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Thursday
March 28th, 2024

community corrections displaySeward County Administrator April Warden, right, visits with Kurt Jones, one of the two finalists for the director position at Cimarron Basin Community Corrections, at Tuesday’s meet and greet in the Administration Building. L&T photo/Robert PierceROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times

 

 

With the recent retirement of Mike Howell as director of Cimarron Basin Community Corrections, the need for a head of the agency has been in place for a while.

Seward County officials have been in the process of finding a replacement for Howell, and Tuesday, members of the Liberal community, along with those from the other counties in Kansas’ 26th Judicial District, had a chance to meet the two finalists for the position.

County Administrator April Warden said candidates were sought to match the job description, particularly with experience and qualifications. From this, an initial 10 candidates were eligible for interviews.

Warden said, though, one of the candidates had already accepted another job before interviews were conducted, and two others would have to relocate quite a distance.

“They determined after weighing out the pros and cons that relocating would not be a good step for them,” she said.

Thus, seven candidates were interviewed, and from that, the two finalists, Bobby Bonner of Holdenville, Okla., and Kurt Jones of Perryton, Texas, were selected and were on hand to greet people Tuesday evening in the commission chambers in the Seward County Administration Building.

Warden said both candidates would make a good choice, and a decision should be coming soon. 

“I feel like the interview committee after the meet and greet this evening, we’ve gone through the interview process, the evaluations,” she said. “We have two excellent candidates in either one of them. It’ll be a hard choice, but I think the interview committee will make a selection this week.”

Recently, the Seward County Clerk’s office hosted a presentation to let local voters see and choose new equipment they will be casting ballots on. Warden said events such as that and Tuesday’s meet and greet are becoming more popular as a way to get people more involved in county government.

She did say, however, meet and greets like Tuesday’s happen typically when a department head position such as the one for CBCC come up.

“Those positions don’t come open a lot of times,” she said. “When we were hiring for the fire chief, we had a similar meet and greet system where the public could come in. Especially when you have good candidates like we have now, I think it’s always good to get a different perspective. People will have different questions that they might ask. People see things differently, so I think it’s good to have the input of many.”

Warden said getting the public more involved with county government is one of the goals of the current county commission. She also said meet and greets are part of a continuing effort to make Seward County a more transparent government entity, and not just in the county itself, as shown by the meet and greet for Jones and Bonner.

“It’s the 26th Judicial District, so it covers more than just Seward County,” she said. “We wanted to make sure the other counties that are represented – Morton, Stevens, Haskell, Grant – that they got to meet the candidates because that individual’s going to be working closely with their counties as well.”