City of Austin City Council finally gets it right. After creating and offering former Chief of Police Art Aceveda a $270,000 Assistant city manager position with no community input.
After deliberations behind closed doors Tuesday, Austin City Council intends to move forward with T.C. Broadnax as its next city manager, according to a city council message board post from Mayor Kirk Watson.
City council members still need to vote next Thursday, April 4, to direct its search firm to negotiate a contract with Broadnax, according to the post.
“This posting will also be for potential passage of an ordinance to employ T.C. Broadnax as Austin City Manager,” the mayor wrote. “Again, I know we are all deeply thankful to Sara Hensley for putting herself on the line and offering to be our City Manager.”
What we know about T.C. Broadnax
In a Q&A session with members of Austin’s media Thursday, Broadnax talked about his priorities for his first 100 days in office, including hiring a permanent police chief and making that process open to the public. He also talked about early work on homelessness.
“Going back to the table to figure out the appropriate scope of services that everybody can agree to for the diagnostic that was supposed to be done on our homeless ecosystem to make sure we get that right,” he said.
How we got here
Interim City Manager Jesús Garza was brought out of retirement by the council after it voted to fire former City Manager Spencer Cronk. Garza did not apply to remain in the position long-term, according to documents KXAN received of the full list of applicants.
Cronk faced increased scrutiny last year following prolonged power outages from an ice storm in early February and negotiation with the Austin Police Association on a four-year deal “in principle,” which ultimately fell through.
