Council members make policy. The city manager’s job is to implement those policies.
A great city manager can get that done and keep the ship of state sailing smoothly. A good city manager can get most assignments done and avoid letting the ship of state crash into rocky shoals. A poor city manager will smash the ship of state into the icebergs that bob in the waters and bring disaster for all hands on deck.
A winter storm that coated Austin with thick ice February 1, 2023, led to the firing of the previous city manager, Spencer Cronk. Mayor Kirk Watson had been in office less than a month when the storm hit and Watson lit into Cronk “because the management of this situation and the lack of clear, timely and accurate communication has left our community in the dark.”
In a special-called meeting of February 15, 2023, the City Council voted 10-1 (Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison opposed) to send Cronk packing with a severance package that totaled $463,000.
When Cronk was selected as Austin’s city manager in February 2018, Ora Houston was on the City Council and seconded the motion to hire 38-year-old applicant. “He was young and gay and we wanted to be progressive,” she told the Bulldog. “And the mayor (Steve Adler) could control him,” she added.
If Austin’s current City Council picks from among the two finalists, our next city manager will be neither young nor progressive.
Meanwhile, Jesus Garza, who held the top job for more that eight years from 1994 through early 2002, has been holding the fort as interim city manager since Cronk hit the door.
The finalists for the permanent job are T.C. Broadnax Jr. of Dallas and Sara Lynn Hensley of Denton.
Is this the best Austin can do?
In a perfect world there would be stronger candidates competing to lead Austin’s vast bureaucracy into a brighter future. Neither of the two choices before the council seem ideal.
The seemingly more dynamic finalist, Brian Platt of Kansas City, Missouri, bowed out early on. He used his Austin opportunity as a bargaining chip to wangle a better paying contract where he is.
Broadnax, 55, has led a more populous city than Austin. But for years he has been embroiled in continual conflict with the Dallas City Council, a majority of which engineered a request for his resignation so that he could get severance pay.
By Broadnax’s own admission he fell far short of satisfactory performance on a range of big problems facing Dallas.
Hensley, 67, has earned good marks for her work in managing Denton, a small city government with a workforce that’s just one-fifteenth the size of Austin’s sprawling municipal bureaucracy.
She headed Austin’s Parks and Recreation Department for more than eight years (2008-2017), then served as interim assistant city manager for two years before retiring in 2019.
But the departments she oversaw as an interim assistant city manager were the Parks Department that she had headed and an assortment of others that—in the big scheme of things—offered no big challenges: animal services, public health (long before the Covid pandemic), library, and real estate services.
Austin needs a city manager who meets the gold standard. But that isn’t what it’s going to get. With these two candidates to choose from, the Austin City Council has slim odds of grabbing even a diamond in the rough.
The finalists, both from north Texas
Dallas—T.C. Broadnax Jr. manages the nation’s 9th largest city and draws an annual salary of $423,247, according to his personnel file obtained with a public information request. He is Black and not a veteran, the file states. His personnel file contains no written performance evaluations, which isn’t unusual. The Austin City Council does not evaluate city managers in writing either.
Because Broadnax resigned at the request of council majority he is entitled to a lump-sum payment of a year’s base salary and reimbursement of up to 12 months for the cost of continued health benefits for him and his dependents, according to the employment agreement in his file.
Dallas is a city of 1.3 million people, but the population shrank by almost 5,000 people (minus 0.37 percent) between the 2020 census and the 2022 population estimate. More than 16,000 employees were authorized within the city’s current budget of $3.8 billion, although Broadnax cited 13,000 in his resignation letter. (Austin’s budget, which is $5.5 billion, authorized 16,141 employees.)
The Dallas governing body consists of 15 council members. The mayor is paid $80,000 annually, council members get $60,000. (Austin’s mayor is paid $139,568, council members get $121,347.)
