Rumors about City Manager Michael Marrero’s tenuous hold on his job are no longer just rumors. The Odessa City Council is scheduled to discuss firing him and Odessa City Attorney Natasha Brooks Tuesday night.
The council is also scheduled to discuss appointing interim people to fill their spots and launching searches for their replacements.
Marrero and Brooks did not respond to emails seeking a comment.
Brooks and Marrero were evaluated along with three other council appointees in October, but the idea of re-evaluating them appeared on the council’s regular meeting agenda Nov. 22, but was tabled because three new council members were sworn in that night. It was also on last week’s workshop agenda, but due to the lack of a quorum, the meeting was cancelled.
This week, the evaluations are back on the agenda, but the evaluation and “possible termination” of Brooks and Marrero also appear as separate agenda items.
District 2 City Councilman Steve Thompson said he doesn’t know why the council is being asked to consider firing the pair. District 3 Councilman Gilbert Vasquez, District 5 Councilman Chris Hanie and At-Large Councilwoman Denise Swanner did not return phone calls, texts and emails left Friday night and Saturday.
District 1 Councilman Mark Matta and District 4 Councilman Greg Connell, who was sworn in Nov. 22, declined to comment.
“The only thing I’m going to say about both of those agenda items is that both of those agenda items will be addressed by the entire council Tuesday evening at 6 p.m. at our council meeting,” Matta said.
Greg Connell provided a similar statement.
“To answer that question, I’m gonna have to…give you a complete statement. It is on the city council agenda for this coming Tuesday,” Connell said. “All of those agenda items will receive input from all the council members, interested city employees. Community citizens, I’m sure will be there. It’s going to be Tuesday at 6 p.m.”
Mayor Javier Joven emailed without comment writing only “all agenda items on Tuesday city council will be discussed at Tuesday mtg.”
When the idea of re-evaluations first came up, Thompson said it was his fear Joven, Matta and Swanner wanted to fire Marrero and he suggested the other staff members were listed as “window dressing.”
In his opinion, Marrero is well qualified for his job and well-respected and liked by city staff, Thompson said.
He’s found Brooks to be a forthright person who does her job and “doesn’t play one side against the other.”
He predicts the loss of Marrero will have a negative impact on city employees and worries Assistant City Manager Cindy Muncy will quit, which would be a “travesty.”
Muncy didn’t respond to an email seeking comment, either.
“If you say municipal government accountants grow on trees, you need your head examined,” Thompson said. “They don’t and that is going to leave the City of Odessa, potentially in a lurch, in my opinion.”
Thompson further predicts Joven will become Odessa’s city manager and Matta will become mayor.
Asked about the mayor’s position, Matta said he loves the job he has right now.
“Rumors are hilarious. I’m just gonna say that. As of right now, I have no intentions of wanting to become mayor,” Matta said. “That’s all I’ll say about that. I can’t speak about Mayor Joven and his intentions, but my intentions? I’m definitely not intending on running for mayor.”
Nor, Matta said, is he interested in the city manager’s position.
OTHER REACTIONS
Detra White, who opted not to run for re-election last month along with Tom Sprawls and Mari Willis, said she has been anticipating this move for awhile.
Several months ago, the city council asked for the city’s legal staff to strengthen game room ordinances before ultimately deciding to eliminate them entirely with an entirely new ordinance. White said since that process started Joven, Matta and Swanner stopped consulting with Brooks on various issues for unknown reasons.
White said she was part of the council who hired Brooks and has always felt Brooks had a good legal background and connections in the legal community.
She’s worked hard to pursue training for other attorneys in her office, White said.
“There’s nothing that I can say that is negative about her,” White said. “She has always researched thoroughly any questions, any issues – either she, herself, or through her staff. She has always been very forthcoming and provided detailed information for us.”
White praised Marrero.
“I can’t say enough about him. I think he’s a top notch city manager. First of all, his relations and his ability to work and communicate well with all of the departments within the city. He has a genuine respect for every position within the City of Odessa,” White said. “He’s an intelligent man with great communication skills and has a great working relationship with outside entities, whether it’s governmental or in the private sector.”
She spent 35 years with the city and “hands down Michael has been the one that I have enjoyed and respected the most of the city managers that I have dealt with.”
Marrero has been respectful and accommodating to the council and she can’t understand why anyone would want to remove him, White said.
