Sculley’s successor will be one of her aides
2 top lieutenants finalists for city manager position
San Antonio’s next city manager will come from within its ranks.
The field of candidates vying to replace Sheryl Sculley was trimmed Tuesday to two of her top lieutenants: Deputy City Manager Erik Walsh and Assistant City Manager María Villagómez.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg said the candidates who have worked in San Antonio presented the best opportunity for the city to not miss a beat.
The two candidates will return today for a final round of interviews with the City Council. Nirenberg said the council will name a lone finalist in the evening.
The final candidate will meet with various city stakeholders and also appear at a public symposium before the council votes to approve him or her on Jan. 31.
“This has been an enormously difficult task to narrow down our candidates,” Nirenberg said, adding later: “I think we all felt very comfortable that the consensus was to bring back María and Erik for the next round of interviews.”
The finalist who is selected will assume the city’s most important appointed position, overseeing the day-to-day operations of the seventh largest city in the U.S.
The city manager oversees a staff of about 12,000 employees and a budget of about $2.8 billion.
Sculley announced she was retiring soon after the Nov. 6 election, when voters overwhelmingly approved a proposition that sets a salary cap of 10 times that of the lowestpaid employee, currently
that would be $312,000, and limits future city managers to an eight-year tenure
While the proposition doesn’t affect her, it widely was seen as a referendum on Sculley’s compensation. With a $475,000 base salary and up to $100,00 in performance-based bonus, she is the highest-paid city manager in the nation.
During her 13-year tenure, Sculley worked for four mayors and is credited with improving city finances and services.
She stewarded three massive bond projects, implemented the Pre-K 4 SA program that’s hailed as a model and brought a budgeting approach that has enabled the city to maintain a triple-A bond rating, among numerous other accomplishments.
Nirenberg praised Sculley’s legacy, including her “best-in-class fiscal stewardship” and effective delivery of services, and said he hopes her successor carries on that legacy. But he also was careful to emphasize that neither Walsh nor Villagómez will try to recreate Sculley.
“I’m confident in saying this: We’re not hiring the next Sheryl Sculley. Neither one of them will be that,” Nirenberg said. “They will be their own individual, unique city manager that will bring their own strengths to the table, their own styles, and that’s something I think is important for them to have — the latitude to be their own person.”
The one chosen will help lead the city in confronting the challenges of a new era, Nirenberg said.
Those include housing and transportation for a region expected to see booming population growth in the near future, along with socioeconomic inequities and what he called “a difficult conflict with our public safety union.”
The city’s firefighter union led the charge on the charter amendment targeting the city manager position, and the two parties have been locked in a stalemate over contract negotiations.
Walsh, 49, long has been seen as the favorite for the job. He began his career with the city nearly 25 years ago as a budget analyst and has overseen the highest-profile departments, including police and fire, and has handled collective bargaining negotiations and high-profile contracts for years. His portfolio includes nearly a third of the city’s $2.8 billion annual budget.
Candidates weren’t allowed to discuss the content of their interviews with the council because they occurred in executive session, but Walsh said he thinks he has the right attitude and temperament for the job.
“I think I’m the best candidate to execute the council’s policy directions and lead a great team of 12,000 dedicated employees,” Walsh said.
Villagómez, 45, is a certified public accountant whose career in San Antonio began in 1997. In her initial pitch to the council, she underscored her deep experience in handling the city’s finances. She currently oversees the office of management and budget, along with parks and recreation and the office of equity.
“I’ve been a public servant the past 21 years,” Villagómez said after her interview. “I’m excited to work to make the city more prosperous.”
The two were picked from a field of eight semifinalists who took turns Monday and Tuesday appearing before the City Council in closed-door interviews. The field included six internal candidates who work under Sculley, resulting in an awkward situation in which co-workers were interviewing for the job one after another.
The rest of the applicants were: Deputy City Manager Peter Zanoni and Assistant City Managers Carlos Contreras, Lori Houston and Rod Sanchez, along with external candidates Orlando Sanchez, a retired Las Vegas deputy city manager, and Majed Al-Ghafry, a Dallas assistant city manager.
Nirenberg and the council praised the depth and quality of the applicants, particularly the internal candidates.
One council member equated the selection process to choosing who to marry, and another compared it to picking his favorite superhero.
“My kids recently asked me which one of the Avengers was my favorite, and that’s a difficult question because they’re all amazing,” Councilman Manny Peláez said. “I think the same difficult question has been posed to us in having to select from eight amazing candidates.”