Dallas’s electric power is supplied by an investor-owned utility but the city is involved in managing two airports. Those are Love Field, the inner-city facility the city owns, and DWF International, which Dallas jointly owns with the City of Fort Worth.
The résumé that Broadnax submitted with his Austin application states that in 1991 he earned bachelor of arts degrees in communications and political science from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, and in 1993 got a master’s in public administration from the University of North Texas in Denton.
A Dallas Morning News article published June 10, 2022, states that Broadax was married with five children. His owns a home in Dallas with his spouse, Andrea Kay Broadnax, according to records of the Dallas Central Appraisal District.
Denton—Sara Lynn Hensley was appointed city manager March 1, 2022. Denton is the nation’s 177th largest municipality. She currently earns $303,417 a year, according to a contractual update contained in her personnel file obtained with a public information request. The file indicates she is White and a U.S. Air Force veteran.
Denton has slightly more than 150,000 people, a number it grew to between 2020 and 2022 by adding almost 10,500 people (plus 7.5 percent).
Hensley’s personnel file contains numerous documents that are labeled “performance reviews.” However they do not show the City Council’s evaluations of her performance. Instead they consist of lengthy lists of accomplishments by each of the city’s departments.
Interestingly, these reviews reveal a collaborative leadership approach that includes statements solicited from department heads in response to Hensley’s three questions: “How am I doing? What can I do to assist you more? Where would you like me to focus over the next year?”
Denton’s current year budget of $933 million authorized 1,048 employees. The governing body consists of seven people who consider themselves volunteers. The mayor is paid a stipend of $12,000 a year, while other council members get $9,000.
Denton owns its electric utility and since 2021 has supplied its customers with 100 percent renewable energy from wind and solar. The city also owns Denton Enterprise Airport, which bills itself as the “busiest general aviation airport in Texas,” serving to relieve private aircraft traffic from DFW International and Love Field.
Although Hensley retired from the City of Austin in May 2019 to take a job in Denton, she still has roots in Austin. She owns a home in southwest Austin’s District 8 with her spouse, Ramey Lynn Hees. They purchased the home new in November 2008, according to records of the Travis Central Appraisal District. That house has both homestead and over-65 exemptions. Denton Central Appraisal District records show no record of property ownership.
Her Austin city manager application states she earned a bachelor of science and master of education degrees from the University of Arkansas and held adjunct professor positions at several universities, including Texas State in San Marcos. The University of Arkansas verified that Hensley’s bachelor of science degree in physical education was granted in January 1980 and her master of education degree in recreation was conferred in August 1981.
Broadnax heavily criticized in Dallas
Broadnax submitted his application for the Austin job February 25th, the day before Austin’s deadline—four days after giving the Dallas City Council notice of his resignation effective June 3rd.
As would be expected, his application cover letter brags about numerous accomplishments.
“I have provided executive leadership and strategic direction to tackle the city’s urgent and complex problems with particular emphasis on public safety, housing and homelessness, transportation, economic development, and authentic community engagement,” the letter states.
“I prioritized investments in the development of a mobile crisis response team, a violence interrupters program, supporting formerly incarcerated individuals, and strengthening accountability through the establishment of the Office of Community Police Oversight,” the letter states.
Dallas is a big city with an active press corps to keep tabs on city government. And most of the coverage of Broadnax’s performance as city manager has been negative.
Police oversight shortchanged—Broadnax’s claims about police oversight—established nearly five years after Dallas voted for an overhaul—are at odds with this month’s March 8th article in the Dallas Morning News.
The article identified seven obstacles facing the City’s civilian police watchdogs. One was inadequate funding. The oversight office’s budget is $785,000, the article states, compared with $4.93 million budget for Austin’s counterpart office—despite the fact Austin has about half the police officers.
The Dallas police oversight director left that job last September. The job opening wasn’t posted for four months. And “the city manager (Broadnax) told the Dallas Morning News he’s in no rush to fill the job.” Further, the interim director’s background is in human resources—not criminal justice, according to some members of the Dallas Community Police Oversight Board.
