MIDLAND, Texas — Yesterday, it was made known that the city of Midland had selected Tommy Gonzalez as their final candidate for the position of city manager.
It is a position that he is familiar with as he was city manager with the city of El Paso from 2014 to 2023.
However, his time with El Paso came to a controversial end as he was ousted by the El Paso city council, who voted to terminate his contract by a 5-4 vote during a city council meeting on February 28.
That city council meeting saw over thirty people, including two former mayors, speak during public comment, with the comments lasting over an hour and a half.
Gonzalez had both supporters and detractors at the meeting.
Supporters for Gonzalez were confused as to why city council were going after Gonzalez and wished for clarification for the reasons city council wanted to terminate him.
To them, Gonzalez was a city manager who helped right the ship and was steering El Paso in the right direction as a city.
"For years and years the community was run by councilmembers who ran the city into the ground because they didn’t know how to run a city," said Joshua Block in a statement on February 28th. "Now that the city is doing great because of the city manager and leadership has put in, now you want to cancel his contract. That makes absolutely no sense.”
Former mayor Dee Margo was a strong advocate for Gonzalez, as the two had worked closely together during Margo's run as mayor.
Margo says Gonzalez helped guide El Paso through the COVID-19 pandemic and the first migrant crisis at the border.
He believes that the El Paso city council had other political motives and couldn’t give a good enough reason to terminate Gonzalez’ contract.
“It was without foundation and without basis," Margo said. "It was ludicrous, and Tommy wanted to stay. I thought it was just extremely disingenuous by our mayor for whatever political reasons he felt he needed to do it.”
Meanwhile, his detractors urged city council to move forward with the termination.
A post on Nextdoor shared a letter that the people of El Paso sent to the El Paso leaders. It detailed a laundry list of accusations against Gonzalez during his time as city manager.
Some of the allegations listed were not telling the people about property tax hikes, cost overruns on several projects and a lack of transparency and accountability.
Some speakers were very forward with their comments against Gonzalez.
“He is a master of administrative financial slight of hand and political smoke and mirrors," said Jud Burgess at the city council meeting. "This is why our previous administrations, including three of our current city council reps, support him and give him free reign to poach and pillage our bank accounts.”
Others questioned the high salary Gonzalez had.
"He has a current salary of $439,000, which is about an eighty percent increase raise in his salary from when he first started about eight to nine years ago," said Jesus Reyes at the city council meeting. "I’m just wondering how Tommy Gonzalez was able to have these raises approved automatically without any questions."
Of course, Gonzalez isn't city manager yet. He is only the final candidate for the job. Midland City Council will be discussing the status of Gonzalez at the July 11 city council meeting and will vote on whether or not to move forward with him for the position.
The city is inviting the public out to the meeting in order to give public comment and make their voices and opinions heard.