It’s likely the city of Emporia will have a new logo by the end of the year, however, when that will be won’t be known for at least two more weeks.
During their regular action and study meeting Wednesday afternoon, Emporia City Commissioners reviewed a presentation on the new logo from Lot and Illk, the company tasked with designing the new logo. Following the presentation, commissioners chose to table the item for two weeks to allow for more input to be gathered from city staff.
Commissioner Erren Harter believes employee perspective is essential to the process.
Commissioner Susan Brinkman was not in favor of this course of action saying she felt the type of feedback being sought was not clarified fully.
In other business, commissioners reviewed the results of the recently completed citywide survey meant to gauge community response on a number of city operations. The survey was sent out back in August and was meant to gauge resident input on the quality of city programming and departments.
One area that did not fare well related to transparency and representation from city government. Commissioner Susan Brinkman believes this is an alarming result and one that needs to see further discussion in the near future.
Commissioner Erren Harter stated that he feels the study may have been a bit too “generic” in the long run.
During the month of September, the city received 480 responses to the survey, well above the previous goal of 400. Those results are available online at Emporia-Kansas.gov.
Separately, commissioners took action to approve placing property at 525 Merchant — White Memorial Park — on the city’s surplus property list. This in turn has set off a chain of events that could last into early next year according to city special projects coordinator Jim Witt.
Witt says after a proposal is selected and published, there will be a two-week protest period where if 10 percent of the electorate from the prior city election sign a petition against the action it will have to go to a vote. According to Witt, there has only been one proposal made for the property, however, there was no specific dollar amount attached to it. The process will likely conclude by mid to late January.
The Emporia City Commission will reconvene on Wednesday, Oct. 19 at 11 am inside of the Municipal Courtroom at White Auditorium.
