L&T Publisher Earl Watt

Emporia Citizens United weren’t getting anywhere by talking to their city commissioners. Despite concerns over a proposed data center, the City of Emporia granted a permit for the project to move forward.

That’s when the citizens gathered up signatures and presented a petition to require the City of Emporia to put the question on the November ballot.

Thousands of signatures should have been a sign that the people were not being heard.

But the City of Emporia took the case to district court to see if citizens had the right to institute an initiative on the proposed ordinance.

That was the wrong question.

Instead of asking whether citizens have the right, they should have been asking, “Who do we represent?”

This same commission had a school teacher arrested for clapping earlier this summer during public comments against a proposed data center.

What’s worse is what the judge in the case said from the bench. While lawyers representing the data center were present and lawyers representing the City of Emporia were present, the judge stated neither were representing the public. Lawyers for Emporia Citizens United were brought in, and the judge said the public was now being represented.

How sad.

The City of Emporia, according to the judge, was not representing the people they were supposed to be serving.

And the judge declared the question must be on the November ballot.

There are still some legal hurdles, but when did we get to the point that our elected officials aren’t recognized as the people who represent the public?

A similar case is taking place in Finney County with Garden City residents concerned about a proposed data center and the creation of additional gas powered electrical plants needed to power it.

One citizen pointed out that the entire city of Garden City uses 50 megawatts of power, but the data center will require 1,000 megawatts.

Unlike cities, where voters can demand a question be placed on a  ballot, counties have no such tool for the people.

It will be interesting to see if Finney County, like the City of Emporia, is seen as an organization that does not represent the public.

Have we completely lost sight of what being an elected commissioner means?

The Declaration of Independence outlines the role of government in this country, and not just at the federal level.

After stating that we all have God-given rights, the Declaration defines the role of government.

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ...”

Government’s job is to secure our God-given rights, and they can only exercise power given to them by the consent of the governed.

If the governed do not consent, then those in authority are not acting on behalf of the public.

And the Declaration gives a remedy.

“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness ...”

Any form of government, they said. That means federal, state or local.

The people have the right to change or abolish it. They have the right. How do they do that?

Through elections, petitions, redressing the government for grievances, recalls, and any other action necessary to remove a tyrannical government that no longer represents the public.

Electing someone to office is not a blank check of unbridled power, and it’s not a free pass to “make the hard choices the people don’t support.”

One former city commissioner once said, and I have the recording, that the “public doesn’t like to be told no.”

This is what happens when people who don’t understand the role of government get elected. They are swayed by special interests rather than the public’s interest. They listen to only a handful of advisors rather than the public at large.

Good people lose sight of why they wanted to serve and become entangled in administrative agendas rather than public service, believing their role to be almost advisory to the whims of the staff rather than a guardrail to protect the public’s interests, where the commission’s power originated.

In the end, it’s not whether data centers are good or bad, whether wind is good or bad, whether flock cameras are good or bad. It’s whether or not the public at large supports them.

This isn’t about whether or not a commissioner is making a good decision. It’s whether or not that decision reflects the will and desire of the public at large.

When judges are ruling that commissions are not the representatives of the public in legal disputes, it is clear those elected by the people do not understand who is really in control in America.

Meetings across the country are seeing similar actions — the people are rising up against surveillance cameras, wind farms and data centers, and they are taking their concerns to the people who are supposed to represent them.

Instead, elected officials are choosing to represent corporations, internal staff and lobbying groups rather than the citizens who call these communities home.

Citizens are demanding conversations take place in public, that those who are receiving benefits from industries recuse themselves from votes, and to allow the public to have votes on critical issues that face their communities.

Social media reels are flooded with similar concerns across the nation. That’s bad enough.

But this is Kansas, where pioneers carved out communities from the unforgiving prairie. They didn’t make that sacrifice so that resources could be squandered while their property values plummet, their quality of life diminishes, and their voice is silenced.

This cautionary tale should be heard right here in Seward County — elected officials need to listen to the public they represent.