Bel Aire looked no further than City Hall to find its next city manager. The city council on Dec. 5 chose current finance director and assistant city manager Ted Henry to replace Ty Lasher on April 1. Henry has served as the city’s finance director for seven years. Mayor Jim Benage said the governing body’s confidence in Henry and its familiarity with him made the decision not to spend money searching for other potential candidates an easy one. Lasher’s final day will be March 29, 2024. Lasher has been considering retirement since 2022 and was asked to give the city a six-month notice when he made the decision to step down. He gave that notice in early October. Lasher was hired by the city in 2007 after serving as city administrator in Cheney about six years. He was awarded the Buford Watson Excellence in Public Service award by the Kansas Association of City/County Managers in 2020.
Source: Ark Valley News

Matt Jensby has been named Kechi’s new city administrator. Jensby replaces Kamme Sroufe following her resignation this fall. Jensby served as the police chief in Maize for 18 years after growing up in Valley Center. He is a 1990 Valley Center High School graduate and worked for the Valley Center Police Department for three years before transferring to Maize in 1996. Jensby said he witnessed incredible growth in Maize while working in the city and was inspired to pursue a second career in public administration.
Source: Ark Valley News

While members of the Land Development Code Update Steering Committee didn’t take a look at any new sections of the revised rules for how Lawrence should grow on Thursday, they did participate in plenty of discussion about incentives and energy. … Those topics, in part, included a discussion of what types of zoning incentives could work in Lawrence. That resulted in a decently-sized list, including ideas like providing more options for developers through less linear incentives, waiving system development charges for affordable housing projects and offsetting the costs for developers creating open spaces or other public amenities.
Source: LJWorld

The Amazon fulfillment center has already delivered millions of orders this year and it says the busy season just started. It’s been a busy year at the massive warehouse in Park City. 900 workers have been sorting through shelves as far as your eye can see and processed six and a half million orders this year. Manager Dillon Cole says busy season has only just begun. Cole says Amazon’s involvement in the community means a lot more than just fast deliveries. The company says it’s created more than 8,500 jobs across the state and invested $6.2 billion through infrastructure and employee compensation.
Source: Fox Kansas