“A place to grow”: New city manager outlines her vision for Eudora

Updated: 2:30 p.m. June 29

Kevyn Gero got her fairy tale ending.

The new city manager said Eudora is a special place on a path for growth with strong staff, elected officials and community.

“When I tell people about it, it almost sounds not real because it sometimes feels like truly a fairy tale and I can’t imagine myself anywhere else,” she said. “Like I said when I became assistant, the motto is truly a place to grow, and I feel like I want to be part of that as well, as it is a growth place for me.”

Gero, who was selected from a field of 64 candidates, spent the past five months serving as interim city manager after Barack Matite resigned. She spent about two years as assistant city manager as well. 

The city confirmed Thursday that Gero’s salary will be $152,000.

All of the finalist interviews for the position were done behind closed doors in executive sessions with city commissioners.

Therefore, The Times asked Gero to sit down for an interview to discuss her views on city management and her goals for the community. You can find reaction from city commissioners and local leaders about her hire in our prior story here.

Q. Tell us about your prior experience. 

A. I moved to Kansas right after I graduated from University of Oklahoma, and I started working at the University of Kansas and worked across the state working on out-of-school-time programs, and then after that I got my MPA at KU. The MPA program here has a special focus on local government and I just fell in love with local government. 

I worked at the city of Lawrence for about seven years in the city manager’s office initially, but what I really wanted to do was get the operational experience, because I knew that in order to be a city manager, I wanted to know about operations so I wanted to work in public safety. 

I worked for the fire department and then I worked in the municipal services and operations department. So from there, I felt like I had a really good baseline of some of the major pieces of local government, but then I was drawn back to wanting to work in the city manager’s office.  Barack was my classmate at the University of Kansas and so he talked to me about working in Eudora, and it felt like just the perfect fit for me.

Tell us a little bit more about you as a person: Your family, your hobbies.

I have a 4-year-old daughter, and that is my life. She keeps me visiting all sorts of places across the county. Especially right now, I like to be outdoors all the time, and one of our favorite places is Baker Wetlands. I love running, just my time to decompress, but it’s also nice to share that with her as well because she has also found a love for being outdoors and exploring the trails there.

What are your top priorities during your first few months on the job?

As part of this process, the commission actually outlined first-year goals for the manager and even kind of beyond. They took input from the leadership team and the elected officials. It’s a really comprehensive list. 

As part of the interview we went through some of those items. So just to tell you about some of them: As an internal person, I’ve already done some, like building relationships, which I will still want to do because as we’re on this path for growth, part of the strength of Eudora is the relationships we have with people. And what we’ve seen is that the progress that we’ve made is because of those relationships, and the connections that we have, and really breaking down the silos, whether the county silos or the city silos. 

Either partnering with other people in creative, unique ways, or just learning from other people’s projects is one of the things that we’re doing really well, the small town feel but with professional staff, which is one of the reasons why I love it here. 

Probably the biggest project is, first to get through this budget cycle, but then second to that is the RAISE grant and the STAR bond project, those are the two biggest capital items. Then, beyond that is looking to the future major infrastructure updates, new water treatment plant and a new wastewater treatment plant. 

Also each of our kind of respective departments are at the point where they’re either looking at a strategic plan or a master plan, and want community input for that, and may want to see how the community feels about its current level of service and if that’s acceptable, or if they want to change that in some way. 

How would you describe your management style for working with department heads in the city, such as the fire and police chiefs?

My management style has always been more coaching. We hire experts and professionals. They are leaders in their field, and I am here to support them and serve them. Our organization is pretty flat, and we have a culture here that’s very supportive. We intentionally work at that to make sure that people have a good work life balance, and that they have the resources that they need and things are transparent. Making a culture that people want to be at work is one of the reasons why we get people to work here that have lots of experience.

How would you describe what the relationship is between the city manager and the city commission?

One of the driving factors for me applying for this job was kind of the really positive relationship that the manager has had with the commission. They are responsive, they have vision, they trust staff, and that is part of what makes the culture of working here so special, is that they really look towards us for our recommendations on items. 

