Watson Wire: Stabilizing City Government

The Austin City Council is officially on a “budget break,” meaning there won’t be a council meeting again until July 20. The break from council meetings gives city staff some much-needed time and space to prepare the proposed budget and make headway on some other key policy priorities.

When I was running to be the mayor again, I pointed out how we ask a lot of city staff, and having the right people in the right places is essential to our city running well. I said that we needed to shake up city hall and be sure the place was organized to deliver the services of city government well. Shortly after taking office, during the February ice storm and power outage, it became painfully clear to me that we did not have the right people in the right places to manage a cascading crisis and communicate effectively with the public.

On Feb. 15, the City Council parted ways with our previous City Manager and lured former City Manager Jesús Garza out of retirement to serve as the interim. The Council directive to Jesús was to stabilize our city government and get those basic operations of the city running well. We asked him to fix the problems of the past so that our next permanent City Manager can focus on moving the city forward.

Jesús and his team of temporary leaders brought decades of city management experience to the enormous task of evaluating how all our departments work together to serve the people of Austin. What they found was that the departments often weren’t working together and the organization was not set up to succeed.

So he has made a number of positive management changes, including some that directly relate to the winter storm response:

Austin Energy: Bob Kahn will be the next General Manager of our municipally owned utility. He is returning to Austin Energy after running the Texas Municipal Power Agency and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (BTW…his tenure at ERCOT was long before the events of Winter Storm Uri in 2021 that shined a bright light on the electric grid operator).

Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management: Ken Snipes has led Austin Resource Recovery since 2019 and did an excellent job managing the city’s storm debris clean-up. He has been on special assignment in recent months assisting Interim Assistant City Manager Bruce Mills in evaluating the City’s Emergency Operations functions and will now take over as Director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

Chief Strategic Communications & External Relations Officer: Providing the public clear, timely and accurate information is essential during a crisis. We can’t afford a lack of coordination among the multiple city departments that are communicating to the public. Michele Middlebrook-Gonzalez, who previously served as the city’s Public Information Director, will return in the newly created position of Chief Strategic Communications & External Relations Officer to focus on strategic internal and external communication across the organization.

Other organizational changes are aimed at improving city operations and efficiency to address our affordability crisis:

Development Services Department: Eleven city departments have a hand in the development review process and they haven’t been working efficiently or effectively together, leading to long and costly delays for housing and critical infrastructure. The challenge of getting all those departments in sync now falls to José Roig, who began with the city as a commercial building inspector and will lead the Development Services Department permanently. Since taking over as the interim DSD Director in January, José has integrated the Code Enforcement functions into the department and embarked upon analyzing the development review and permitting with the aim of streamlining the process.

And, at my request, McKinsey & Company, an international consulting firm, has been doing a deep dive into what we need to do to be better at the development review process. They have been aggressive, and the preliminary results show us a great roadmap for big improvement. I’m excited that we’ll have a final report very soon. They’ve done this pro bono.

Planning Department: The new Planning Department is taking on the big-picture policy issues related to land use and code changes, which allows the separate Housing Department to focus on affordability and creating more housing. Lauren Middleton-Pratt, who was previously an assistant city manager in Buda overseeing development services, started last month as the Director of the Planning Department.

Why it matters now?

All of these changes will help to stabilize this organization and set up the next City Manager for success. That’s why I believe now is the right time to begin the search process for a permanent city manager.

I committed that we would start in the June/July timeframe by gathering a committee of council members to narrow the field of search firms that will then be brought to the full Council for review and selection. I have asked Mayor Pro Tem Paige Ellis and Council Members Leslie Pool, Chito Vela and Vanessa Fuentes to help with the initial process.

I hope we accomplish the selection of a firm in the July-August time frame and the firm can begin its work.