Newest city manager brought stability to Pharr

It’s now been more than a year since the City of Pharr hired Dr. Jonathan B. Flores, EdD, as its new interim city manager in July of 2023 before making the position permanent five months later.

Looking back over the stories published in The Advance since his hire last year, however, one thing is still missing: drama inside city hall, lawsuits, claims of staff impropriety.

Good for the city; not so good for media outlets always looking for dysfunction of some sort at the public level.

There is the old newspaper axiom: if it bleeds, it leads. Meaning, news stories that want to attract readers lead off with the bad, followed by the good.

However, in a world these days that so often seems topsy-turvy with so much bad news to report, it is nice to occasionally report on some good news. In this case, things inside the Pharr City Hall are running, well, the way they should – no drama, no allegations of impropriety of any sort, financials that make sense.

Such is the case since Jonathan Flores became Pharr’s permanent city manager last year.

In fact, during the interview for this story, after realizing The Advance has interviewed him only once since he first came on board, our first question — How are you doing these days? — was met with:

“I'm doing great, man. It’s wonderful.”

No drama inside City Hall. “We’ve certainly changed the culture around here,” said Flores. “It’s been good.”

The city manager gives a lot of credit to his staff for the positive vibes now emanating from city hall.

“They were very welcoming when I first showed up as city manager. A lot of good folks here in the City of Pharr, good directors. My commitment was to invest in our staff, and they were used to a different style of leadership. I am more of a transformational servant when it comes to a leadership style, and I let (those under him) work, as opposed to micromanaging the city.”

He offers them direction and cuts them loose, he said.

“I provide them with the autonomy that they need, but making sure that I also provide them with the tools that they need to succeed. I’m very big on leadership development.”

Such as?

“We created a leadership development program for staff members who want to be supervisors, but maybe quite aren’t there yet. Then with our direct level positions, we invest in them, and we send them to a certified public manager course and/or the TML (Texas Municipal League) Leadership Academy.”

That’s not all.

“We also have our bi-weekly director meetings where we’ll show videos on leadership and spend a lot of time talking to them about leadership. How it pertains to our organization, where we’re at, where we’re going, and how we’re going to get there.”

A by-the-book sort of guy who worked in law enforcement for 22 years, including five years spent as the Alton police chief, Flores was born and raised in Pharr, graduated from PSJA North in 2000, and then climbed the career ladder in neighboring cities before finally returning to his hometown last year when the city manager’s job became vacant.

Even though he may get future job offers, given his still youthful age, 42, his work experience, his level of education, he said people shouldn’t be surprised if Pharr is where he finishes his career in public service.

“It’s been a dream to be able to come back to my hometown and provide leadership in the city where I grew up,” he said, while expressing gratitude towards the mayor and commission for the opportunity.

So far, the move back home has proved to be a blessing.

“Working with our elected officials to carry out their vision has been an amazing opportunity; they truly are great people,” he said.

“When I first came in, we were right in full budget swing. So, my priority was making sure that we produce a balanced budget, and we did with the million-dollar surplus.”

For this interview, we asked the Pharr city manager to speak about some of the issues that have been of concern to some people.

One example, the city’s multi-million-dollar move into broadband access by laying almost 400 miles of fiber-optic cable, thus creating high-speed internet access for all its residents.

Broadband Made Sense

In December 2021, the city, under the brand name TeamPharr.net, broke ground on the city’s new high-speed internet utility service on the south side of the city.

Like most things that cost taxpayer dollars, the new project had its fair share of both fans and critics, with the critics being the loudest. Always.

It was an ambitious project, to say the least: to install approximately 2 million feet of fiber-optic cable for city residents. The city’s initial planned investment: $40 million, which was intended to provide approximately 400 miles of fiber optic cable.

“So let me address the why,” said Flores. “The why is because we wanted to provide the residents with affordable high-speed internet. And when you’re dealing with fiber, they’re getting exceptional quality from TeamPharr.net. While it’s very affordable, the lowest package is $25, and you have the $50 one, and then so on and so forth, but fiber is so much quicker.”

For adults, that’s obviously a good thing. For students trying to knock out a homework assignment, which requires research, that’s a very good thing if they don’t have a way to get to a city library or a public Wi-Fi site.

“We don't want our community members to have to take their family to some public place to use Wi-Fi because they can’t afford to pay a private company for internet access at home,” said Flores, “so that their kids can do homework. That was the vision that the mayor and the commission had. That was what started this whole deal.”

By January 2023, what was once the least serviced area of the country when it came to broadband, South Pharr, what was once called Las Milpas (the fields), had 100 percent broadband coverage, and as the fiber cable moved north, the entire city was registering 72 percent coverage.

In the early part of 2023, with a change in administration and a new board majority at PSJA ISD, the school district partnered with TeamPharr.net, and the broadband started moving east.

In May 2023, PSJA ISD inked a deal worth almost $40 million spread out over 10 years as part of an interlocal agreement with Pharr, which would provide broadband access to approximately 14,000 students. More if additional monies could be raised to include students in San Juan and Alamo.

State elected officials like Sen. “Chuy” Hinojosa and his colleagues in the state house also helped fund the project.

Two years prior, in 2021, during the launch of Team-Pharr.net, Hinojosa said, “I have to praise the city of Pharr (because it) really took the lead in trying to provide internet access to its citizens.”

At the time, said the state senator, only approximately 73 percent of Texas had access to the internet.

The private-sector service providers weren’t going to lay fiber in poorer areas where their return on investment wouldn’t cover the cost, so at some point, it was going to take the public sector to expand the internet service, said Pharr city officials.

“So I came in here (as interim Pharr CM in July 2023), and I saw what the city commission had as its innovative vision for broadband access, their progressiveness, and I was impressed,” said Flores.

“There were critics when the project kicked into gear, sure. When I first started, I think the city had 2,500 connected customers. We’re now at 8,000 in just 11 months, with the trajectory to surpass 10,000 customers by September.”

Flores said that when anyone looks at this from a business model and a business standpoint, “if you're stagnant, or your numbers are not increasing, or it’s increasing at a slow rate, well you might want to rethink some things.”

Fortunately for both Pharr and PSJA ISD, however, that hasn’t been the case.

Rate on Investment

“Right now, all the trends and the trajectory that we’re seeing is that we're moving at a very rapid pace. We are connecting people to the internet’s broadband access at a very rapid pace, and we are a very data-driven organization,” said Flores.

“So we take every opportunity to poll and survey our community and people who have the services of TeamPharr.net. And we’re getting very, very positive responses as far as not just the expediency of our internet services and all of that, but our customer service, which we’re very big on — taking care of our customers — and making sure that our residents are happy.”

With internet access, however, it’s not all about the city’s return on investment. Part of the equation must include access to a better quality of life for all city residents, not just those who can afford highspeed internet access.

“So in terms of outlay, how much did the city invest? Where did the money come from? How long will it take for the city to recoup those dollars, all of which can be considered legitimate questions that any city resident can ask,” said Flores.

“I think we’re about two fiscal years out from seeing the complete return on our initial investment, which is pretty remarkable as it pertains to the expediency of the return.”

It’s not all black and white, though.

“It’s one of those things where you look at it as an investment for the community. I don't think you can go wrong with investing in your community and making sure that they have availability to high-speed internet at an affordable cost.”

Final Note: There is more to this recent interview with Jonathan Flores, which includes mention of the city’s next fiscal budget, its EMS service and where that is headed, but with this story already clocking in at about 1,650 words, look for the rest of this interview in next week’s issue of The Advance.