Candidate will stay on ballot

If Michael McKinnis is elected to represent the Third Ward on Iola’s city council April 2, his tenure would be the shortest ever.
He and wife Susie have made arrangements to buy Fred and Joyce Heismeyer’s home, at Kentucky and Oregon Road, which will have them moving from the Third Ward later this year. They live at 624 S. Buckeye St.
With ballots already decided by the filing deadline Jan. 22, Third Ward voters will choose two candidates from among McKinnis, Eugene Myrick and Don Becker, an incumbent. The second incumbent, Jim Kilby, did not seek re-election. The top vote-getter will serve four years, second place two years.
Sherrie Riebel, county election official, noted state law prevents a candidate from withdrawing from a race after the filing deadline.
“I profusely apologize for any chaos I’ve created” by filing and then deciding to move across town, McKinnis said.
He also encouraged voters to focus on the other two candidates. Advance voting starts March 13.
“If I were elected, I’d resign immediately,” McKinnis said.
Even with the move not likely for two or three months, he doesn’t think it would be fair or appropriate that he serve so short a time on the council.
The house purchase came as “the proverbial offer we couldn’t refuse,” McKinnis told the Register.
“We looked at the house a year ago and liked it,” he said, but couldn’t afford the asking price.
A year later, and still for sale, the Heismeyers called the McKinnises with an offer that was to their liking.
Although they haven’t closed on the purchase, McKinnis said he didn’t “foresee any impediments to completing the purchase.”
“We’re eager for the move,” he continued. “Susan has lived in this little house for 16 years and we’ve been married and living here the past 12. We outgrew its 1,100 square feet a long time ago.”
Susan McKinnis has taught English at Allen Community College since she arrived in Iola. He taught economics here until five years ago when he began commuting to Pittsburg State University to teach.
“I was flattered when (Mayor) Bill Shirley and several other people I respect encouraged me to run for the council,” McKinnis said. “I’m both happy and sad about our (pending) move,” because of the decision voters will have to make with his candidacy derailed and the decision council members will have to make if he is one of the winners. His resignation would lead to the council appointing a replacement.

WITH the Third Ward race a bit of a muddle, voters will have decisions to make in the other three.
The First Ward — incumbents Nancy Ford and Scott Stewart — and Second Ward — incumbent Beverly Franklin and Bob Shaughnessy — have two candidates each. Voters in the Fourth Ward will pick two winners from among incumbent Steven French and Jerrod Kelly and Sandy Zornes.
Joel Wicoff, who served a two-year council term in Second Ward, is the lone mayoral candidate.
Iola switched two years ago from decades of having a three-member commission to an eight-member council and mayor at behest of petition drives. Initially all eight council members were elected to two-year terms, with the two- and four-year splits coming from a charter ordinance last year. The mayor’s term remains two years.