Kansas City, Kansas, Mayor Tyrone Garner, commissioners to be sworn-in on Monday
Tyrone Garner will be sworn in as the first Black mayor of Kansas City, Kansas and Wyandotte County on Monday, at 5 p.m. at Memorial Hall.
Garner, 52, was a 32-year veteran of the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department and retired as a deputy chief in 2019. He defeated incumbent David Alvey in the Nov. 2 general election, recording 8,531 votes to Alvey’s 8,133. He will become the fifth mayor since the governments consolidated in 1997.
The mayoral race was filled with both candidates addressing frustrations from citizens who felt like past administrations had not fulfilled campaign promises. Now Garner will try and accomplish some of his campaign goals — like more development in the northeast and decreasing the burden on the city’s taxpayers.
“I’m engaged on bringing you the change that I ran on, and that’s engaged leadership that’s community driven, that provides a better way forward for Wyandotte County,” Garner said after his election victory. “We need to make sure we work hard with our commissioners, our staff, the hard working staff with the Unified Government.”
Garner’s election comes at a time when the police department where he worked for more than three decades has come under fire. It was recently revealed that federal prosecutors opened a criminal grand jury investigation into former detective Roger Golubski, who is accused of using his badge to exploit and rape vulnerable Black women.
Throughout his mayoral campaign, Garner dealt with questions around whether he knew about Golubski’s conduct, and, if he knew, why he didn’t stop it.
Garner has repeatedly denied he knew of the accusations against Golubski, who retired in 2010.
“I just want folks to know that it’s shameful the attacks that have been put on me by my opponent, trying to tie me to things that were totally egregious,” Garner said during the second debate on Oct. 27. “I challenge to find anyone under my watch when I was in leadership that did anything that I would know and that I did not address.”
Other issues that Garner said he would address if he were elected were trying to lower taxes — Garner said he wants an independent audit of the Board of Public Utilities and the Unified Government to identify potential savings for taxpayers.
He also supports a Department of Justice investigation into the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department, finding solutions to food deserts in Wyandotte County and increasing development in the northeast area of the county — an area that’s heavily populated with Black and Hispanic residents.
The inauguration on Monday will also include the swearing-in of five commissioners for the Unified Government. Two of the commissioners, Chuck Stites and Andrew Davis, defeated the incumbent commissioners in the general election. Wyandotte County’s new sheriff, Daniel Soptic, will also be sworn in.