“Plagued by confusion and uncertainty,” is how another Dallas Morning News article described the city’s police oversight, but added that Broadnax had been praised for pushing to focus on racial equity, leading through the pandemic, and establishing an office of Homeless Solutions.
An experienced manager—The Dallas City Council hired Broadnax to start work February 1, 2017. By then he had served in local government jobs for 24 years, including Broward County and the City of Pompano Beach, both in Florida; then Tacoma, Washington, a city of slightly more than 200,000 people where he was city manager for five years before doing to Dallas. Still, Dallas with a population of 1.3 million, was a huge step up for Broadnax.
His last official day on the job in Dallas is June 3rd, ending seven years of service. He has been at odds with the Dallas City Council for many of those years—and in very public ways.
A rocky tenure—Mayor Eric Johnson, elected in May 2019 after nearly a decade as a state representative and Democrat, tried to oust Broadnax in 2022 but could not round up quite enough support from others on the 15-member City Council. (In September 2023 Johnson switched his affiliation to the Republican Party.)
In fact, it was Dallas City Council members who—behind Johnson’s back—maneuvered in February 2024 to round up the eight votes needed to ask Broadnax to resign.
Bad press common—Press reports that summed up their evaluations of Broadnax’s performance as he departs as Dallas city manager have not been kind.
Monty Bennett, publisher of The Dallas Express, stated in a May 19th article that Broadnax was a “terrible city manager,” adding that during his tenure at city hall, “the City has dropped in performance in every area that The Dallas Express measures.”
Bennett cited increases in crime, dirty streets, and rampant homelessness as major problems not adequately addressed.
The Dallas Morning News was even less kind. It published an opinion piece by longtime columnist Dallas Cothrum headlined, “Broadnax leaves Dallas worse than he found it.”
Cothrum wrote in a February 23rd article that Broadnax leaves a “legacy of disasters” including failure of a new trash collection program and an ongoing inability to timely process applications for building permits—a huge backlog of which nearly got him fired in 2022. That same year the police department somehow deleted some eight million records, WFAA reported.
“Always curt, his manner lately has veered into outright rudeness with council members,” Cothrum wrote. “Broadnax was often reluctant to answer the questions of his bosses, who are elected by the people.” Broadnax made little effort to collaborate with community leaders and often bristled at questions posed by reporters.
Cothrum noted that Broadnax hired Dallas’s first female police chief in 2020 and stood by her for several years despite failures to reduce crime and police association calls for her removal. Things didn’t improve till she was finally replaced.
WFAA wrote June 13, 2022 that Broadnax had been asked to resign, and noted the “divide between the city manager and council members goes back to early 2019.” That’s when the Dallas Police Department was missing hiring goals, the 911 call center had a staffing shortage, and there was a “huge backlog of permit delays.”
Broadnax admits shortcomings—On June 21, 2022, KERA reported that Broadnax would keep his job and quoted him saying that he recognized he hadn’t handled some issues in a way that is “up to my own standards. I know my team and I can do better. I understand that I am fully accountable to my 15 bosses. So today, I want to say to the mayor, to the members of the City Council, and to all the residents of this dynamic city: I accept the challenge.”
On February 21, 2024, the Texas Tribune quoted a statement from Broadnax regarding his farewell to Dallas. “It is my hope that my departure provides the City Council with an opportunity to reset, refocus, and transition to a new city manager that continues to move the City forward and will allow for a more effective working relationship with the Mayor and the City Council moving forward.”
How Hensley performed in Denton and Austin
Hensley submitted her application for the Austin city manager’s job right on deadline, February 26th.
She is no stranger to Austin city government. City Manager Marc Ott hired her in November 2008 to be director of the Parks and Recreation Department (PARD). After working for the city of Austin for more than a decade, Hensley retired in May 2019 to take a job as assistant city manager of Denton.
