These Johnson County incumbents are tapping out as local politics get more hostile

In recent years, Prairie Village has seen heated discussions and resident uproar over the city’s attempts to build a community center, address its affordable housing shortage and create the city budget.

The debates — around affordable housing in particular — brewed a contentious 2023 election season. Now, residents in the northeast Johnson County city are seeing something similar unfold ahead of the upcoming November election.

Only this time around, a new project is driving much of the drama, and several council members are calling it quits.

Prairie Village is divided into six wards. Two people represent each ward, with 12 people sitting on the City Council. They are elected to four-year terms, with elections staggered every two years.

Only two incumbents, Cole Robinson and Ron Nelson, are on the ballot. Four others, who could have run again to stay on the council, decided to step away from their local leadership roles.

While the incumbents gave various reasons for stepping down, the increasing polarization and hostility around issues in the city, in some ways mirroring national trends, are discouraging them from staying any longer.

“I have no political ambition, I would tell you that had the road been smoother and had all the drama that we’ve gone through over the last four years never existed, I may have considered four more, but I just don’t have the passion,” Ward Four Councilmember Dave Robinson said.

In the last four years, outrage in the Prairie Village council chambers boiled over during discussions around zoning. The debate caused a group, known as PV United, to form in opposition to the proposed changes. It led to petitions proposing changing the city’s form of government and nine recall attempts on the mayor.

“What’s happening now is just not productive,” Robinson said.

The zoning changes — which outline what kinds of buildings can be developed in different areas of the city to make it easier to create more affordable options — influenced the elections and ultimately changed the makeup on the dais.

This time around? The city’s budget, a City Hall overhaul, housing affordability and controversy over teardown-rebuilds are driving a slate of candidates to run to rally against changes in the city.

All six seats on the ballot have two candidates vying, with one in each ward backed by PV United — Daniel Garrett in Ward 1, Edward Boersma in Ward 2, Amy Aldrich in Ward 3, Kelly Sullivan Angles in Ward 4, John Beeder in Ward 5 and Dan Prussing in Ward 6.

Cole Robinson and Nelson are fighting to keep their seats in Wards 1 and 2 respectively, and the rest are newcomers: Shelby Bartelt for Ward 3, Nathan Vallette in Ward 4, Betsy Lawrence in Ward 5 and Jim Sellers in Ward 6.

Different project, same antics

During the 2023 elections, PV United’s efforts ultimately changed the City Council’s makeup, with four people who were against zoning changes taking seats.

The Prairie Village City Hall project, in part, is motivating the group’s latest slate.

Approved back in June, the near $30 million project would pull general obligation bonds to build a new City Hall building on Mission Road and renovate the current municipal building to accommodate the police department and municipal court. But it’s now tangled in litigation after a resident recently refiled his case in federal court.

City staff have expressed that the city is in strong financial standing to handle the debt and that this project won’t impact residents’ tax bills.

The project has caused a new group, known as Preserve Prairie Village, to form and work alongside PV United to protest and call for city leaders to bring it to a vote.

Representatives for Preserve Prairie Village could not be reached for comment.

In June, PV United sent out mailers about six candidates who are “committed to listening, bringing people together” and “holding a public vote on city hall.”

“To keep Prairie Village the special place we call home, it’s time for fresh perspectives on the City Council,” the mailer read. “These fiscally responsible candidates will respect the taxpayers focus on quality-of-life issues, not pet projects that drive up the city’s debt.”

Recently, the Johnson County Post and the Northeast Johnson County Chamber of Commerce hosted forums to help voters hear more from their candidates, but none of the candidates backed by PV United attended either forum.

Instead, they are attending a forum hosted by PV United on Thursday, which will be moderated by Pete Mundo, a conservative radio talk show host for KCMO Talk Radio.

The Star attempted to contact Rex Sharp, an attorney who represented PV United in previous lawsuits against the city, for comment, but he could not be reached before publication.

Building trust

As people continue to question the City Council’s decisions, regaining the trust of constituents is going to be a major hurdle for any new leaders, Ward 6 representative Terrance Gallagher said.

On ballot forms alongside the new candidates, Prairie Village residents will also vote whether or not they want the city to abandon its current form of government — which stemmed from PV United’s efforts during the 2023 elections.

“I think they (PV United) have the right to share their opinion, I just wished they’d base it on the knowledge and facts our incredible city administration works so hard on, but these are no reasons why I’m stepping away,” Gallagher said.

After 12 years of service, Gallagher wanted to step down to spend more time with his family and “explore some new personal growth” for himself.

“When I was elected, my daughter was in the 5th grade. Next month, she’s starting medical school,” Gallagher said. “A lot of time has passed. My father-in-law passed away. Last year, mid-term, my 19-year-old daughter passed away in our home.”

“I have gone through a lot of life experiences and I just feel it’s probably time.”

Gallagher served on the Parks and Recreation Committee, and spearheaded the city’s first fully accessible park for children of all abilities, and spent a lot of time working on the city’s budget.

“I’m still going to be involved. Am I going to miss it? I think I’ll miss the fact I’m not in the day-to-day operation of it because (I’ve) been around for so long, but I’m very comfortable knowing I did my best,” he said.

