Eric Hoff Resigns as City Commissioner

by Tony Vindell/LFN

Eric Hoff, with Place 2 of La Feria City Commission, has left immediately from the administrative body but will keep his business that he has in town.

Hoff turned in his resignation during an August meeting of the council, citing his plan to move out of La Feria.

He has been a city commissioner since 2016 and was elected to serve a three-year term.

“I feel good (about serving with the council),” he said. ‘Everything has been going fine and the city is in good hands.”

Hoff said just in the last six months he has received nothing but compliments about the state of the city.

The former city commissioner said he is moving to nearby Palmview and couldn’t keep his seat residing in another town.

In a letter Hoff submitted to the city, he said he started with an unfriendly city hall to deal with and was asked to run for a seat on the commission.

“The commission inherited a mess,” he said. “After replacing a non-responsive city manager, our new city manager discovered almost all accounts depleted and some in negatives.”

Without mentioning a name, Hoff was referring to Sunny Philips, who now is the director of La Feria Chamber of Commerce and Jaime Sandoval, the current city manager.

He said a new audit was ordered to look back at the last five years and it was found that the city has taken in about $40 million in that time and spent about $48 million leaving the city in a terrible situation.

The audit also showed that about $3 million in special bond money was borrowed for a number of projects like for a new police station but was spent on general fund expenditures.

“I leave this commission very proud of helping turn this city around and I declare to our citizens that the city is fixed,” he said. “I used to get two or three complaints a week, but in the last six months I have received zero.”

Finally, Hoff said the city still needs to dig itself out of the deep hole it inherited.

In a related action, the commissioners passed a resolution ordering a special election for Hoff’s unexpired seat.

The election will be held on Nov. 6 and early voting will take place from Oct. 2 through Nov. 2.