In this file photo, Lewis County Commissioners Gary Stamper, Edna Fund and Bobby Jackson are pictured.
The Board of Lewis County Commissioners plans to seek input at upcoming meetings to collect opinions from the public on adding a county manager after a task force earlier this month recommended they hire one at the beginning of 2018.
Conversations so far have been “very preliminary,” commission chairman Gary Stamper said.
He said the board is planning to bring the topic up during different events and also plans to discuss it at meetings, such as the monthly meeting with commissioners and all of the area mayors.
“We’ll see exactly what they feel like and get some opinions on it,” Stamper said.
The process takes time, commissioners said.
“Several points we looked at are not covered by the entire study,” Commissioner Bobby Jackson said on Wednesday during a meeting with staff. “It’s not a simple matter of one individual. It also includes some infrastructure.”
Stamper said once some input is received, a meeting will be scheduled within the next couple of weeks to discuss the topic in more depth, likely the third week of August. Hiring a manager by the first of the year would be a challenge, he said
“It’s a rough timeline and I think more than anything else, we are going to utilize the next several months to get the information out to the people and see how they feel about it,” he said.
Earlier this month, a task force that looked at ways to reorganize county government recommended the county hire a manager to help oversee day-to-day operations and manage department heads.
The board was selected by the commissioners after community members began meeting to discuss the possibility of a home rule charter, which would allow for the reorganization of county government by elected freeholders. That option ultimately was not recommended.
