There is a major purge happening within the City’s upper administration.
We learned only Tuesday that Tracey Jerome, Senior Deputy City Manager, is departing for a job in Mooresville, North Carolina.
A few months earlier Elizabeth Triggs, Director of Economic and International Development, went to Midland to join the administration of Tommy Gonzalez, who was fired from his job in February 2023.
Today the City announced the departure of another top administrator: Sam Rodriguez, Chief Operations Officer and Airport Director.
He was one of the most reliable bureaucrats under City Manager Gonzalez, working his way up from obscurity until he was the seventh highest paid municipal employee, with a current salary of $225,709.
A city announcement via email announced his retirement “due to pressing family reasons” after 18 years of service, but we strongly suspect there were additional factors.
Thus, two of the six of the administrators reporting directly to Interim City Manager Cary Westin are out.
That leaves CFO Robert Cortinas, Chief Transit and Field Operations Officer Ellen Smyth, Deputy City Manager Mario d’Agostino, and Deputy City Manager Dionne Mack still in place.
If we were gamblers, we would bet that at least two of the remaining four will be gone by the end of this fiscal quarter.
We have every confidence that (Ret.) Col. Westin will find highly competent administrators to replace the Gonzalez cronies and that the taxpayers will be better off for it.
