In the latest debacle at City Hall, it appears the recruiting firm that the Dallas City Council hired to identify quality candidates for the vacant city manager position drafted a brochure for the position that has Houston’s skyline on the cover.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the City signed a contract with Baker Tilly worth $134,000 in taxpayer money.
Joseph Turner, a former municipal executive who follows city manager searches around the country, previously told DX that Dallas residents should probably be worried about the Dallas City Council’s choice of recruiting firm.
“Baker Tilly has a reputation for failing to communicate with city manager candidates in a timely manner and withholding key information from them about their recruitments,” he said. “Many potential candidates refuse to participate in their recruitments because of this.”
Now, it seems, Baker Tilly staff cannot even tell the difference between Dallas and Houston, at least as far as downtown imagery goes.
Here’s some of what NBC 5 DFW reported on the embarrassing error:
A widely circulated draft version of a brochure advertising Dallas’ opening for a new city manager features Houston on the cover.
It’s one of several issues a city council committee tasked a hired consultancy group to address in the next week as part of its contract to lead a national search for Dallas’ top-paying job.
The Ad Hoc Committee on Administrative Affairs, comprised of five city council members, reviewed the proposed brochure Monday, with representatives of Baker Tilly.
District 12 Councilmember Cara Mendelsohn said the first thing that grabbed her attention was the cover photo, and not in the intended way.
“I’m just going to say first off I hate this photo,” Mendelsohn said. “I don’t think it’s representative of Dallas.”
As the meeting continued, several members of the committee honed on problems with the cover photo.
“To me this looks old and dated,” District 2 Councilmember Jesse Moreno said.