By Kalin Krohe, Panhandle Post
The Chadron City Council voted to approve an employment agreement with John Sutherland as the new city manager at the May 17 meeting.
The council has been searching for a new city manager since the end of December, 2020.
Sutherland will start his role on June 1.
"John's got 40 plus years of management experience," Chadron Mayor Mark Werner said. "He retired about two years ago from being city manager of a town our size in southeast Colorado [Leyden]. He figured out he wasn't really ready to be retired. We really did get a very experienced person with a lot of energy and I think he's going to do very well for us."
Sutherland retired to Rapid City, South Dakota to be close to family. He recently moved to Chadron, which is a few hours away.
Werner said he thinks Sutherland will bring many benefits to the Chadron community.
"He's going to be starting off in accounting...so the ability to build a budget," Werner said. "He ran an airport several times. He has extensive experience working with Native American communities, which I think is kind of neat. Sometimes we have a tough time reaching out to that. He's worked with three communities that have had significant Native American presence. He seems pretty excited about communicating with that part of our population. He was very good at getting grants in Leyden...so wealth of experience there. I think he's going to be a real hands on guy."
Chadron City Council voted 5-0 to hire Sutherland.
"I got out of the negotiation business," Werner said. "There was the Vice Mayor [Cheryl Welch] and one of our other council members [Keith Crofutt] wanted to do the negotiations. Those two and two of our staff members got together with John and came up with a very innovative package since he's already retired. He didn't want a retirement package. We made a small adjustment to plus up his salary. Not quite the way the money would have been if he would have taken his retirement. He got an extra $5,000 and we saved $2,000."
Werner said Sutherland's salary is a little over $100,000.