NEWS — City Manager John Sheedy resigns

City Manager John Sheedy, center, speaks to city council members hours before his abrupt resignation at the end of Tuesday’s city council meeting in the Del Rio Civic Center. Sheedy is flanked by Mayor Al Arreola, left, and Mayor Pro-tem Steve Webb, right.
(Photo by Karen Gleason)

The 830 Times
By Karen Gleason
January 10, 2024, 6:49 am

City Manager John Sheedy resigned at the end of Tuesday night’s city council meeting.

Sheedy’s abrupt resignation, which becomes effective Wednesday, followed a closed-door evaluation of his work by the city council members.

The city council voted unanimously to appoint Assistant City Manager Manuel Chavez to serve as interim city manager as the search for a new lead administrator for the city begins.

The council went into a closed executive session at 7:05 p.m. and returned at 10:02 p.m.

There were two items on the council’s executive session agenda: deliberation on the appointment of a new city attorney and a new municipal judge and an attorney-client consultation “to receive advice related to the deliberation of the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline or dismissal of the city manager.”

When the council returned from executive session, Councilman Jim DeReus made motions to appoint a new city attorney and a new municipal judge, and the council voted on those motions.

When the vote on the municipal judge position was completed, Sheedy spoke up, saying, “I’d like to go ahead and take the opportunity to announce that I will be resigning as city manager, effective tomorrow. I do want to take this opportunity to extend my thanks, primarily to my staff, the folks I’ve worked with so closely. They are the ones that made everything happen. They’re the ones that brought the success. They worked so hard. We have so many great employees, and I just hope we can continue to recognize their efforts.

“I want to thank the council for the things that we have been able to achieve together. I’m very proud of the accomplishments that I’ve been able to be a part of for the last two-and-a-half years. I think we picked up a lot of projects that were languishing and things that had been collecting dust. I’m proud that we weren’t afraid to take on every project that had been sitting around, old or new, current or past, and I think we’ve moved on a lot of those, we brought those forward, and I’m very confident that whoever picks up the position moving forward will be able to continue to build on that.

“Again, it’s the staff. We have a wonderful team. And finally, I want to thank all the citizens of the community of Del Rio from the bottom of my heart. This has been the absolute honor of my life and the thrill of my life to be able to have this opportunity, and I hope that folks can appreciate what we’ve been able to accomplish. Thank you,” Sheedy said.

After Sheedy finished speaking, DeReus said, “Before we go on, I just want to say thanks for all the hard work, the frustration you dealt with on how long some of the things took, but lack of effort was definitely not an issue, so thank you.”

The council then voted to appoint Chavez, and the meeting was adjourned.

Following the meeting, Sheedy declined to comment on why he had decided to resign.

You can reach the writer at [email protected] .