Job provides Othello city administrator more opportunities to serve his hometown

OTHELLO — Aaron Garza applied for the job of city administrator, because, he said, it gave him more opportunity to help his hometown. 

“I love Othello, and I thought to myself, ‘If anybody can hold the city administrator position with passion and with dedication, and can continue the city of Othello moving forward, and in the positive trajectory that it has been going for years, and I would want to be a part of that,’” he said. “That was my biggest reason. This city is amazing, it's getting better and better every year, and I wanted to continue to serve in an even greater capacity.”  

Garza replaces former Mayor Shawn Logan, who had been both mayor and city administrator. Logan was defeated for reelection last year. 

Garza was hired as city administrator in May. Prior to that, he was chief of the Othello Police Department, a job he took in January. Garza was a longtime OPD officer and said becoming chief was one of the highlights of his career. 

“I was a police officer for the city of Othello for 20 years, and I held nearly every position within the Otello Police Department, all the way up to a chief of police, which was a complete honor and a dream for me to reach,” he said.  

The city administrator is in charge of pretty much everything that happens in city government. “All the different departments within the city – police, public works, building and planning, all the IT and finance, all the departments,” Garza said. “Now, those are all run by separate department heads, and our department heads here are amazing. However, I'm in charge of the day-to-day operations.” 

One of his goals is to continue projects city officials have already started. At the top of that list is building a system to treat water diverted from nearby irrigation canals to municipal standards. That would help reduce pressure on the underground aquifer that provides the city’s water. City officials have been working on the project for about a decade. 

“This is a long process with several phases with a lot of different agencies (where) we must meet certain requirements to make sure we're doing everything correctly,” Garza said. “Right now, we're going to be beginning the pilot phase, which essentially means we're going to be creating, through our contractors, our consultants, a very small-scale ASR. By doing this, we will be able to show that our ASR here will work, and it will be successful when we move into the following phases, such as construction and actual execution.” 

If the pilot is successful, construction could start as early as next year, he said.  

Construction began on a splash pad in Kiwanis Park, with the goal of opening this summer. That’s another goal, he said. Excavation was ongoing as of Monday. 

The splash pad will be an alternative for the Othello Community Pool, which was closed in 2024 and has not reopened. Othello residents rejected a construction bond proposal that would’ve paid for repairs and upgrades to the existing pool. Despite the rejection, Garza said he thinks Othello residents do want a pool.  

“So, do we want a pool? The answer to that is, yes,” he said. “The next question is, well, how do we get that? Well, in order for us to have a pool, we have to make sure we have the funding for it. If we don't have the funding for it, then we simply can't have a pool, so we are trying to explore different types of revenue streams that could help supplement and fund the pool. (Mayor Ken Johnson) wants the pool open; that is his desire. He's expressed that to me multiple times.” 

A third important project is a contract that’s under negotiation with Adams County Fire District 5. The proposal includes annexation of the city into ACFD 5. The work he did as police chief was good training for his new job, he said. 

"A lot of the duties I was doing as police chief directly mirror or are parallel to some of these same duties that I do here, but it's different in the sense it's a broader role, a more overall view of the city,” he said. “In some aspects, it's the same, in other aspects, it's different. But like I said, the people around me, the people that work here, they've welcomed me, and they've just made everything so much better.”