ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
Thursday, candidates for District One and District Five of the Seward County Commission had the chance to air their thoughts on a variety of topics during a forum at the Depot in Liberal.
One question that arose during the forum centered around a recent request by one of the incumbent candidates, District One Commissioner C.J. Wettstein, to ask for a zoning variance on a garage built on his property.
The variance is on the agenda for Monday’s county commission meeting, and a letter from Planning and Zoning Director Albert Gallegos in the agenda packet stated the variance was denied.
The question at Thursday’s forum asked candidates the importance of commissioners following the same rules they expect other county residents to follow.
All candidates said it is important to follow the same rules applied to their constituents, and District One candidate Todd Stanton said the State of Kansas does have formal ethical guidelines for county commissioners themselves.
“From a moral and ethical standpoint, you follow the law if you’re a county commissioner,” he said. “You follow the law if you’re an average citizen. This is how things work. This is how society functions.”
“As a county commissioner, you should follow everything as well as you can and go from there,” Wettstein said.
District Five challenger Bee Symons said commissioners are not above any other county citizen.
“They need to uphold the same standards everybody has to uphold, maybe even more so because they’ve got that position,” he said. “They’ve been elected to that position to serve the people. It’s very important they follow the law just like everybody else.”
Current District Five Commissioner Steve Helm too said commissioners are no different than the average citizen.
“We need to follow every rule whether it be planning and zoning or even budgeting,” he said. “A commissioner should live within their home budget. We expect other departments to do that. We should do the same thing.”
District Five challenger Dr. Lamberto Flores also said commissioners should follow the law, and he took some advice from a mentor he knew when he initially became a doctor, saying while a doctor’s journey comes with some prestige, it still does not make them better than others.
“You’re not any better than the receptionist, the mechanic,” he said. “It’s just the job you’re doing. Don’t expect any favors because you’re a doctor, and don’t expect anyone to treat you any differently because you’re a doctor. At the end of the day, while you’re doing this job, it doesn’t make you anymore special. As a commissioner, I would be held to the same standards as the average citizen.”
