return in 2024.

Meanwhile, McCarthy’s Cowboys finished the 2024 season with a 7-10 record. The last time the Cowboys had a losing record was in 2020 when they finished 6-10. That was McCarthy’s first year in Dallas, and he then led the Cowboys to three consecutive 12-5 seasons. 

After the Cowboys lost to the Washington Commanders in Week 18, McCarthy said he wanted to be with the team going forward. “Absolutely. I have a lot invested here, and the Cowboys have a lot invested in me,” he said, per the Cowboys’ official website.  “And then there’s a personal side to all these decisions. So, they all point in the right direction.”

McCarthy then explained why he should continue to be the Cowboys head coach. “I don’t like to talk about myself that way, but I’ll just be clear: I’m a winner. I know how to win. I’ve won a championship. I won a championship in this building,” McCarthy said. “And that’s who I am. We’ll see where it goes.”

Moving forward, multiple teams are expected to speak with Mike McCarthy about their vacancy, like the Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints. Regardless, it didn’t work out in Dallas, and the Cowboys are moving in a different direction going forward. Whether Mike Zimmer is part of their plans remains to be seen.