Walsh gets the nod to replace Sculley
Council names municipal veteran as lone finalist for city manager job
Erik Walsh, a 24-year veteran of San Antonio’s municipal government and one of City Manager Sheryl Sculley’s top two deputies, has been chosen as the lone finalist to succeed her in the city’s most important appointed job.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg announced the City Council’s selection Wednesday evening, capping three long days of interviews for the high-profile position.
Before the council votes to approve him Jan. 31, Walsh will meet with city stakeholders and also appear at a public symposium next Wednesday.
“I just want to say this is probably the most difficult decision that anyone sitting on the City Council in our careers will ever make,” Nirenberg said after hours of closed-door deliberations. “What has become evident in this whole process has been what a remarkable city staff we have.”
The city manager runs the dayto-day operations of the nation’s seventh-largest city. Walsh, 49, has been seen as the favorite for the job since shortly after Sculley announced she would retire.
Assistant City Manager María Villagómez, who oversees the city’s office of management and budget, was the other finalist for the position.
The decision didn’t come without drama. Walsh and Villagómez made public pitches to the council Wednesday afternoon before moving to closed-doors interviews. About an hour after the candidates left those interviews, the City Council summoned them back for follow-up questions.
In all, the council was in executive session deliberating the choice for nearly six hours.
“I don’t have a negative word to say about either one of them,” Nirenberg said after they made their
lawsuit to go to trial.
“There’s been no settlement discussions up to now,” he said.
“Well, that’s why I’m here,” Ezra replied in an emphatic whisper.
Shawn Fitzpatrick, a lawyer for San Antonio, said the city is willing to participate in a mediation, but any discussion of returning the statue or any other Confederate icon to Travis Park is a “nonstarter.”
Ezra tried to assess the value of the capsule, which was embedded in a granite cornerstone of the monument.
There still are many unknowns about its contents.
Pam Rosser, the Alamo’s on-site conservator and court-approved special master of the time capsule, said she inspected it about two weeks earlier, but could only peer through a 6-inch hole to see what was inside — “fragments” of old items.
“I’m not able to determine what those fragments are,” Rosser told the judge.
Based on newspaper accounts, the UDC chapter believes the time capsule included a roster of the nowdefunct Barnard E. Bee chapter, which raised funds for the monument; Confederate currency and coins; pressed flowers from the coffin of Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ daughter, author Varina Anne “Winnie” Davis; a Confederate flag bearing the name “Jeff Davis” in a wreath of violets; newspapers; and an Old Testament kept by a Confederate soldier in a Union prison.
Ezra went through the items one by one, saying he believed they have little “intrinsic” value, though they could have great sentimental meaning to a select few. Confederate coins and currency can be purchased on the Internet, he said.
“They’re not that difficult to obtain,” he said. “I doubt the wreath of violets has survived.”
The judge speculated that the only thing of real potential value that was listed in newspapers when the monument was dedicated was the Old Testament volume. But Ezra said no one knows what else may be in the time capsule.
The UDC chapter’s lawsuit, which claims the city violated the First, Fifth and 14th amendments by removing the monument, seeks unspecified monetary damages and attorney’s fees.
As part of his order that the parties enter mediation, Ezra said the city will have to pay Rosser’s initial fee for inspecting the time capsule.
One of the goals should be to determine whether to open the time capsule, and who would pay to have its contents catelogued — a task that likely would cost $5,000, he said.
Robin Terrazas, president of the UDC chapter, said her members believes the capsule was damaged when the monument was removed.
She said the chapter, composed of about 180 local female Confederate descendants, should not have to pay for the research because it tried to warn the city about the capsule’s location, but was not consulted before crews hastily took down the monument.