Junction City is beginning it’s search for a new Executive Director for the C.L. Hoover Opera house.

Effective December 31, Mary Louise Stahl will be resigning as the Executive Director of the C.L. Hoover Opera House.

Gerald Smith, Junction City Manager, outlined his plans for finding a new Director during Tuesday nights City Commission meeting. He told the Commissioners that the City probably needs to take a greater role in the Opera House, “In order to assist the Opera House in establishing a sustainable business model and providing them with a true leader that comes from the industry that knows about managing cultural institutions like the Opera House.”

The City will be turning over the operation of the Opera House to a 501-C3 non-profit organization in August of next year and hopes to have a sustainable business model in place by that time. “My concern is that we’re going to see the patterns of the past five years repeat going forward. If that occurs my concern is that we won’t see the Opera House really grow to the degree that we believe it can grow.”

Smith asked the Commission for their support of coming up with a model of operation to fund a full time executive director as well as a full time business manager,”With the understanding that it will continue for a period of time until we get to a point where we will be able to taper off and get to the funding level that you feel more comfortable funding them with.”

Smith explained that a seasoned executive director would command a salary around $65,000 to $75,000 a year and a Business Manager would expect a salary around $50,000 to $60,000 a year. He did say that he suspects that a Business Manager could be maintained at a part time status until they get to the point of growth where they would require the full time status.

“The Executive Director can not do the jobs of all of the positions that need to be done in order to effectively operate that museum and to be charged with the responsibilities of going out and building a sustainable model of operation.”

Smith said that as of right now he would just like to be sure the funding would be available for the Executive Director salary so he can start advertising for the position immediately,”What I will need from you is at minimum is the salary I will be looking for and that will be in the range of $65,000 to $75,000 just for that one position. The other salaries, we can discuss that later, but for right now I need to be able to advertise because we need to get that out on the streets ASAP.”

Cheryl Beatty, Finance Director and Assistant City Manager, suggested,”we would pull the money out of what is called budgeted reserve and transfer it over to the Opera House budget in order to make that happen.”

Jim Sands, City Commissioner, said that he hopes that their will be some work sessions on this topic to further explore what needs to be done,”It’s a long way to go, August 14th is almost here, but there’s so much that has got to happen and I know it’s not going to happen overnight.”