“If they want to replace him, they need to replace him with a qualified candidate, someone that knows the details, that knows the issues in-depth, not just the political side,” White said. “If this is a situation of wanting to gain more control, that’s incredibly unfortunate.”
Sprawls said he was surprised council members were finally being explicit about their wishes.
“This is probably the most candid they’ve been. Tell us what you want to do so we can all discuss it,” Sprawls said. “For them to say they’re going to access everybody that worked for the city council, was kind of silly and really and truly, it’s silly anyway. You’re going to have Steve Thompson who’s gonna side with those people and then you’ve got three new guys that don’t know anything about them.”
Marrero is a talented man with good leadership and communication skills and Brooks is good at her job, Sprawls said.
Other than someone wanting the job for himself, Sprawls said, “I can’t figure out why they want to get rid of him.”
Like Thompson, Sprawls said he’s heard the rumors about Joven and Matta stepping into the roles of city manager and mayor.
“The mayor is not qualified to be the city manager. He didn’t come up through the ranks and it’s impossible for him to know the city as intimately as Mr. Marrero does,” Sprawls said. “He’s not spent enough time in city hall working on the day-to-day problems or situations. First of all, I don’t think the mayor has very good communication skills.”
Just last month, Sprawls said Joven reprimanded Muncy during a packed council meeting for speaking from the front row rather than approaching the microphone, but did not do so when others later spoke from the back of the room.
Sprawls, too, believes morale will plummet and Muncy will leave if the pair are fired.
Willis also expressed her concern the three new council members, Connell, Hanie and Vasquez, will be asked to vote on the terminations when they’ve not had any time to work with them.
“I think both of them have exceptional work performance records,” Willis said. “Their work was very, very good. I would have no complaints toward their work, their work ethics, production or leadership skills in their various capacities. I’m just surprised that they’re at this point.”
It’s too bad the situation is being handled in this way, Willis said.
“We’re still dealing with human beings who have families, who have responsibilities and to carry it out as though they’re just a number of a piece of paper, that, to me, is very unfortunate,” Willis said.
City employees will also suffer, she said.
“I think it’s going to affect city employee morale because they don’t know who’s next and how it’s going to come about, especially if there’s not a lot to justify those actions,” Willis said.
OFR RAISES
In other matters, the council is scheduled to discuss using American Rescue Plan Act money to “boost” salaries of public safety employees.
The city council voted in July to hire a firm to conduct an employee compensation study after Odessa Fire Rescue employees announced it has lost more than 70 employees over the last two years.
Attempts to immediately give raises for OFR employees since July have failed because White, Willis, Sprawls and Thompson wanted to wait for the study to be complete.
With White, Willis and Sprawls gone, the council may now have the votes to move forward.
Connell said he doesn’t know how he will vote, but noted Marrero and Muncy have asked the federal government for clarification on what he described as “fuzzy” rules on ARPA funding expenditures.
Matta said the city cannot afford to wait on the raises due to the continuing loss of firefighters and the increasing number of traffic accidents and other growth-related calls for service.
“It’s my opinion that the compensation study was done in such a way to take the focus off of what was most important, which was OFR,” Matta said. “Since 2018, OFR has lost 140 firefighters. That’s a huge problem that we’re having and one of the main reasons that they’re leaving is because of compensation.”
Matta said the council will also be looking at potential raises for dispatchers and police officers.
He hopes morale won’t become an issue if other city employees don’t receive raises.
“All city employees have to use the OFR and we want to make sure that the OFR is capable of answering all of those calls, to not just the city employees, but to the other citizens of Odessa,” Matta said. “So if there are any hurt feelings, I would hope that there will be some consolation in that, hey, we’re trying to fix the problem so that whenever you do have an emergency and you call the OFR that the response time is adequate enough because we have a fully-staffed fire department.”
WORK SESSIONS
The council will also discuss changing the days and meeting times of their work sessions. Instead of gathering at 3 p.m. Tuesdays exactly one week prior to city council meetings, the council is considering holding workshops immediately prior to its normal 6 p.m. meeting.
“I’m in favor of having the work session on the same Tuesday as the council meeting. Having it two hours before, say at 4 o’clock. Have it from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., taking a brief recess and start the council meeting,” Matta said. “The council has a lot of people now that aren’t retired. They have a full-time job and it would make it easier for them to be more effective.”
