If all goes to plan with contract negotiations, the residents of Lawrence should find out who their new city manager is next week, Mayor Brad Finkeldei said Friday morning. The city hasn’t released the name of the top candidate yet.
City commissioners skipped a scheduled executive session and voted to direct city staff members to enter into negotiations for the city manager position. Executive sessions are closed-door meetings in which commissioners can discuss specific subjects, such as personnel matters.
The brief meeting began and ended at 8 a.m. Friday after a vote to amend the agenda and proceed straight to a motion. They directed the city attorney, director of human resources or designees to work with recruiter Doug Thomas to “negotiate an employment agreement for the city manager position consistent with the governing body’s discussion in executive session.”
Thomas is the executive vice president of executive recruitment/leadership development with Strategic Government Resources, a firm the city contracted for a not-to-exceed price of $28,419 to help guide the search.
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“We’ve identified our candidate, and we hope to work out contract terms that are acceptable to the candidate and the commission in the near future, at which point we can announce that final decision,” Finkeldei later said over the phone.
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Finkeldei outlined the next steps in the process: following negotiations, the commission will schedule a special session. At that time, staff will give commissioners a rundown of the contract during an executive session.
Following that executive session, Finkeldei said, the commission would return to an open meeting to announce that they’re accepting the contract and who the new city manager is.
The announcement should take place next week if all goes smoothly, according to Finkeldei, but it could take longer if the commission needs to default to their second choice.
The search process began in January and neared an end quickly after the city last week announced five finalists, one of whom withdrew from consideration earlier this week.
A community meet-and-greet on Wednesday gave people a chance to meet the remaining four — Joe Fivas, Joseph (Joe) Lessard, Majed Al-Ghafry and Michael Kovacs — in a speed-dating-style event.
The advertised salary for the city manager position was $229,153 – $338,769, “depending on experience and qualifications,” according to SGR’s job listing.
None of the candidates currently live in Kansas, but a requirement listed in the job description is to relocate to Lawrence within six months of hire.
Former City Manager Craig Owens announced in November that he would be leaving his position in May. He held the position for almost seven years after starting in the role on July 1, 2019. Casey Toomay has served as acting city manager in the interim.
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Wulfe Wulfemeyer (they/them), reporter and news editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2025. They can be reached at [email protected].
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