With the city now in need of another city manager, it felt like a good time to re-run an editorial that I wrote in November 2022.
At the time, it made absolutely no difference to the City Commission, which opted to run a secret hiring process instead. We hope that will not be repeated.
Overpaid, out-of-state consulting firms with absolutely zero stake in what happens here will try to claim secret searches result in better candidates. As one of my former opinion editor co-workers likes to say, that’s complete hogwash.
We all knew who the final candidates were for the superintendent position when Stu Moeckel was hired. We’ll ignore the fact that the Eudora Times had to practically kidnap candidates to do a Q&A with them for the public to hear more of their thoughts, but the school district did at least let people know who was being considered and the public had some access to the finalists.
And let’s not forget that when former Superintendent Steve Splichal left for Wyoming, he had to do his interview there over Facebook live for everyone in the community to hear what the candidates were saying to get hired. Community members asked questions in the chat as well and were asked to fill out a feedback form.
That’s normal. That is how public taxpayer-funded hiring should work. Not what happens in Kansas.
Here is the last editorial I wrote nearly three years ago. Let’s hope it gets through this time:
The news that City Manager Barack Matite is resigning to take a position elsewhere comes at a critical juncture for Eudora.
The Nottingham development. The proposed sports arena. Panasonic. Infrastructure. Housing.
Suffice it to say, the next city manager will have their hands full.
This is why we at The Eudora Times are urging City Hall to have 100% transparency in the hiring of the next city manager.
I’ve mentioned before my total astonishment at the culture of Secret Kansas after working as a political reporter in North Dakota. The fact that Kansans tolerate so much secrecy in open meetings and open records is shocking to me as this is not the case elsewhere.
Therefore, I urge the city right now to consider the following basic steps, at minimum, as it begins its search for a new manager:
- The names, applications and resumes of every finalist for the position should be made public before interviews with candidates begin.
- The media should be allowed to sit in and report on every interview with each finalist so residents know where these people stand before someone is selected.
- There should be a City Commission meeting between the interviews and the selection of a candidate where residents can weigh in and ask any questions before someone is chosen.
The future city manager is arguably going to be the most critical position in the city in the next few years with so much change on the horizon. None of this process should be done behind closed doors.
Kansas open record and meeting laws permit transparency to happen. Yet too many government agencies take advantage of loopholes that put darkness over democracy.
We hope, on behalf of the residents of this city, that the hiring committee agrees that full transparency is needed with so much at stake.
