A crowd of about 60 squeezed into a basement room at Community National Bank on Monday to see seven candidates make their pitches for Allen County’s top jobs, in a forum hosted by Farm Bureau. Participants were, for sheriff, incumbent Bryan Murphy, Jared Froggatte and Kelly Zellner; for county commissioner, current commissioner Tom Williams and challenger Ron Ballard; for Allen County attorney, Linus Thuston and — representing standing county attorney Jerry Hathaway — Chris Phelan, who is the acting assistant attorney for Allen County.
Candidates were granted a very loose 15 minutes to make their case and field questions from the audience.
The meeting’s largely sedate temper, however, was disrupted on at least two occasions by bursts of spectacular anger from Iola resident Mitch Sigg. Sigg was not uncertain in his targets, training the focus of his ire on Sheriff Bryan Murphy and Commissioner Tom Williams. Sigg, thrusting a finger at each man and drawing on an abundance of colorful nouns, accused the candidates of misusing their authority during their respective tenures as sheriff and overlooking the misdeeds of others while targeting Sigg and his family. Williams and Murphy both dismissed the veracity Sigg’s accusations.
Sigg has an ongoing $2 million civil lawsuit against Murphy and the Allen County Sheriff’s Department on behalf of him and his son, John, stemming from their arrests in February 2013 following a traffic stop. Charges were never filed against the younger Sigg; a jury exonerated Mitch Sigg of disorderly conduct charges in 2015.
Williams, in turn, asked Sigg about allegations that he intimidated residents with campaign signs on behalf of Murphy. Sigg denied such behavior.
SHERIFF
“The reason I do this,” said Sheriff Murphy, “is because when I came here in 1994, this community accepted me with open arms.” Murphy, who hails from Kansas City, Kan., recalled for the crowd his early journey from the sheriff’s office in Wyandotte County to his subsequent rise through the ranks over his 20-plus years in Allen County, which culminated in his being elected sheriff in 2012.
“I like to think that over the last three and a half years, we’ve run a good department. We base it off of pride, integrity, honesty.”
Murphy stressed the importance of empathy and fair treatment before the law, especially in a small community. “Whoever it is, I strive to treat everybody the same. No matter if you’re the utmost pillar of the community or if you’re somebody we’ve arrested 400 times. You’re still human. … In law enforcement, we deal with the public every day. And you deal with people often at the worst possible moment in their lives. [You] have to have an open mind to sit down and listen to them and truly engage them.”
This fits, said Murphy, with his belief that one of the best ways of securing the peace in Allen County is through “preventative rather than reactive” measures. In this regard, Murphy can point to his work as the chairman of the Allen County Substance Abuse Task Force. The task force, explained Murphy, has secured $53,000 in grant money, part of which was used to implement an alcohol education program in all of the county’s high schools — a program which, though only in its first year, has already garnered national acclaim.
“Sometimes people take these oaths,” said Murphy, “and they don’t really mean them. I truly mean it. … The title of sheriff is just that — it’s just a title, it’s not the person. The person makes the title. It’s a day-to-day struggle but you have to make sure you uphold those beliefs, those values. What the community has entrusted you to uphold, I take that to heart.”
KELLY ZELLNER is the current police chief in Conway Springs. He is, as well, the senior pastor at Restoration Fellowship Church in Humboldt, where he and his family reside. He holds degrees in human resource management, family counseling and theology studies.
Zellner spent a good portion of his allotted time Monday evening stressing the importance of community outreach among branches of local law enforcement.
“Our officers [in Conway Springs],” explained Zellner, “are truly COPS” — an acronym for Community Oriented Policing. “And, here, I’m going to work with you, the citizens of Allen County, because you’re the eyes and ears of the community. It’s essential for us to build relationships.”
Zellner cited his performance in Sumner County, where he has made it his priority to go into all the area schools and meet administrators; to work closely with community health organizations; and, especially, to work with other departments, citing his agency’s close cooperation with agencies in surrounding cities, including Wichita. “I believe a law enforcement head that doesn’t interface with other departments, high schools and our community, is an ineffective leader.”
For Zellner, the role of effective law enforcement is to peer beneath the topmost layer. “We don’t just go after the crime, we find out what’s causing the crime. … It’s one thing to solve a crime and arrest a lot of people to look good for the media. It’s another thing to solve it and say ‘OK, we’ve got a need. We need to look into this a little deeper and start creating a solution for this need.’”
As for questions from the audience, Zellner entertained the night’s only softball, which came from a woman seated in the front row: “Will you do the job and do it right?” she asked.
