GUEST COLUMN, Todd Stanton, Seward County

Not long after a petition was filed seeking my recall, I stated that it would be answered point by point.

First, it should be known that the petition and the county attorney’s response were evaluated by one of the sharper legal minds in the State. In their opinion both the petition itself and the letter of sufficiency could be successfully challenged in District Court. However, the complainants would then simply re-file a modified petition making a successful challenge a hollow victory teeing up a new challenge.

The opening premise of the petition is false: “using confidential information acquired through public office to intentionally cause harm to another.” It’s falsehood will become readily apparent so we’ll revisit that in a bit after unpacking the rest of the claims.

The petition next states, “The Board of County Commissioners never authorized Stanton to act on the County’s behalf regarding Standard’s KPERS or KP&F retirement, nor did the County Administrator or Human Resources, and Stanton was not a designated agent on the County’s KPERS account.”

None of this matters and is entirely irrelevant. I looked at a budget issue brought to my attention by a county employee. It is entirely within my purview, duty and fiduciary obligation as a county commissioner to look into budgetary matters brought to my attention. A county commissioner does not answer to the County Administrator or Human Resources Director and in no manner requires their approval of, or participation in, any research or investigation. Their “authorization” is not required for a commissioner or a citizen to contact KPERS. Their “authorization” is most certainly not required to discuss an issue which appears to involve the questionable use of six figure sums with law enforcement.

The petitioners then seek to draw upon K.S.A. 74-4909(10) to make you think a statute has been violated. None has, it’s rubbish. This statute deals specifically with regulations for the Board of Directors of KPERS. Paragraph 10 deals with how KPERS deals with individual records they themselves hold. In my view, regulation governing a state agency’s board does not have any applicability or bearing on me. I obtained no records from KPERS. As the local newspaper has demonstrated, the list of what employees are being given KPERS or KP&F contributions are part of the public record and are available to anyone. A newspaper can look at these records but a county commissioner cannot? KPERS did not ask me to send them payroll or contribution information. Why would they when they have all of these records themselves as they are submitted by Seward County?

Next we have the cloak and dagger sounding statement I had been “asking KPERS to withhold his identity from the County.” More rubbish. KPERS asked me if there was any reason to leave my name out of things when it contacted the County or the individuals. Here let’s pause to note how conveniently the petitioners forget there were two subjects, not one. During that discussion I did state one of the subjects owned a gun store. At the mention of that, KPERS said they were leaving my name out of things at that point in time.

I have no idea what has been the result of KPERS own investigation or Mr. Standard’s appeal regarding KPERS initial determination not in his favor which was based solely upon records KPERS had and the statutes which govern. To be clear, that determination was made by KPERS.

In summary, there was no unauthorized use of confidential data. No authorization requirement exists and no confidential data was involved. The accusatory statements are false.

This leaves one statement to address, “intentionally cause harm to another” which by the end of the very short 200 word petition has morphed into “caused needless harm.” Those are two very different things under law. Again, the petitioners find it convenient to forget there were two individuals receiving KP&F in apparent error. I have no animosity toward Greg Standard. Aside from him arriving once following an oil field incident at my farm and him showing myself and another party a property in Liberal he wanted to sell, I don’t know him outside of his having been the Emergency Manager of the county. Maybe he’s upset I asked tough questions about his budget a year ago resulting in it being reduced from the request.

So, where does that leave us looking at a petition full of falsehood, innuendo and struggling with facts? I’ll leave it to others to fill in the blanks for the local Deep State.

Are they still upset I stood in the way of their massive 17-mill tax hike by exposing its false premise; are some circulating the petition because they are mad I haven’t endorsed their wind farm (which most of my constituents oppose); and do others believe blocking the engagement of a desperately needed CFO will keep who knows what hidden in a dark corner?