AUSTIN, Texas — During its special called meeting Wednesday morning, Austin City Council voted to terminate the employment of City Manager Spencer Cronk.

The move comes shortly after the ice storm that hit Austin particularly hard. Thousands of people were without power for the better part of a week.

The communication efforts of the City of Austin and Austin Energy were heavily criticized. Cronk was on the receiving end of much of that criticism.

Council spent about 90 minutes in executive session before returning to the dais. The vote was 10-1, with Natasha Harper Madison being the only no. Cronk's termination is effective Thursday. Cronk will receive a severance package of approximately $463,000, which includes a year of pay, six months of health insurance and 240 hours of accrued vacation time.

Jesus Garza, Austin's former city manager, will serve as interim city manager until a permanent replacement can be hired. Garza, who retired as CEO of Ascension Texas in 2017, served as Austin's city manager from 1994 to 2002.

The ice storm toppled trees and power lines across the city of more than 1 million residents. Slow restoration efforts left thousands of people dealing with school closures, malfunctioning traffic lights and the financial pinch of spoiled groceries and hotel bills. Power was not fully restored in Austin until nearly two weeks after the outages began.

The development also comes after Cronk and the Austin Police Association posted a hastily called news conference last Thursday morning to announce they had reached a four-year agreement.

That action — and its timing — infuriated council members who had placed a resolution on last Thursday’s council agenda to reduce the police contract from four years to one. Council Member José "Chito" Vela drafted the resolution, with support from Mayor Kirk Watson, in deference to two ballot measures that will go to Austin voters in May to increase civilian oversight of the police.

Cronk, who had been in the job since 2018, was the city’s first executive to lose his job over the prolonged outages.

Spectrum News’ Kimberly Reeves contributed to this story. The Associated Press contributed to this story.