ELLY GRIMM

   • Leader & Times

Southwest Kansas has been steadily gaining a voice in state politics in recent years, and soon, that work will be continued. 

Elkhart Mayor Leo Carrillo was recently named the president of the Kansas Mayors Association, and as he tells it, he is no stranger to helping in the area.

“I started serving on the city council in 2017, and I did that for a few years. I was elected mayor in 2024, and my term ends in 2027, and that’s my main municipal government experience,” Carrillo said. “I've also been on several other different boards and been involved with several groups throughout my community, and I’ve been doing that since probably 2013. I was on the Elkhart Recreation Commission from 2016 to 2025, and I was in multiple roles there as far as volunteering in the community.”

Carrillo has been a member of the Kansas Mayors Association for multiple years, and he said it has been a good experience.

“Last year at the organizational meeting, I was picked by the by the Kansas Mayors Association to fill the role of vice president, and the thing about the vice president's role is, I'm vice president for a year, and then this year I was I moved up to president. Essentially, it's a two-year term – you start as vice president, and then you take over the role as president,” Carrillo said. “For the Association itself, there's also a board of directors appointed by all the mayors of Kansas, so there’s the Southwest Kansas representative, the Central Kansas representative, Northwestern Kansas, Eastern Kansas, etc., and there's six board positions, and then there’s the vice president and president. Whenever we have our meetings, we're all spread out and a lot of the communication is through email, or sometimes Zoom. We get involved with a lot of stuff with the Kansas Legislature and we’re an affiliate of the Kansas League of Municipalities, so we work with them on things that would benefit municipal governments throughout the state of Kansas.”

Carrillo said it was a good feeling to be picked as the entity’s president.

“You kind of know from being vice president that your next step up is going to be the president role. So there’s been quite a bit of being ready for the position so you’re fully ready to go,” Carrillo said. “And with my experiences being chairman of different groups, I took it and ran with it. But I was excited, you know, to take the role and represent Western Kansas and all the people in the communities in that region. We're a rural community of about 1,700 people in Elkhart, and to have that representation of a small town mayor representing several municipalities around the state of Kansas, big and small, that’s amazing. I see it as a benefit, especially for Western Kansas to have somebody from out here in a state leadership position where you can collaborate with people and get information and hopefully bring things out to this part of the world. The population in this part is a lot less than Eastern Kansas, so we need all the recognition and representation and support we can get from the people back east.”

Carrillo said he is excited to be a voice for Southwest Kansas.

“I have great connections with people like Rep. Shannon Francis – he is awesome and he's actually helped me with some transportation legislation, and he's done a very good job for the area,” Carrillo said. “This area is so fortunate to have him, and I can’t say enough about him and all our representatives from Southwest Kansas. I have those connections, so as far as going to Topeka and advocating for our part of the world, I have people there I know I can work with. I know their ear is going to be on us and we can communicate with them, and I think that's great. As far as things that might come up in municipal government that might affect us at the state level, we want to be able to communicate with people and say, ‘Hey, this is going to benefit us/not benefit us.’ That'll also include getting input from all city leader throughout this part of the state.”

And even though the announcement of his new role is still new, Carrillo said there are already some things he would like to see happen.

“One of the main things we've got to work out is property taxes for our residents, especially our rural communities,” Carrillo said. “That's one thing, and I know I’m not the only one concerned with all of that. We team up with the League of Municipalities, and we have work the League wants to visit with legislators about and try to get support for, especially when it comes to anything that could affect municipal government. With those situations, we go in and give testimony about what those local governments could see. One of our biggest jobs is to go advocate for this part of state with the League of Municipalities. Public safety is also a big concern – in smaller communities like ours, we struggle trying to bring folks out here to be law enforcement officers and be part of that sector. It's kind of limited because it’s not a big population. I stress that in the League how in the more rural areas, public safety is a big concern because a lot of people don't want to come do that, or they don't want to live far away from a big town. It's definitely a challenge to try to get our rural population back up, and I think it's something we’ve got to work on.”

Overall, Carrillo said, he is excited for his new role.

“I'm just excited to be making more connections throughout the state with different leaders, getting their perspectives on how they're doing things, and maybe bringing some of those ideas back to this part of the state,” Carrillo said. “Every community is different – maybe we're doing something right here a community could be doing back east, or vice versa. I’m looking forward to trading ideas with different municipalities, I think that collaboration should be great.”