A.C. Gonzalez, who's been a lightning rod for criticism during his two-plus years as Dallas's city manager, said Monday that he'll leave the job in January.
Gonzalez told The Dallas Morning Newsthat stepping down is a way to “basically, get my life back.”
The pressure on Gonzalez has risen in recent months as the city has experienced a surge in murders, a plague of potholes and the death of a South Dallas woman a week after she was mauled by dogs.
Issues with police, infrastructure and stray animals have been on Gonzalez's plate since he took over the top job in City Hall in January 2014. His $400,000 annual salary also attracted scrutiny, because it was a $100,000 raise from what his predecessor, Mary Suhm, earned.
Six month later, he told KERA News the city had big challenges even at the top of an economic boom: "Yes, I do worry.... As it stands right now, if we don't have ways of actually creating more wealth in the community, what we really start going down the road of is subtracting. Once you get into the path of subtracting on services, subtracting on investment into our economic development, you get into a death spiral, which something that we obviously want to avoid."
Gonzalez, 64, told the News he'll retire in January 2017 and look for private-sector work.
