MARFA — Marfa City Council members voted to terminate City Manager Andrea Walter at a special council meeting held on Tuesday at noon, effective immediately.
Walter was given an hour to collect her things and will receive severance pay for three months. It was not immediately clear why Walter was fired. Mayor Manny Baeza declined to provide further details, stating that “we don’t discuss personnel issues.” Walter declined to comment.
Walter, Baeza, Mayor Pro Tem Raul Lara and City Council members Eddie Pallarez, Mark Morrison and Mark Cash were present at the meeting. Councilmember Travis Acreman was absent. Council members and the mayor met with Walter in executive session, then announced she was terminated in open session.
Walter started in the city manager role on March 3, just over a month ago. She previously lived in Corpus Christi as a business manager for an architectural firm. Council voted to hire her in December 2024 after the resignation of previous City Manager Mandy Roane. Kelly Perez, city secretary, was filling in as interim city manager and was also being considered for the role.
Baeza said council members will discuss next steps regarding the now-vacant position at their next regular City Council meeting on April 24. No official interim city manager will be filling in at this time, Baeza said. But the mayor will fill in as needed.
Council also voted to make the city receptionist a full-time position and to instruct the city attorney to “clean up the language of the contract and job description for the city manager position and police department.” Council members had first discussed the agenda item, referred to as “memo received from city attorney,” in executive session.
Baeza said, per legal advice from the city’s attorney Sylvia Firth, council voted to “clean up” outdated contract language that explains the hierarchical relationship between the city manager and the police department.
“We, in error, had the chief of police reporting to her, not reporting to her, but she could fire his employees,” Baeza said. “But in other words, it’s never been allowed, so it was just a technical error. We’re just doing cleanup.” When asked whether Walter had attempted to fire a police officer, Baeza said no.
Walter did come under fire from the mayor at a council meeting in late March when he publicly criticized her for seeking a change to municipal court’s operating hours without first consulting the municipal court clerk. At that time he stated that city employees were also not made aware of Walter’s initiative to update city hall hours until after council members had already approved the change. Walter previously told The Sentinel that she was attempting to make “everything open to the public as much as possible.” When asked whether those incidents were related to her termination, Baeza said, “I have no idea.”