NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Hutchinson Mayor Jade Piros de Carvalho said the two in person interviews conducted by the Hutchinson City Council on Tuesday are the culmination of a months-long process using a Kansas based firm for the national search along with public input from stakeholder groups.
"We convened three different community groups from the non-profit sector, the business sector and the faith and diversity, equity and inclusion sector to get input on what are the qualities and values you would like to see in your future city manager?" Piros de Carvalho said. "From that, we put together a recruitment brochure that was shared out widely and were very pleased to have quite a response. We had more than 40 applications to this role. A ton of them were very, very good."
Once they did the initial sifting, they did brief video interviews with eleven candidates.
"Council met in executive session a few weeks ago and each of us selected our top three," Piros de Carvalho said. "There was some overlap, but we were still only down to about seven or eight applicants and didn't want to bring in more than three. We did decide on three and over the course of a week, ended up eliminating one of those and decided we've got two really strong candidates, and we're going to bring them in, so that's what we did."
The two candidates are from Kansas.
"We're already planning a joint meeting with the Hutchinson Recreation Commission next Thursday," Piros de Carvalho said. "I do hope to have an executive session immediately following that to hammer out any additional details of a contract so that we can put that together and have it on the agenda for the following week."
Piros de Carvalho is pleased with the performance of interim manager Gary Meagher, but she and the council know that he has already served longer than was originally intended and that he will be available to assist anyone new as they come aboard.
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