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Former chair Jim Reardon urges committee to use conferees, public input as guide
Summary
Jim Reardon, who chaired Topeka’s 2014 government review committee, told the current review group that conferees, careful note-taking and targeted public hearings produced useful recommendations in 2014 and advised the new committee to follow a similar process.
Jim Reardon, former Topeka city councilman and chair of the 2014 government review committee, told the city’s current review committee that the 2014 panel produced useful recommendations by relying on expert conferees, deliberate note-taking and a narrow initial charge.
Reardon said the 2014 committee’s main assignment was legislative: to reconcile charter and ordinance language with how the city was actually operating. “We didn’t have many parameters to start out with,” Reardon said. “We set the agenda for the conferees, and then let the conferees help us determine what our direction was gonna be.”
He told members the earlier committee worked primarily by inviting a wide range of conferees — municipal…
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