They also really just care about the community and so working with the commission, even throughout the whole interview process, have been eager, excited about the future. Now it’s really making sure that we can implement their vision for the community. It will be challenging because we don’t have the diversity of taxes that other communities have, so we’re working towards different projects that we can rely less on one type of tax, but while we have a healthy fund balance, we have to really prioritize what we want to do.

Panasonic will have a major impact on the community in the coming years. What steps do you think need to be taken to prepare for that?

When we talk with folks in De Soto, we realize each community is kind of going to try to serve a different need or a different piece of making Panasonic successful. For us, we believe that is residential housing. With residential housing, we hope that also increases some retail because, like our commission says, we want to have more options for people to stay in town and not go outside of the city for basic needs, like nuts and bolts, or a hardware store. 

The residential housing will also support our schools and support the STAR bond project with the sports and entertainment venue, plus the retail that will be there. We hope with that increase in sales tax that we can lessen the burden on relying on property taxes. 

We probably won’t be as big of a contributor in the industrial space. We would rely on Venture Park and other kinds of area facilities to fill that need. We’ve already heard of some people moving here for Panasonic finding housing. Almost every other day, people call us about potential really speculative projects. 

Taxes are a big concern for residents in the community. How as city manager will you navigate the budget?

One thing that the commission began this year was a work session to talk about their priorities ahead of the budget time to get some policy direction and through that process they’re able to express their guidance to the manager about what they would like to see related to the mill levy and other revenues. My work is to put together a budget that meets both the needs of the community and the desires of the commission to review and then for them to approve later. 

What do you see as the biggest budget needs for Eudora right now?

I think we’re balancing maintaining our current assets with preparing for projected growth.  Infrastructure is typically the largest capital expense, so we are really looking at those items closely to make sure we can put them in a five-year CIP [capital improvement plan] and plan those projects out so that we don’t have one year with a large impact and can kind of spread that over time. 

The library board has made it clear that the current library is no longer sufficient and a larger space is needed. What do you think the city manager’s role is in working with the library?

Since we’re separate taxing entities, there’s not a lot of overlap, but like I mentioned earlier, with the other governmental entities in our other taxing jurisdictions, we make sure to work with them, whether it’s Douglas County or the school district. There’s a lot of partnerships that could be explored, and I know that the library has even talked to us about some creative ways that we can work with them on their future project. 

What is nice about the community is all of these players are open to having that dialogue, because everyone is just looking at what’s best for Eudora. I know they’re doing some kind of public engagement so I think that will kind of shine some light on the things they want me to look at their next kind of steps in that process.

What relationship do you think the city manager should have with the school district?

We have a really good relationship with the school district and the superintendent, and I meet regularly to update on projects because a lot of our work is related. Growth will impact the school district and their enrollment numbers, and I think, if we’re continuing the information sharing, it’s so related that we need to stay in constant communication, so that we’re on the same page. 

We also work beyond even this specific city and school district interests. We’re also talking about ways we can build our relationships, even across the city with various entities. Some other communities I’ve seen do city and school district meetings together, and we did one last year, and we will continue to do that, so it’d be an open public meeting. 

Those types of things, it seems kind of simple, but it shows the community that we are working together. We’re able to have that open dialogue with each other about the things that they’re thinking of for growth.

Nottingham Center still has space available for additional businesses. What role do you plan to take in helping bring businesses to town?

We still have a couple lots for sale, including our major anchor lot. The city is working CBRE [real estate company] to find a company that will come into there. We guide CBRE so that they understand the vision for the site and that it is going to be a good match for Nottingham. 

It is about relationships as well, because it is sort of a unique space for local governments to be in as a master developer on a site, but when we think about what that space could be for the community, there’s a lot of potential for us to set the standard for a lifestyle retail center. With Village Green already coming online, it’s already showing what a nice retail center could look like.

At the same time, downtown businesses want to make sure that the city isn’t just focused on K-10 development. How do you plan to work with existing businesses?

We know that our downtown will always be the core of our city, and not only because there’s historical roots, the cultural roots and the small businesses that are centered there with CPA Park, it is part of what makes Eudora Eudora. 

