EDINBURG — The council here authorized the city attorney to offer the city manager post to one of three candidates council members interviewed Thursday.
Councilman Jorge Salinas made the motion to offer the position to Ron Garza, current executive director for the Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council (LRGVDC), shortly after the council met with him and two other hopefuls: interim Edinburg City Manager Richard Hinojosa and San Benito City Manager Manuel De La Rosa.
Council members interviewed five candidates over two days, narrowing down the pool of 46 applicants. In the end, however, Garza appeared best suited for the position, as the decision to offer him the post was unanimous.
The council directed city attorney Omar Ochoa to offer Garza a $250,000 yearly salary, which would be a significant pay bump for Garza, who is currently earning about $200,000 per year as head of the LRGVDC.
Garza has been with the organization for about 4 years, and last year, he also served as the interim executive director for the Rio Grande Valley Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for about four months.
Before joining LRGVDC, Garza spent eight months as an administrator for the city of San Antonio’s Human Resources Department. He also spent 17 years at the Texas Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services, where he was promoted five times from his initial post as a vocational rehabilitation teacher to operations director from 1998 to 2015.
Garza holds a master of education from the University of Texas at Austin and a bachelor of science from Southwest Texas State University. He also completed a year at UT in pursuit of a master of business administration.
Should he accept the position, the issue would be brought before the council one more time to finalize the decision, Ochoa said.
