LETTER TO THE EDITOR, Carolyn Huddleston, Liberal
If any of you in District 1 signed a petition for the recall of Commissioner Todd Stanton, but now regret that, it’s not too late to get your name taken off.
There seem to be a lot of malicious and untrue statements floating around, for example, that 1) Commissioner Stanton got his hands on confidential documents, 2) that he sent these to KPERS, 3) should have had the permission of the Board of Commissioners as a whole to make any report, and 4) was deliberately attempting to cause harm to a long-time Seward County employee.
I have the payroll data showing that KP&F was being paid on Greg Standard when he was Director of Emergency Management in 2024 and 2025. I got that through KORA requests. It’s available to anyone. Not “confidential.” After a whistle blower brought it to Commissioner Stanton’s attention and questioned whether Mr. Standard should be getting KP&F retirement [which is reserved for police and firemen, who put their lives on the line in doing their jobs], he took this to Sheriff Gene Ward, and asked about getting it investigated. Gene told him to take it to KPERS, the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System. They administer both KPERS [the retirement that most public employees get], and KP&F. So Commissioner Stanton called KPERS and asked if KP&F was justified in this case. Anyone can call KPERS and bring up an issue of this kind. They want to check out any possible misuse of public funds.
Commissioner Stanton did not send KPERS any pay records. They already had all that data on Mr. Standard. KPERS did ask for the job description for the Emergency Management position. Commissioner Stanton had the most current version of that, dated 2024, which he sent on to them as requested. Some people have said there were three job descriptions KPERS considered. The other two were apparently provided by Administrator April Warden and are said to be dated well over a decade earlier, not current, and unknown to Commissioner Stanton. KPERS investigated, and decided what benefits had been earned.
The recall petition alleges that Commissioner Stanton acted with the intent to cause harm to Mr. Standard, but he’d had very little contact with the man prior to all this, and was simply wanting to determine if the County should be paying the higher rate of retirement. The Emergency Management position did not seem to qualify from what Commissioner Stanton knew about the criteria. Stanton was just doing what I would want my own Commissioner to do if this kind of issue came up. There is a lot of County money involved, and instead of recall, I believe Commissioner Stanton should be getting a medal for his willingness to take action and refer this to the proper authorities. Many Commissioners wouldn’t have done a thing.
Anyway, if you didn’t understand the facts of this situation and signed a petition, but now wish you hadn’t, here’s what you can do: Call Stacia Long, the County Clerk, at (620) 626-3355, and tell her you want to have your name removed from this recall petition. She will tell you what you need to do. I think it will involve just sending an email with your request to
