KCK resident sues UG commissioner alleging bribery attempt & child endangerment
Did a Wyandotte County commissioner try to use his political position to save his personal business from a lofty insurance premium?
A lawsuit suggesting as much and recently-issued summons mean that 29th Judicial District Judge Constance Alvey may soon have to make that call in court.
Last week, a Wyandotte County resident filed suit against 6th District Commissioner Philip Lopez and his tree trimming business on the grounds of attempted bribery, child endangerment, personal injury, property damage and intentional interference with the insurance process, among other allegations.
Amanda Watson, who lives in KCK and runs a dress-making company, is claiming in her lawsuit that Lopez’s company, Arboles Tree Trimming, damaged her home’s rooftop after dropping branches on it earlier this summer.
She’s also alleging that Lopez refused to provide his current insurance information to her and that one of his staff members endangered her son by instructing him to feed branches through a woodchipper.
And, Watson told The Star, whenever she tried to communicate her concerns to Lopez and acquire his business’s insurance information, he instead dangled promises of a new storefront for her dressmaking business and start-up cash to make it happen.
If you ask Lopez, the claims Watson has made against him are baseless and an attempt to rake in additional profits for herself.
“She’s saying I was trying to bribe her or something, which is bullshit,” Lopez said in a Tuesday phone call.
In addition to the suit against Lopez, Watson is suing her property management group, Royal Estates Mobile Home Park, for negligent hiring and supervision of Arboles Tree Trimming. An officer manager at Royal Estates told The Star that the business’s owners had no comment at the time given they hadn’t known about the suit until another media outlet reached out.
She also reported Lopez’s employee to the police for child endangerment, she said.
The lawsuit, filed in Wyandotte County’s 29th Judicial District, came a day before Lopez was one of two candidates to win the primary election for the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and KCK’s District 2 at-large seat. He and Andrew Kump are on track to face off for that seat in the November general election.
Lopez currently represents the county’s Sixth District, and winning the general election would mean he’d be one of two commissioners on the Unified Government board to represent all of Wyandotte County.
While facing the lawsuit, Lopez has also recently come under scrutiny after residents requested the Unified Government conduct an ethics review of some of his behavior during public meetings. Lopez said he met with ethics officials late last week on the matter.
First meeting
It began with a whirring sound and a handful of fallen branches.
Watson said she was still waking up on that morning back in June when she heard the limbs of nearby trees crash against her roof.
Arboles Tree Trimming, a Kansas City-area business owned by Lopez, had been called to clean up fallen and low hanging branches left over from recent rainfall.
Had Watson known what would happen minutes later, she said she wouldn’t have climbed up to the roof to check out the damage. She would’ve gone looking for her son.
It was from the roof of her home that she saw her long-haired, 9-year-old son out in the yard next to a man she didn’t know. They stood inches away from a woodchipper that had been brought in to break down heftier branches, when she said she saw her son curiously lean in toward its blades.
“The child’s head, hair, and fingers were within inches of the operating blades,” according to the lawsuit.
When she climbed down, ran to her child and pushed him away from the machinery, the company employee casually stood by, she told The Star.
All of this would result in the company’s owner, Lopez, making a visit to the site. Watson said he strolled onto the property, gun visible at his hip, and assured her he’d handle the damages to her home.
She didn’t know at the time that the man surveying the damage on her roof was also an elected official, she said.
Business talk
Since that morning in June, back-and-forth phone calls and messages with Lopez — that Watson recorded and a reporter reviewed — about insurance procurement and opportunities for her business would leave Watson feeling uncomfortable.
She said it felt like any time she’d bring up wanting to get insurance information to pay off the damage to her roof, Lopez would turn the conversation back to how the Unified Government would be able to help her business and keep her in KCK. During the conversation, Lopez did not directly say he would offer her incentives in exchange for her leaving the insurance claim alone, but Watson said she felt it was strongly implied.