Ott left the city manager’s job in October 2016 and then became CEO and executive director of the International City/County Management Association, based in Washington, D.C. Although he would know better than most anyone how Hensley performed as a department director for eight years, he declined an interview for this article. “It would not be appropriate to comment as if I’m trying to influence the selection of the city manager,” he told the Bulldog, through a spokesman.
Hensley came to Austin after serving as director of parks and recreation departments for the cities of Virginia Beach, Virginia 1997-2002, San Jose, California 2002-2006, and Phoenix, Arizona 2006-2008. Her starting salary in Austin was $163,000 per year, according to her Austin personnel file, obtained with a public information request.
In February 2017, after Ott had departed and while Elaine Hart was serving as interim city manager, Hart moved Hensley into a bigger role as interim assistant city manager for a one-year term.
Hensley’s interim assistant city manager post started in June 2017 and put her in charge of the Animal Services Office, PARD, Austin Public Health, the Austin Public Library, and the Office of Real Estate Services, according to Hart’s memo on organization changes contained in Hensley’s Austin personnel file.
When Spencer Cronk was hired as city manager starting in February 2018, he kept Hensley on as interim assistant city manager, “…so that I can continue to orient myself to the needs of the City as a municipality an as an employer,” Cronk’s letter confirming the extension stated.
Hensley’s role as interim assistant city manager ended in February 2019 and three months later she retired at age 62—not to ride off into the sunset but to take a job as assistant city manager of Denton. Her resignation letter, contained in her personnel file, mentioned that she was pursuing career goals and “this opportunity supports growth in that direction.”
In Denton she was soon appointed deputy city manager and in February 2021 was appointed interim city manager.
On March 2, 2022, the Denton City Council voted unanimously to make Hensley Denton’s first female city manager. If she’s selected as Austin’s new city manager Hensley will be the third woman to occupy that position. (Camille Barnett was the first, serving from 1989-1994. Toby Futrell was the second, serving from May 2002 till the end of 2007.)
Denton Mayor Gerard Hudspeth, the first African American to win that job, praised Hensley’s performance. In a telephone interview he told the Bulldog she had served as assistant city manager during the pandemic, the winter storm, and managed responses to protests over the May 25, 2020, murder of George Floyd and removal of a confederate monument on Denton County property in June 2020.
“It was contentious,” Hudspeth said of the two protests. “Those were not city issues but the city had to deal with them.”
Hudspeth said he also liked Hensley’s performance on other issues. Those include litigation against the Electric Reliability Council of Texas after Winter Storm Uri. And he praised her selections in appointing new assistant city managers as well.
The pot problem—But it wasn’t all smooth sailing for Hensley. One particularly contentious issue cropped up when on November 8, 2022, voters overwhelmingly approved an ordinance to decriminalize misdemeanor marijuana offenses.
The measure got on the ballot because of a petition drive led by Decriminalize Denton and Ground Game Texas. Despite 32,000 votes for the proposition, City Manager Hensley refused to implement the ordinance.
The Denton Record-Chronicle quoted her in a March 8, 2023, article: “I’ve said it a thousand times and I’ll say it again, I do not direct the police chief. He gets his oath from the state of Texas,” Hensley told council members. “I could tell him to break the law, but that is not what I will do as a professional.”
Hensley maintained that hard-line stance despite a legal brief supplied to the Denton mayor and council members by attorney Mike Siegel, cofounder and general counsel for Ground Game Texas. Siegel is currently a District 7 candidate for Austin City Council, as the Bulldog reported.
Siegel’s brief states the proposition was approved by 71 percent of Denton voters and should have taken effect as soon as the election results were canvassed.
“The Texas Constitution and the City Charter of Denton guarantee the people of Denton the right to directly legislate on local issues, including marijuana enforcement reform. The City Manager has no authority to ignore or subvert legislation duly enacted by the people,” the brief states.
