City to choose Corliss’ assistant manager as interim leader for Lawrence

Diane Stoddard

The search for a new top executive at Lawrence City Hall is heating up.

Lawrence City commissioners are set to appoint Diane Stoddard, a current assistant city manager for Lawrence, as interim city manager. Commissioners are scheduled to approve her contract at Tuesday evening’s meeting. The appointment will be the first major step in the process of finding a replacement for City Manager David Corliss, who is resigning to take a town manager job in Colorado.

“I’m very honored by the opportunity and very humbled by it,” said Stoddard, who was born and raised in Lawrence. “It is a special community with great city employees, and I’m very excited to be a part of it.”

Stoddard, 45, has been an assistant city manager at Lawrence City Hall since 2007. Prior to joining the city, she spent about 15 years in various city government positions in other communities across northeast Kansas. She came to Lawrence after serving as a deputy city manager in Manhattan, where she played a strong role in that community’s economic development efforts.

Mayor Jeremy Farmer said Stoddard’s tenure at Lawrence City Hall has shown that she can keep the day-to-day operations of the city functioning smoothly during this transition period.

“I’m incredibly impressed with her attention to detail,” Farmer said. “She doesn’t advocate for things one way or the other. She talks about needing to make decisions together, and that is what this community needs right now.”

The commission is set to approve a contract that would pay Stoddard $145,000 a year to serve in the interim role. The contract also allows Stoddard to apply for the permanent position, although she said she is undecided on whether she’ll seek the job.

“At this point, I don’t know for sure,” Stoddard said. “But I believe I will know soon after working in the interim capacity for awhile. I will plan to announce whether I’m a candidate for the position.”

The contract also calls for Stoddard to be reappointed as an assistant city manger, if she is not chosen for the permanent position. She also would be entitled to a severance package of six months’ pay if she is dismissed from her duties by the City Commission or by a new city manager within one year of the new manager’s start date.

The hiring of an interim city manager has been seen as a key first step in the process to find a replacement for Corliss. Farmer said Tuesday evening’s City Commission meeting likely will include some brief discussion about next steps. He said a more formal discussion will take place at a future meeting. He said he’s preparing to make several recommendations on how the search should be conducted. They include:

• The appointment of a committee that includes both members of the public, city employees and select city commissioners to review the applications of city manger candidates. The committee would play a role in selecting the three to four finalists who would receive interviews.

• An open interview process that would include the finalists for the position being introduced to the public through a community forum.

“I think it really helps the public get a read on whether people are authentic and genuine,” Farmer said.

Kansas University has been using the open interview process for several of its top positions, and the city recently used the process to hire its director of arts and culture. Some people have expressed concern that the process may cause some potential candidates to not apply for the position because they don’t want their current employer knowing they are seeking another position. Farmer said he wasn’t overly worried about that prospect.

“I think somebody who is not committed to that type of transparency maybe wouldn’t do well in Lawrence,” Farmer said.

Farmer said he’s undecided on whether the search process should be national in scope or whether it should be focused more on candidates who are in the Douglas County area. He noted that the Lawrence chamber of commerce had success in its CEO search by focusing on area candidates, but he noted that Kansas University’s School of Public Administration has a national reputation, which means there are city managers across the country who have connections to Lawrence.

Farmer stressed the entire City Commission will make the decision how the search process should be structured.

Commissioners also will need to decide whether they want to make any changes to how the City Commission is structured. The idea of creating a new mayor position that is directly elected by the people and who serves a multiyear term was discussed during the last City Commission elections. Currently, the five-member commission selects one of its own each April to serve a one-year term as mayor.

Any potential change to the City Commission’s structure is likely an issue city manager candidates will want to be aware of as they consider the Lawrence job. Farmer said he can see some appeal to the change.

“But I’m not going to drive the conversation on that issue,” Farmer said. “If a commissioner wants to put it on an agenda, I’m open to doing that. I think the community wants to have the conversation.”

Corliss’ last day as Lawrence city manager is set for May 28. Stoddard’s tenure as interim city manager will begin May 29. Corliss is leaving Lawrence to become town manager for Castle Rock, Colo.