We will continue to do the downtown business grant, which is only eligible to businesses that are in that district. The city has done some aesthetic type projects with the lights and the landscaping and things too because we know that that’s one of the entrances into our community, including updating Pilla Park, which will happen in the near future. The downtown businesses, I think that we continue to make sure that they are thriving.

Housing is going to be an even bigger issue for the community after Panasonic opens. What steps need to be taken to address housing needs in the area?

We had a housing need even before Panasonic. Panasonic just makes that need that much greater. The housing needs that we will probably be looking towards first are single-family homes, or there’s also some multi-family homes. 

We haven’t seen any interest related to high-density homes but our community has some areas that will certainly grow with single-family homes and fit right into the neighborhood. We’ve been working with people to make sure their projects can stay on their timeline, and we can be online and serve the Panasonic needs.

Eudora has an active senior citizen population and the number of baby boomers retiring is growing by the day. How can small cities work to be attractive places to live during retirement?

Our community is unique in that we have the Eudora Senior Foundation, which is connected to our Parks and Rec Department, so that we can hear about their needs and concerns and either address that with programming or resources. Also, it’s a space for people to vision how this community can help support seniors. 

Some of that will be housing. Something that we expressed to potential developers is that maintenance-free senior housing is something that’s desired for the community and letting people know that there’s interest from residents in that type of housing is good to kind of promote that type of development. 

The city is in the process of bringing a sports arena to town. How do you think you can help this project? 

The likely financing tool for the sports arena will be the use of STAR bonds. We are working with a team to ensure that we have all the necessary legal requirements in place for the STAR bond legislation so we can progress that project forward. 

So, we take the lead on meeting with the Department of Commerce and some of the key players in the operation of the sports entertainment venue. We’ve heard from the state that our visitation study was positive, and that is exciting because that means that we can move to the next phase of getting this right on goal. 

It still requires a lot of partnership and collaboration with the county, with the schools, with landowners and with private developers. We are really the lead on making sure we move this project forward and that the commissioners are understanding of the vision for that and that it’s still meeting the needs of the community, while also still accomplishing their goal of diversifying the tax revenue.

Some in the business community have said they want to have more communication from City Hall. How do you plan to communicate with the community?

I want a culture where the community feels like this is their City Hall, and they are welcome to come anytime they want. We love when people are engaged and want to be involved. I’m really excited about doing the Citizens Academy because I think that that will allow us to have even more connects with people on a level where they can really dive into city operations, and meet city staff. 

I think that with that type of project we’ve seen other communities be really successful to create engagement opportunities that are meaningful so we can have a select group of residents that are informed about some of our projects or operations coming. 

That also helps when we’re thinking about people who might want to serve on the Planning Commission, or invite people to upcoming strategic plans or master plan meetings. We’ve had more and more people come to our City Commission meetings to learn, which I think is very telling that people want to be more engaged. So we’ve been working on maybe some opportunities or casual events for people just to learn more.

As a whole, what do you think is the role of a city manager?

We have a strong community here, and it’s sort of a three-legged stool where it is balancing the needs of staff, the elected officials and the residents, and it’s my job to listen to make sure that our values that we set for the city are implemented across the community, and that people see not only our vision, but they see our values in daily interactions, but then also in long-term visioning. 

What did you learn from Barack that will help you in this position?

Barack taught me a lot about the culture that we were trying to accomplish here at the city, and Barack had a big vision for the community. That was inspiring and that level of foresight, I think, showed not only Eudora people but even outside the community, where Eudora is headed. There’s big things that are in the future for Eudora and he really showed me and the commission and staff all the possibilities for this community.

Long term, what do you think is needed for the future of Eudora?

I think, as a growing community, we need to be mindful of our values, and we need to be purposeful about our next steps in growth so that Eudora can stay Eudora and that when people come to visit or come back that they see that the growth is positive, and they see it as the character of the community is still the same, but it is only gotten better. 

Editor’s Note: The Eudora Times asked how much the city manager search cost and was told to file an open records request, which the newspaper plans to do.

Reach reporter Sara Maloney at [email protected]