Watson had planned to sell her home, pack up her dress-making business and move her family to Mexico. Tariffs have made buying fabric and materials more expensive for her, and the political climate under President Donald Trump’s administration doesn’t exactly make her feel safe, she said.
And although Watson tried to explain she had made up her mind about leaving KCK, Lopez told her he found the perfect storefront for her, would introduce her to a realtor and would connect her with government staff to help her secure a small business loan. He told her they need to work out a marketing strategy together.
“Despite repeated requests, Mr. Lopez refused to provide insurance information for the business or file a report,” according to the lawsuit. “Instead, he offered private compensation, business grants, and other benefits tied to his role as Commissioner, which the Plaintiff interpreted as an effort to avoid liability.”
Lopez, however, said the matter with the property damage and his wanting to help her small business were two completely separate topics. He also said he’s not entirely convinced his company caused the damage to her home to begin with, but said he offered to pay Watson out of pocket anyway.
“My response is that it has nothing to do with that, it’s a different horse of a different color,” he said, adding he just wanted to inform her of what incentives were available locally.
Lopez told The Star that he did want to avoid an increased insurance premium and had offered to pay for repairs himself. He also said that when Watson’s insurance company did attempt to contact him, he looked up the number and said he was directed to a local medical center instead.
Watson said her insurance company told her it had not directly contacted Lopez.
State registration
Lopez has owned his business since 2006, he told The Star this week. He decided to register it as a limited liability company, or an LLC, a few years later.
But Arboles Tree Trimming effectively forfeited its LLC by failing to renew it back in 2020, according to the Kansas Secretary of State’s Office. In Kansas, reinstatement forms must be submitted every other year after the business is re-established.
“A certificate of reinstatement changes a business’s status from forfeited to active and in good standing,” according to the office. “A forfeited status occurs when an information report filing deadline is missed or the business fails to maintain an active Kansas resident agent and registered office.”
The state doesn’t “come after” people whose LLC expires, a spokesperson with the Kansas Secretary of State’s Office said. Instead, the state views that business as not having an LLC and instead operating as a sole proprietorship.
Under an LLC, a business owner’s business liabilities and personal assets exist separately. Under a sole proprietorship, they’re joint, which would mean that Lopez is personally liable for matters relating to his business.
Lopez said his attorney informed him that there was some sort of issue with his LLC, but that it shouldn’t be expired. He said he had run into a few issues with the state before.
“I have to look into that, I have to see what the hell’s going on,” he said.
Employee training
His three employees’ training is “pretty cut and dried” and largely on-the-job, he said.
Lopez said he handles training his employees himself. He starts his employees out with dragging brush and raking, and moves up gradually from there. He said he hires people with common sense and runs them through safety standards as they go.
Arboles Tree Trimming doesn’t “do any business” with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which sets federal standards for healthy and safe working conditions for employees, Lopez said.
He said it’s because OSHA doesn’t provide guidance for tree trimming businesses, and he’s not going to pay for training that doesn’t apply to his business. The OSHA website does offer some relevant industry standards and safety recommendations for tree care businesses that he keeps in mind, he said.
Under OSHA, employers are required to provide safe working environments for their employees. Employees’ participation in unsafe practices can result in a company being cited and fined.
But to operate heavy machinery, like a woodchipper, in Wyandotte County, proof of employee training isn’t listed as a requirement for tree-trimming businesses in the municipal code.
The Unified Government requires business owners to get a tree trimmer’s license through its licensure office, procure a liability insurance policy, have an office space in the area and mark its vehicles with the business’ name and contact information.
As of Thursday morning, a preliminary hearing had not been set in the case, according to court documents. Lopez has sought legal counsel and Watson will represent herself.
Lopez’s attorney told The Star that they plan to deny the allegations in court.
“We are very much in the early stages of this,” he said.
This story was updated at 10:45 a.m. on Aug. 14 to clarify requirements listed in the Unified Government’s municipal code.
This story was originally published August 14, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
