Zack Daniel will serve as the next city manager after the City Commission voted Monday night to offer him the job following an executive session.

Daniel, who was previously assistant manager, has been serving as the interim city manager the past few months.

“I’m very grateful for the opportunity, super excited to continue to work with the commission, the department heads,” Daniel said. “We’ve got a lot of really exciting things on the horizon, and I feel grateful to be a part of that.”

Daniel said continuing to think about how growth and development in town can benefit the community would be important moving forward.

Mayor Tim Reazin said Daniel had done an “incredible job” during his time in Eudora.

“This is a shining star for our community,” Reazin said.

In other business, the City Commission tabled a proposal to pull legal notices from the newspaper at its meeting Monday night, opting instead to discuss and learn more about the change. 

Reazin asked for the change at the start of the meeting, saying he wanted to ensure transparency and time for discussion. The Lawrence Journal-World has been the designated newspaper for public notices since 2010. 

Under the proposed ordinance, the site cityofeudoraks.gov would be designated to act as Eudora’s official newspaper for publishing city business. The Kansas Press Association has called the pulling of legal notices from newspapers “a huge transparency issue.”

Lawrence Journal-World Publisher Chad Lawhorn gave public comment opposing the pulling of legal notices. Lawhorn is a resident of Eudora and president of the Kansas Press Association board. 

He said his primary oppositions were philosophical. He said pulling notices from the newspaper would be a blow to transparency. Right now, the newspaper acts as an independent party, he said. 

“When lawmakers created the public notice law, they did not want a situation where the government was both the decider and the keeper of records,” he said.

But his opposition was also technical. Publishing notices only on a website opens up the possibility for a web crash to shut down city businesses. He said there was a reason the federal government still publishes its most important information on physical documents. 

“Unfortunately, we still have an issue with trust levels in government that are not what any of us want them to be,” he said.

He also said the change to legal notices was based only on an attorney general opinion, which might leave city action taken after the change vulnerable. The state statute that requires publication of legal notices in the newspaper has not changed. Instead, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach issued a legal opinion allowing smaller cities to publish notices on their websites. 

Lawhorn said he’d heard complaints legal notices weren’t accessible enough and said the Journal-World would start running a story directly linking to legal notices each week. 

During the first eight months of the year, the Journal-World has been paid $7,900 in publication costs by the city. Lawhorn clarified that rates are set by state law and not the newspaper.

Reazin said the commission and city wanted to be as transparent as possible while also making the best financial decisions. 

Daniel said the earliest the city can put the item back on the docket is Oct. 27. In the meantime, he said, city staff would work to find more detailed answers to some of the questions raised. City staff had prepared a slideshow on the topic for Monday night but tabled it so they could update it with more information.

In other business, the commission approved a proclamation recognizing Oct. 5-11 as Fire Safety Week. 

Reazin said he wanted city staff to make sure the community knew when staff had fixed things across the city and wanted to ensure staff were celebrated for their work. 

Daniel also discussed the city’s booth at Main Street Market. He said the booth provided people with information on the city budget and calendar. 

Parks and Recreation Director Sally Pennington said Pilla Park proposals are due this week and she anticipated a good turnout of applications. 

Reach reporter Cuyler Dunn at [email protected]