Brownsville’s new city manager could be announced as early as Jan. 9 if the city and the chosen candidate agree to an employment contract by then.
A special meeting of the city commission is set for 5 p.m. on that date. The two finalists for the job are Rick Davis, formerly the city manager of Baytown, and Brownsville Interim City Manager Helen Ramirez.
At the city commission’s Jan. 3 regular meeting, following executive session deliberations, commissioners voted to authorize Mayor Trey Mendez “to negotiate and execute a contract with the selected candidate.”
Commissioner John Cowen, who served on the search committee, said the commission also approved its version of the contract during the meeting. If the chosen candidate requests substantial changes “then they’ll come back to the commission for review and discussion.”
“If the candidate agrees to the terms that were approved on (Jan. 3), then I think they could go ahead and sign the contract and then the city would put out a press release,” he said.
If the city and the candidate can’t agree on contract terms, then the job could be offered to the runner-up, Cowen said.
“I think the commission felt very strongly that both candidates were very qualified, and we would be in good shape with either one,” he said. “That was the intent of the search committee, and I think we were able to accomplish that goal.”
Commissioner Rose Gowen, who served on the current city manager search committee as well as the one before it, said the latest search took place over several months and attracted a number of applicants.
“There’s always a lot of applications, but then that number narrows, because there are certain criteria that are looked for, and if a person doesn’t have that criteria then they don’t actually make the cut,” she said.
Last time the commission had three finalists to choose from, Gowen said.
Noel Bernal was ultimately hired and served from December 2018 until last year when he left to take a job in Colorado. Ramirez’s appointment as Brownsville deputy city manager was announced in February 2019.
Gowen said she’s happy with the way the searches were conducted — then and now.
“The nice thing about both this and the previous city manager search is that it was done in a professional manner,” she said. “That is taking the city to the next level, as opposed to hiring someone is respected and all that kind of stuff, but doesn’t necessarily have professional training and so forth. Both of these times the search was done in a very outstanding and professional manner and I’m very pleased with that.”
