L&T Publisher Earl Watt

The pressure campaign placed on Dist. 1 to sign a recall effort against Seward County Commissioner Todd Stanton may have been intimidating and pushed by the deep state, but even if you felt like you had to sign the petition because you were told false information, the good news is you can still do the right thing and have your name removed.

The claims made in the petition are absolutely false, and an independent investigation into the facts shows why you should call Seward County Clerk Stacia Long at 620-626-3355.

No matter how you feel about Commissioner Todd Stanton, if you believe in justice you cannot support this effort starting with the lie that Stanton illegally obtained records about the Kansas Public Employees Retirement documents for former county employee Greg Standard.

He did not.

The documents were provided to Stanton by a whistleblower inside Seward County.

The whistleblower contacted me as well and shared why they approached Stanton. According to the whistleblower, who has a strong understanding of retirement benefits and the distinct differences between benefits given to first responders and those to other public employees, treating the emergency manager position a first responder was incorrect and to the whistleblower appeared to be fraudulent.

If those benefits were approved by the Seward County Administrator or other administrative staff, knowing they were not accurate, they, too, could have been a party to potentially illegal activity, in the view of the whistleblower.

Let’s be clear, none of this reflected Standard’s time a as first responder, and those benefits were never in question. Until Standard was removed from the county fire department for violating policy, his benefits were earned. Questions arose when he no longer was a first reponder but was receiving benefits after being named the emergency manager.

The whistleblower then delivered the documents to Stanton. That is not illegal or inappropriate. We receive similar documents from time to time, and in this case, we already had records of contributions to KPERS and Kansas Police and Fire, which is a much different level of benefit than KPERS because of the risks involved.

Once Commissioner Stanton was given the documents, and recognizing the potential entanglement with administration, Stanton took those concerns to Sheriff Gene Ward and sought his input on what should be done.

The Leader & Times independently investigated and verified that Sheriff Ward was approached by Stanton, and under the advisement of Sheriff Ward, which has been validated, Stanton then turned the concern over to KPERs.

In the communications with KPERs, Stanton advised KPERs to contact Seward County Human Resources personnel for any additional information, a clear sign he was not making any independent claim but making them aware of a concern and who on staff would be the place to go to get additional information.

That has been fabricated into a narrative of malicious intent and improper performance of a commissioner.

Nothing could be further from the truth after an independent investigation in to the facts corroborated the concern raised by the whistleblower, not raised by Stanton. We verified Sheriff Ward recommended contacting KPERs, not Commissioner Stanton. And the resulting investigation by KPERs resulted in Standard receiving the benefits they determined he earned, not a determination by Stanton.

It is irrelevant if the whistleblower’s concerns were warranted or not, but by signing a recall based on false allegations continues, there will be no whistleblowers willing to speak up about possible misdeeds in the future, and who knows what wrongdoings will occur when there is no fear of anyone questioning the deep state.

You can do the right thing by calling the county clerk at (620) 626-3355 and removing your name from an attempt to punish a commissioner for doing the right thing.