Progreso City Council selects interim city manager

PROGRESO, Texas (ValleyCentral) — The Progreso City Council selected an interim city manager on Saturday.

During a special meeting on Saturday afternoon, the City Council asked Pedro “Pete” Treviño, 40, of Progreso to serve as interim city manager.

“Everybody agreed that he was the perfect candidate to start making the positive changes in Progreso,” said Mayor Hugo Gamboa.

Treviño owns J & E Drafting, which provides computer-aided design services to land surveyors, according to documents filed with the Texas Secretary of State’s Office. He’s never worked in local government — much less managed a city with a $2.1 million budget and 20 employees.

After talking with the mayor a couple months ago, though, Treviño said he realized they had similar visions for Progreso.

The City Council met with Treviño for about 15 minutes in executive session, a part of the meeting that isn’t public, on Saturday afternoon.

When they returned from executive session, all six members of the City Council voted to make Treviño the interim city manager.

“We’re just going to try our best,” Treviño said. “We’re going to make a change here. It’s needed.”

Treviño and Gamboa said they hadn’t agreed on a salary or signed an employment contract.

City Manager Alfredo Espinosa, who announced his retirement on Wednesday, earned more than $100,000, according to documents released under the Texas Public Information Act.

“I’m pretty sure it should be around that area,” Treviño said. “Somewhere close to that.”

The City Council also voted 6-0 to accept Espinosa’s resignation. His last day is Dec. 31.

“We decided it’s best for us to accept his resignation,” Gamboa said. “So we can move forward in a positive direction.”

Along with accepting his resignation, however, the City Council demoted Espinosa to assistant city manager. He’ll work under Treviño for the next five weeks.

“He’s going to help Mr. Treviño with the transition,” said City Councilman Raul Flores.

Espinosa didn’t attend the meeting and couldn’t be reached for comment Saturday afternoon.