Updated 8:40 p.m.
After a marathon session Wednesday, the candidate pool for the next San Antonio city manager has been narrowed to one.
Deputy City Manager Erik Walsh, 49 — a senior member of current City Manager Sheryl Sculley’s management team — has been selected as the lone finalist.
The eight-candidate pool was whittled to two earlier this week, and the council then conducted interviews with Walsh and Assistant City Manager Maria Villagomez. Walsh will now go through a public process of interviews next week.
MORE | From TPR reporter Joey Palacios at City Hall
SA City Manager - Curated tweets by teamvincek
Before being interviewed by the council in private Wednesday, Walsh talked about his four priorities if selected as the next city manager: focus on the state legislative agenda, continued implementation of the city’s affordable housing business plan, funding for the homeless program Haven for Hope, and reviewing the status of dockless vehicle pilot program.
“I have extensive experience managing operations, organizational development, team building, consensus building, budget, and fiscal policy and negotiations,” Walsh said. “I applied for this position because I want San Antonio to be economically viable, safe, and culturally inspiring, and a place where people want to work, grow, and raise a family.
"Personally, that’s important to me.”
Walsh has been part of the city management team since 2006. Overall, he had been with the city 24 years, starting as a budget analyst. Walsh oversees the police and fire departments, emergency management as well as metro health and 311.
“We had two candidates who were very highly esteemed and qualified employees of the city that we’ve worked with for a long time,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg said. “So we had some discussion about particular issues that we’ve faced together over the last several years."
Nirenberg said Tuesday the council will vote on appointing the next city manager on Jan. 31 after a round of public meetings.
MORE| Walsh's resume
Joey Palacios can be reached at joey@tpr.org or on Twitter @joeycules and Vince Kong can be reached at vince@tpr.org or on Twitter @teamvincek
