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Dionne Mack takes helm as El Paso city manager [1]

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Date: 2024-09-11

During her first two weeks as El Paso city manager, Dionne Mack has been settling into her new role, new office and new front-and-center seat in City Council Chambers.

The first few days, Mack largely prepared herself and got acclimated to the new position. Her second-floor, corner office at City Hall has been decorated with furniture and art from the city’s public art program that she said she rearranged from what was already available. She also has about a dozen plants that get ample natural light from multiple windows.

“I was slightly stressed during the interview process and I decided that cultivating plants instead of eating doughnuts was healthier – so, now, I have like 35. This (planting) is new. This is new since I sent the first application (for the city manager position),” Mack said.

Mack, who started on the job Sept. 3, previously served as deputy city manager for quality of life. She was hired as El Paso’s third city manager Aug. 19 after a national search. Her starting annual salary is $350,000 with benefits similar to other city executive employees.

In her new role, Mack, 52, will be tasked with paving her own leadership path, keeping a balanced budget, seeing through several multimillion-dollar bond projects, filling key executive positions, evaluating staffing needs citywide, improving morale and overseeing the city’s overall operations – all under the direction of the City Council that may see vast changes after the November elections.

She replaces Tommy Gonzalez, who was fired by the City Council in February 2023 after nine years on the job. Cary Westin had served as interim. She is also taking over as city manager ahead of the November general election, where an unprecedented seven City Council seats will be up for a vote, including two vacated by sitting city representatives to run for mayor.

Budget, taxes and bonds

Mack will also have to address the city’s budget and tax rate, which for two years has adopted the no-new-revenue rate, while issuing general obligation bonds approved by voters in previous elections. Voters in 2019 approved a $413 million bond for public safety projects and in 2022 approved $272.5 million in the community progress bond for projects such as park improvements. With some of those projects underway, the city will have to start paying on the debt.

“I think it (the budget and tax rate) really depends on whether we have to issue additional debt next year with the adoption of that budget – the finance team is already beginning to look at strategies for us being able to take this year to prepare as we move into next year,” Mack said.

Mack said she and her team will look at what bond projects need to move forward and try to avoid a large spike in issuing debt. To date, the city has issued $167.2 million of the public safety bond and still has $245.8 million left to issue. The city has issued $46.1 million of the community progress bond and still has $226.4 million left to issue.

The city in November is asking voters whether the $180 million Downtown arena approved by voters in 2012 should be scrapped, or if the city should move forward with the remaining bond funds. If voters decide that the city should move forward with the multipurpose center, Mack will have to work with the City Council to determine how to develop it.

Mack said that while she sees value in certificates of obligation, or non-voter approved debt, for emergency situations, she does not anticipate the City Council would want to issue debt without voter approval.

“I think that for other things (or projects) that we do, there is enough time for us to put those on the ballot,” Mack said.

Setting leadership team, raising morale

Mack also has to address how she will lead city employees and raise morale in the organization of about 7,000 employees.

She attributed low morale to multiple factors including a difficult recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“People think about that (the pandemic) as being a long time ago, but I’ve just got parks and recreation centers reopened (in 2023) – so, to have to staff up and have people working extra just to try to keep the doors open was really stressful,” she said.

Mack said salaries were also an issue while employees were being tasked with more work while there were, and continue to be, vacancies throughout the city. Mack said there are currently about 1,400 vacancies city-wide.

“We’ll continue to work on salaries, ensuring that we can be competitive with them, that we can recognize long-term employees who have other choices for where they can go, but have dedicated their lives to public service,” Mack said.

City Manager Dionne Mack discusses her role and her goals as she settles in to the first week of her new position, Sept. 6, 2024. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)

As she develops her leadership team, Mack said she continues to work with Chief Financial Officer Robert Cortinas and Deputy City Manager Mario D’Agostino, who were among four finalists for the city manager position. The last was Nicole Ferrini, the Community and Human Development director.

“Our team is strong,” she said. “They’re (Cortinas and D’Agostino) helping me to think about what the restructures will look like. I’ve not only included them, but I’m also already reaching out to department heads.”

Mack said she wants to be transparent in appointing future deputy city managers and executive staff. Three top leadership positions are vacant, including Mack’s deputy city manager seat. The other two are senior deputy city manager, a position previously held by Tracey Jerome, and the chief operations position previously held by Sam Rodriguez. Jerome left the city in April to work as the town manager in Mooresville, North Carolina, and Rodriguez retired in April.

“In previous administrations those (deputy city manager hires) were direct appointments to those positions,” Mack said. “We’re going to advertise them, we’re going to have community members be a part of the panels and so I really want to make sure that that’s very transparent about the decisions that we’re making in terms of our roles moving forward.”

Mack said she also wants to analyze staffing vacancies in the city and figure out how to either fill them, or determine whether they can find ways to be more efficient without filling them. She said she will include staff and all departments as part of that process to gain an understanding before making any final decisions.

Finding middle ground with City Council

Aside from deciding how to move forward with city staff, Mack must also work with City Council members who, at times, have differing views on policy.

Mack said her goal is to support the elected officials from a policy perspective.

“I feel like you may have different perspectives and points of view, and sometimes it’s our job to say, ‘How can we bring those together in a policy that actually achieves the goals of multiple uses across the organization? How do we find that middle ground?’” she said of working with the City Council.

Mack said her team will help to present costs and how the city can execute council priorities while allowing them to have the dialogue they need to ensure they are in line with their priorities to the city.

Mack also said she has to adjust to finding balance in her new role with time management and wanting to be visible in the community.

“If I build my team well and I ensure that we are of the same philosophy in the way that we execute the work, then I can really do some handoffs to that new deputy city manager layer that then allows me to be free to do some of the things that I know we have to do in a community,” she said.

As she navigates time management Mack also has to manage time with her two pit bull mixes she adopted from the city’s animal shelter.

“They think they rule my life – (and) they probably do,” Mack said, adding she takes them to find a place to run at about 6 a.m. and for hikes on the weekends.

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[1] Url: https://elpasomatters.org/2024/09/11/el-paso-city-manager-dionne-mack-first-day/

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