NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The permanent Hutchinson City Manager search process will really kick into gear next month.
"Because of summer vacations and activities, we need to come up with a date," said Interim City Manager Gary Meagher. "The consultant is gone this week out of the office and on the week of the 19th. If we would meet on August 1st in the evening, would that work for all of you?"
It appeared that would work, so Meagher intends to make the consultant's time efficient.
"What we'd be looking at is the consultant coming in at probably noon or 1:00," Meagher said. "Part of this process is to determine what you would like to do with regard to allowing for public input. One thing that we proposed is, maybe having three small focus groups. One, perhaps, business leaders in the community. Another one may be non-profits, such as the chamber, foundation, those sorts of organizations and then one that was representative of the diversity in our community."
All those focus group meetings would happen in the afternoon, with the council's meeting at 6 p.m.
"If you wanted to extend that, we could probably do a survey," Meagher said. "I think that's what was done last time is a survey online. People could go online. It would be one that they would select various things. It wouldn't be an open ended question. Those are pretty hard, to assemble the input."
The council is going to give Meagher some ideas as to who should be in the stakeholder meetings so he can reach out to them before August 1.