EXCLUSIVE: Washburn political expert weighs in on firing of Topeka City Manager

TOPEKA (KSNT) – A local expert comments about Topeka City Council’s decision to terminate City Manager Stephen Wade.

Topeka’s City Council voted 10 to zero to terminate City Manager Stephen Wade at Tuesday night’s meeting after only 10 months on the job. Now, questions are circulating about what the city plans to do next.

In an exclusive interview with KSNT 27 News, political expert Bill Fiander weighs in with his thoughts. Fiander served as Topeka’s City Planner for 25 years and is now a lecturer in Public Administration and Political Science at Washburn University. To Fiander, the fact city council’s vote was unanimous was very telling.

“Clearly a line was crossed because they are invested in whoever they bring on,” Fiander said. “That is their person that they hire and expect to run the daily operations of the government to implement their vision and their policies.” 

He said it took a lot of courage for the city to arrive at this decision, and that there are three potential routes it could take to move forward.

“One is to have the interim ultimately become the permanent city manager,” Fiander said. “If you do want to go to your second choice which is go through a full process, recruitment interview, whether it’s national, regional or whatever.”

However, the second option could take at least nine months to complete. The third option is to do away with the city manager structure entirely and explore a new form of government. Fiander said this is unlikely, but is a topic that comes up every time there is a city manager turnover.

The city announced it has promoted Richard U. Neinstedt from active to interim City Manager while it decides how to move forward. City Councilman Spencer Duncan told KSNT 27 News the city will likely go the traditional route and hire someone new.

He doesn’t think Neinstedt will serve as the interim Manager for much longer, as the city is already looking to replace him with a different interim city manager. However, Duncan expects the city to bring in a hiring firm to find a permanent manager after that.

In the meantime, Duncan said Neinstedt’s plan to keep the city running as smoothly as possible.

“Day-to-day operations are going to continue, won’t skip beat,” Fiander said. “The bigger things are what, the bigger projects and maybe some of the visions that come from Council might be something you could pause on until you’ve got the person in there. But, I doubt they’re going to want to slow down very much.” 

Fiander said regardless of the process, finding a city manager is city council’s most important job. The search is about finding someone who will best serve the community.

This is a developing story and we’ll provide updates as we learn more.