Emporia city commissioners finalized the process for choosing the board member to fill the remaining term opening up earlier this month after the passing of Danny Giefer.
As mentioned on KVOE’s Q&A with Trey Talk of Emporia on Monday, the application window is now open until Aug. 1. Applications are available online at the city’s information website, emporiaks.gov, with hard copies in City Manager Trey Cocking’s office. Commissioners will appoint a candidate Aug. 7 after short Q&A interviews earlier in the day.
Candidates are encouraged to attend an optional forum July 29 at the Municipal Court Room to learn more about the position.
Separately, commissioners voted 4-0 to name Susan Brinkman as vice mayor. Giefer had been serving as mayor. Upon his passing, then-vice mayor Erren Harter assumed the mayor’s duties through the rest of the calendar year.
In other business, the city officially agreed to a 3-year partnership with Prairie Paws Animal Shelter to operate the Emporia Animal Shelter after the city had partnered for years with the Humane Society of the Flint Hills. As part of the new agreement, which officially begins Aug. 4, Prairie Paws will need to submit monthly financial and performance updates.
The city, meanwhile, will pay $64,500 for the rest of this year, or a rate of just under $13,000 per month. There is a 2-percent escalator built into the contract, so Prairie Paws will receive just under $158,000 next year and just over $161,000 in 2026. For those amounts, Prairie Paws will operate the shelter and offer “core services” like Emporia Police impounds, bite quarantines, owner surrenders, adoptions and routine animal care.
Prairie Paws is based in Ottawa but also operates a shelter in Manhattan, and the agency touted a regional approach to care, staffing, supplies and other operation aspects during the presentation process earlier this year.
Prairie Paws CEO Vanessa Cowie will discuss the contract and goals in more detail during KVOE’s Newsmaker 2 segment at 8:20 am Monday.
