Iola’s city department heads explained their duties Tuesday while meeting with a group of Iolans, many of whom will become their new bosses in April.
The occasion was a “candidate orientation” to familiarize those vying for Iola’s new city council with all of the services and responsibilities offered by Iola’s city employees.
Also on hand to speak were Craig VanWey of the Kansas Department of Commerce and John McRae and Jim Gilpin of Iola Industries, Inc., to explain that organization’s role in attracting industries and businesses to the Iola area.
Thirteen of the 17 council candidates and two of the three mayoral hopefuls attended.
THE NEW COUNCIL will be decided by Iola voters April 5 and be seated April 18.
The eight-member council will replace the existing three-man commission form of local government and will sport two council members from each of Iola’s four voting wards. A mayor, whose duties will change drastically in the new government, will be elected at large.
And as Iola City Administrator Judy Brigham noted, the new council will need to be up to speed on city matters immediately.
“This is truly a monumental event,” Brigham said. “Changes like this don’t happen very many places.”
While the pending city election is a little scary because city employees will be getting nine new bosses — “Most years we get only one new one, if that,” Brigham noted — there’s also a sense of excitement about Iola’s new direction.
And as Brigham ex-plained, few of the 600-plus cities in Kansas offer the same services Iola does.
“All cities are unique,” she said. “As much as we are alike, there aren’t many that do what we do.”
Iola can produce its own electricity (but does so only during times of peak demand or when it’s cheaper to consume local energy than it is to buy it through the Kansas Power Pool), treats its own water and wastewater, sells its own natural gas and handles citywide trash collection twice a week.
The session also included a ride aboard the Iola Area Chamber of Commerce’s Molly Trolley past the proposed Allen County Hospital site on the east edge of town, through Iola’s Ray Pershall Industrial Park, through Riverside Park and past the new neighborhood being built on what formerly was the west half of Cedarbrook Golf Course on the north edge of town.
Brigham recapped the city’s recovery from the 2007 flooding that destroyed 115 houses in the south part of town — most have been sold to the city and demolished, leaving undeveloped green space — which ultimately resulted in a newly rebuilt municipal swimming pool and community building, and a refurbished recreation community building.
She also updated candidates on the development at the Cedarbrook Second Addition neighborhood. Thirty new rental homes were built recently to serve “work force housing,” although more is needed. Iola is one of several communities in southeast Kansas exploring the possibility of having modular homes built through a pact with the Kansas Department of Corrections to provide more affordable housing for working families: “What we’ve been told repeatedly is our biggest need,” Brigham said.
Each of Iola’s 15 department superintendents also explained their department’s duties and how those services have evolved through the years.
McRAE, A former four-term mayor, and Gilpin spoke about the history of Iola Industries and that group’s role in helping Iola secure businesses and industries over the past 56 years.
Iola Industries helped land what is now Gates Corporation, Russell Stover Candies, Herff Jones, Columbia Metal and the recently closed Haldex Brake plant. The group also assisted with such businesses as T & E Co., D of K Vaults, M & W Manufacturing, Precision Pump (now Cameron Industries), Advantage Computers and Kneisley Manufacturing as they either moved to Iola or relocated elsewhere.
Iola Industries also played a role in providing the land for the Cedarbrook addition.
Gilpin noted that amid the success of watching those businesses grow came the sobering reality that some have closed, including IMP Boats, the old Pet Milk plant and most recently Haldex.
It’s incumbent upon the city to continue to strive to attract new businesses and industries to the community, McRae said.
Some of that includes keeping a vision, McRae said.
Iola’s insistence of creating a hard surface road — what now is Marshmallow Road in northwest Iola — originally was derided as a “road to nowhere,” McRae recalled.
“But without that road, we probably would not have gotten Russell Stover,” McRae said. “You’re in for the civics lesson of a lifetime, and you’ll have to be a little bit visionary.”
