Prairie Village spoke loudly: Abandoning government with no specifics is a no-go | Opinion
Prairie Village voted to keep its mayor-led form of government in Tuesday’s election, and that’s good. Not because we believe its current form is necessarily best, but because the ballot question only offered to blow it up, and didn’t address how it would fix it.
The ballot asked, “Shall the City of Prairie Village, Kansas, abandon the mayor-council form of government?”
We explained how the question came to be in our endorsement. The issue was on the ballot because residents, angry with Mayor Eric Mikkelson and some members of the current City Council, initiated a petition drive in 2023.
A court approved the petition to put the question to abandon its form of government on the ballot, but not its companion question, “called ‘adopt,’ that would have provided an alternative system for the city — a mayor-council-manager government, a system authorized by Kansas law.”
The question created a bit of a firestorm in the town of 23,000, and in The Star’s guest commentaries, where people on both sides made passionate pleas to abandon or not. We agreed with the “no” writers, because in our view, it didn’t make sense to approve abandon without a choice to adopt another system.
Keeping its government didn’t happen by a landslide, however. Those who wanted a new but unknown way to govern totaled 3,501, while 5,690 disagreed. The nays won, but it’s clear that many people who live in Prairie Village are dissatisfied with what’s going on.
Brooke Morehead of PV United, which is pro-abandon, wrote in guest column: “The vote we’re having in Prairie Village isn’t a referendum on the past. It’s a look to the future.”
We don’t disagree that moving into the future is important — but that path wasn’t before the voters, since her preferred mayor-council-manager structure wasn’t on the ballot.
Cole Robinson, wrote against the question: “What we do know about a yes vote is that it would lead to uncertainty. It would be up to the next City Council, half of which will be elected on Nov. 4, to decide how to remake our government. … It’s a risk our city can’t afford, and one that residents shouldn’t take.”
Robinson, an incumbent council member, won his race against challenger Daniel Garrett.
This City Council, with only two incumbents running (both won) will see a lot of turnover. We hope the mayor and the council can work together to solve the issues that caused a significant number of voters to want to dismantle its government — literally.