New city manager highlights focal points in Topeka

TOPEKA (KSNT) - Robert Perez is officially one week into his new job as Topeka city manager.

Monday, 27 News sat down with Perez about what he looks forward to tackling in his first year on the job. Entering his second week on the job, Topeka City Manager Robert Perez is hitting the ground running in his new role.

From finding a new police chief, to working on the homeless issue in the Capital city to the upcoming budget, Perez is getting input from the city on how they want things done.

"Making sure that we have a sustainable budget for the coming years is going to be of great importance to me," Perez said. "We are holding budget listening sessions that start next week, that go for the next several weeks, so we can hear from the community before we put the budget together."

When it comes to finding a new police chief for the Capital city, whether they be internal or external, Perez is casting a wider net with a national search to get the best of the best.

"As part of that process, before we do anything," Perez said, "I want to seek official feedback from the community and input from the community on the attributes that are desirable for the next police chief to have."

And homelessness. It's been an ongoing problem in Topeka. Perez said the city can't do it by itself.

It needs the help from people right here in our community.

"We're launching into a built-for-zero initiative, or model, where we'll work with the state of kansas and area stakeholders to ensure that our efforts are aligned to be as effective as possible with helping with the homeless," Perez said.

You might recall that former manager Stephen Wade brought in Sylver Consulting, an outside firm from Chicago to help with the homeless problem in our community. Now the city is not parting ways with them; rather looking at other options to deal with homelessness here in Topeka.

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