“[N]o City has ever been subject to challenge,” the brief states, “including the City of Austin, which on May 7, 2022, adopted a city ordinance that includes marijuana decriminalization.” That ordinance was approved by 85.5 percent of voters, according to the City Clerk’s website, and included a ban on “no knock” warrants by Austin police.
The brief notes that the Texas Legislature legalized hemp in 2019, including smokable hemp products that are “virtually indistinguishable from illegal smokeable marijuana.” Which is why Austin and many other Texas municipalities quit enforcing possession of small quantities. Prosecutors can’t push a case without first obtaining expensive lab testing that would distinguish legal hemp from illegal pot.
Siegel did not return numerous voice messages to comment for this story, for his take on encounters with Hensley in Denton. Perhaps that’s because his fellow Ground Game Texas cofounder, attorney Julie Oliver (like Siegel a two-time congressional candidate) was one of the 39 people who submitted applications to be Austin’s next city manager.
The expense and impracticality of trying to enforce marijuana possession didn’t stop Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton from suing Austin, Denton, Elgin, Killeen, and San Marcos.
The 15-page petition in State of Texas v. City of Austin et al filed January 31st in Travis County states that Austin’s ordinance and the Austin Police Department General Order “constitute an order under which Austin will not fully enforce laws relating to drugs….” State law makes possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia an offense. Governing bodies and municipal police may not adopt a policy not to fully enforce laws relating to drugs.” (Cause No. D-1-GN-24-000586).
The litigation seeks a temporary and permanent injunction ordering the ordinance be repealed and the police general order cancelled. The mayor and council members were served with notice of the litigation March 4 but no other action has been taken on the case, according to the Case Summary published on the Travis County District Clerk’s website.
A city spokesperson provided this statement: “The lawsuit is ongoing, and the City will address the allegations raised in the lawsuit, including any APD or City policies at issue as part of the court process.”
As for Denton being sued by Paxton, Decriminalize Denton has filed to request that suit be dismissed. “Because Denton’s City Manager and Police Chief have consistently refused to implement the ordinance since Day One, and because Denton City Council has consistently refused to make them, Paxton cannot show that the ordinance has harmed the state in any way, regardless of his erroneous claim that the ordinance violates state law,” the Denton Record-Chronicle reported February 5th.
This story was updated at 4:38pm March 25, 2024, to correct an error about who was the first female city manager: It was Camille Barnett. Toby Futrell was the second.
Trust Indicators: Ken Martin has been reporting on and investigating local governments since 1981. Contact him at [email protected].
Related Bulldog coverage:
Extended outages put manager’s job on thin ice, February 8, 2023
City manager to get raise if employees do, August 24, 2012
No raise, no praise for city manager Marc Ott, August 17, 2012
City manager’s annual review postponed, August 3, 2012
City manager faces crucial annual review, August 1, 2012
Austin deserves better than these two finalist for the City Manager application pool. Why do we never consider continuing the search for stronger candidates versus accepting that this is the best we can do? Pathetic!
I will not be surprise if Austin city council fires T.C. Broadnax. Jr. within three years for doing a bad job. Bad hire by the mayor and council.
I’m so disappointed in their choice. I work with neighborhoods. It’s my job. I hear what they say, their concerns, but mostly how many feel the Mayor and City Council abandoned residents and neighborhoods. I was at the public meeting on March 25th. I was so impressed with Sara Hensley. Broadnax met all the quantitative criteria but so did she. They both checked boxes and both probably have more plaques and trophies than their current offices hold. Broadnax was missing the qualitative background I and so many Austinites and employees sought. He was cold and dry. His responses canned. I should have looked for someone holding large cards, but I was too focused on the quality of the speaker in front of me. Sara brought the potential for renewed hope, empathy, connection, transparency, and a human side long missing from our elected leaders. Wow! I was speechless when I heard the news. I placed faith in our elected leaders to see all I saw. Oh well, come on Dallas. Let’s see what you got.