A conversation with Jesús Garza as he prepares to leave Austin’s top job next week
AUSTIN (KXAN) — One of Austin’s most powerful figures, Interim City Manager Jesús Garza, returns to retirement at the end of next week.
After a months-long search, Austin City Council picked outgoing Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax to take over the role permanently. He’ll officially start May 6, but has already begun meeting with Austin leaders. When we interviewed Garza Tuesday morning, Broadnax was at City Hall.
“He’s been down here a couple days for the last two weeks and so he’s already beginning to get a feel for the issues that he’ll have to manage,” Garza said.
Austin City Council picks T.C. Broadnax to be next city manager
While the outgoing and incoming city managers won’t officially overlap in exit and entrance dates, Garza says he’s already talked to Broadnax about what projects he’ll need to get up to speed on during his early days in the role. That includes Project Connect, the airport and convention center projects and Austin’s new strategic housing blueprint, Garza said.
His top priorities for Broadnax though: “To continue the sense of urgency and that we’re here to serve. To make sure that we have that attitude, by all people who work for the City of Austin. Two is the issue that is one that we’ve spent a lot of time on, it’s got a lot of interest, which is the homeless issue.”
Homelessness is also something Garza referenced when he was asked about challenges he faced during his more than a year in the interim position.
“One of the things that we have to guard against as a professional staff, we can’t get driven by dogma. We can’t be driven by confirmation bias, that is, we think we know what the solution is so we completely gravitate to it,” Garza said.
When asked for examples, Garza continued: “Well I think the issue is homeless[ness]. We arrived at one particular solution and I think, and I said last week, when you think of this as similar to a healthcare system, you have to develop different pieces of the continuum.”
In all, Garza says he accomplished what he had hoped during his time at the city, which included hitting a “reset button.” Garza says city leaders set up a system to evaluate major issues and met every Monday morning to look at them.
“I think from all indications the new manager is going to proceed along that vein,” Garza said.
As for what’s next for the interim city manager, he says he plans to spend time with his grandkids, get more physically healthy after long and hard hours at City Hall and adjusting to retirement… again.
“I’m sure within the first few days my wife is going to ask me to go figure out, to go do something so I can get out of the house,” he said.
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