7 minute read
Walking to Learn
New city administrator brings plenty of experience to the job, and she plans to walk every street in Leawood.
By Bob Luder
Photo by Strauss Peyton Portrait Studio, www.strausspeytonkc.com
Diane Stoddard has plenty of new streets to walk. For the past 15-plus years, Stoddard strolled the streets and neighborhoods of Lawrence, Kansas, a self-imposed tour consisting of hundreds of miles that she felt fit right in with her job as assistant city manager.
“It’s a great way to know the city,” she says.
These days, one will find Stoddard walking the boroughs and avenues of Leawood. Back in January, she became the city’s administrator.
“I will walk all the streets in Leawood,” she says. “I’m looking forward to that in addition to all the other great things that will be taking place in the city in the years to come.”
Stoddard finds herself stepping into the city’s administration as Leawood celebrates its 75th anniversary. As city administrator, she’ll assist Leawood’s Governing Body in implementing policies and ensuring they are carried out. She’ll assist in recommending and overseeing the city’s budget. Working with department heads, she’ll ensure city policies and services are carried out for the Leawood community.
It’s a change of venue Stoddard believes she can fit into comfortably, confidently, and quickly as the city goes about organizing myriad special events for its anniversary.
“There are a lot of similarities,” she says of making the move from Lawrence to Leawood, “but a lot of differences in the population served. Lawrence is a 100,000-population college town. It’s relatively small.
“Being in the (Greater Kansas City) metro is much different. Each city must provide good services to residents. A lot of services we get through other city governments and cooperatives. For instance, we work with the Mid America Regional Council for traffic signal timing. It makes traveling the streets much more seamless when leaving one city and going into another.”
Cooperation with other cities—and, given Leawood’s spot adjacent to the Kansas-Missouri state line, other states—over things such as shared intersections and, most importantly, emergency aid and services, is a major factor in Stoddard’s new duties. That comes as anything but foreign territory for someone who valued collaboration during her time in Lawrence city management, dating back to 2007.
“Diane has proven to be the perfect choice to lead our exceptional community,” says Leawood mayor Peggy Dunn. “She respected and appreciates the strong professional staff that she inherited, and she’s made strategic additions to build an even greater team.
“Her communication skills are terrific, and she enjoys collaborating with residents as well as developers to build consensus and find resolutions for challenging issues.
“Leawood is fortunate to have her leadership.”
A Life in Public Service
Though born and raised in Lawrence, Stoddard can justifiably consider herself a creature of northwest Kansas; Leawood is the fifth city she’s worked for in the area in city management. But it was in Lawrence where her interest and ambition for city government and public service was hatched and fully cultivated.
Her father worked for the University of Kansas (KU) in its buildings and grounds department, working to maintain the campus infrastructure. That seemed to spur young Diane’s curiosity and interest not only in existing infrastructure, but in how it was maintained, improved, and expanded. At Lawrence High School, she participated in Youth in Local Government, which introduced students to all levels and aspects of the city’s government.
One project assigned to students was to attend a city meeting and report back to the group what transpired. Perhaps it was sheer fate that Stoddard was assigned to cover city commission meetings.
“It was a very interesting time (in Lawrence then),” she says. “There was a proposed mall development, and they were discussing whether to place it downtown or somewhere else. A lot of things went over my head, but I found it really interesting.
“I was always interested in government. I liked international politics. But I was a homebody, extremely close to my family.”
“The future is really bright for Leawood. We’re almost built out. So, we’re going to have to figure out how to maintain the high quality of life that the residents of the city have been accustomed to.”
–DIANE STODDARD
Stoddard attended KU, where she earned an undergraduate degree in political science and a master’s in public administration. At the time and in the years since, the university had the No. 1 city management program in the country. And, she says Lawrence’s city manager at the time played a large part in her future.
“Buford Watson took the time to meet with me and talk to me about the role of city manager and city government,” she says. “It inspired me.”
While still at KU, Stoddard worked an internship with the city government in Lenexa. She then served in city administration in Ottawa and was deputy city manager in Manhattan before returning home to Lawrence, where she was assistant city manager for more than 15 years.
“Diane is a great leader because she cares deeply about the people that she leads and the impact of our work on the
communities we serve,” says Lawrence city manager Craig Owens. “She was an invaluable member of our Lawrence leadership team for many years and helped shape us into the community we are today.
“With her years of experience and expertise in local government, I’m confident she’ll do amazing work for the Leawood community.”
Taking the Next Step
It’s obvious from the amount of time she spent in Lawrence that Stoddard loved her job in her hometown and feels her work— always with the collaboration of many others, she stresses—made a lasting impact on the city.
But she was looking to try something else just when an opportunity presented itself. She had worked in Ottawa with Scott Lambers, Leawood’s former city administrator who passed away last year.
“(Lambers) said to me he loved the job,” Stoddard says. “He’d been there more than 20 years. I was interested in being an administrator. Leawood is a very high-quality community with a great reputation. I looked into it. I saw it as a great opportunity. I knew it was a stable government.”
Stoddard says the first seven months on the job have been everything she thought it would be.
“The job’s been great,” she says. “I’m really pleased with it. There have been lots of tours, lots of meeting people. I’m working on the goals the governing body has set.”
Many of the issues facing the city, she says, revolve around future development, both in the near future and further out. Leawood is fully bordered so undeveloped growth is severely limited, and re-development will have to be in its future.
Of more immediate concern is the city’s 75th anniversary plans that will revolve around the weekend of October 6–8. The Leawood Chamber of Commerce will host a Taste of Leawood event the evening of October 6. During the weekend, events will be held along Tomahawk Creek Parkway, including kids’ events, concerts, and food trucks. Later, a recently purchased signature art piece will be unveiled, and the city released a new city logo earlier this year. Turn to page 22 for the Leawood ad listing all the events.
“The future is really bright for Leawood,” Stoddard says. “We’re almost built out. So, we’re going to have to figure out how to maintain the high quality of life that the residents of the city have been accustomed to.”
In the meantime, Stoddard will continue spending time with her family of four—husband of 30 years, Brian, a high school history teacher in Ottawa, and sons Nathan, a recent KU graduate, and Adam, who just graduated from Lawrence High and will attend KU in the fall.
She’ll also keep walking Leawood’s streets … and blogging about her journey and adventures. Residents can read about them at www.tumblr.com\blog\walkleawood.
“I’m a long way from being done,” she says, “but it’s a great way to learn the community and see things from a different perspective.”