Budget talks

The city’s budget and overspending concerns could be another major talking point during this year’s campaigns, Ward 5 Councilmember Greg Shelton said.

“Coming to council back in 2022, what became painfully evident out of the gate was this systemic underfunding that has been a part of past councils’ efforts and continually keeping things at a low level, and portraying that as a benefit to residents,” Shelton said.

During his term, Shelton got to see Prairie Village pass its new compensation plan that brought more competitive wages to the city, which helped the police department in particular.

“We had to increase funding because we were underfunding for the past 15 years. That’s why we didn’t have a fully staffed public safety program,” Shelton said.

Now, residents claim that the city is overspending — which Shelton called “disingenuous” and that it “plays to people’s passions.”

“I think anybody out there making these claims about how they will offer windfall tax relief needs to come with more dollars and cents. The people making general claims don’t have an actual plan for how they will deliver on them,” he said.

Shelton ran for office with the promise that he’d only serve one term with the goal of getting a woman to fill his seat on council this term, he said.

While on City Council, Shelton wanted to see the city adopt more sustainable practices and helped the city form its first community-wide climate action plan – which pushes for the city to find ways to go about “meaningful change to decarbonization and provide relevant references and resources.”

With his term coming to a close, Shelton still wants to support bringing a woman to the dais and said that he’s met with the candidates running for his seat.

“I’m very committed and passionate about getting more women to run,” he said, adding that he spent months trying to find a woman to run the first time around. “I’ve sat down with Betsy Lawrence, who stepped in to run (for) this seat … she is clearly the most qualified and capable candidate. I’m excited for her to be able to step in and try to restore more women-led representation in our city.”

Early-on pushback

Ward 3 Councilmember Chi Nguyen’s time in office has been marked by division from the start.

After the mayor tapped her to fill former Council Member Lauren Wolf’s seat, a resident filed a lawsuit to challenge Nguyen’s appointment.

PV United publicly criticized the mayor’s choice at the time, saying he “didn’t interview enough people.”

According to Johnson County Post reporting, the group called the appointment, laid out in city ordinance, “a flawed process that is not transparent.”

The lawsuit, filed in Johnson County District Court, claimed that the mayor is unable to appoint a person to the City Council under state law, but the judge ultimately ruled in favor of the city, and the case was dropped.

Nguyen served on the city’s diversity committee and did a lot of nonprofit work to help immigrants with citizenship requirements before taking her seat on the dais.

“It’s the least diverse place I have ever lived,” Nguyen said. “I thought it was a good opportunity for a person of color to have a voice.”

As one of three women on the dais, she said it was important to her to bring more female representation to city discussions, too.

She said that her work to bring a fresh perspective to both council and the diversity committee was very rewarding, but she decided to take a step down to focus on her full-time job and “to get in a position that makes the most sense for my family, my career and my community.”

“I’ve learned a lot more than I’ve contributed in my opinion, I plan on staying on the diversity committee as long as they’ll let me and I’m going to be supporting certain candidates, so I think that for me right now, is where I want to put my time and my energy,” Nguyen said.

Nguyen agreed that “there’s been a lot of time and attention on things that did not let us focus on … work we actually needed to do.”

The heated debate around the City Hall Project and picking apart the budget were two experiences in particular that frustrated Nguyen.

“In my opinion, the staff are the experts and they make the decisions and they’re telling me this is what they’ve come up with and these are the best options,” Nguyen said. “I trust them to do that instead of going over and over again… why we are doing this. I just don’t feel like that is necessary.”

Finding peace

Councilmember Dave Robinson has lived in the same house in Prairie Village since he moved to the city in 1981.

After he retired from his full-time job in 2018, his son, Cole, who also serves on the City Council, encouraged him to run after his ward representative stepped down.

“But unfortunately that journey started during COVID and there was turmoil right out of the gate,” Robinson said. “It was very tense, mainly because you’re basically moved right onto the front line of an issue that had a lot of people divided.”

At that time, Prairie Village looked at instituting a mask mandate – which it eventually approved for all indoor public spaces. It was the first city in Johnson County to implement a mask mandate, but not without pushback, Robinson said.

“People felt like … they’re either scared or they were offended, that maybe some of their civil liberties were being taken away from them and they were allowed to choose what, where to go, and how to go there,” Robinson. “Basically, it brought national politics into all our homes.”

While he served on council, Robinson said he enjoyed his time on the city’s Jazz Festival Committee the most. He helped organize the festival’s return after COVID closures and heavy rain canceling the event.

“We had put on what I thought was one of the best jazz festivals we ever had. We had 4,000 or 5,000 people in Harmon Park, listening to jazz for the better part of that day,” Robinson said. “And I just remember, as I watched that, saying, ‘this is what our city should be like all the time. How do we get back to this?’”

“Because we can’t put a festival on every weekend, but look at everyone just enjoying themselves. … These are all the people that are either mad at us or happy with us or just content to live here, but they’re all just sitting here enjoying something that the city is doing.”

This story was originally published October 9, 2025 at 5:56 AM.