TOPEKA — The Kansas secretary of state and Republican legislators overturned a decision by State Attorney Kris Kobach to void a $4.6 million school bond issue in Greeley County.
Kobach dismissed the 25-year bond issue to pay for school construction and playground improvements in the 230-student district on the border with Colorado. Kobach objected because the election didn’t comply with a state law requiring the public to have been notified of the May vote through public notices on a county website.
The attorney general’s office determined the county clerk’s “non-compliance with the website notification” amounted to a failure to follow state law, said Danedri Herbert, spokeswoman for Kobach. The 2023 law referenced by Kobach’s office, however, didn’t mandate counties operate a website.
Greeley County — the smallest in Kansas in terms of population — has about 1,180 residents. Thirty-six percent of registered voters took part in last May’s vote on the bond question.
Senate Bill 2 was introduced Tuesday for the purpose of approving passage of the school bond. That would permit the district to issue bonds to finance construction of a gymnasium, locker room and playground compliant with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.
Clay Barker, deputy secretary of state, said the traditional perspective of state statute on observing the “will of the people” meant decisions of voters were allowed to stand even if the process leading to the election wasn’t fully compliant.
“Over the years, through the doctrine of the real will of the people, multiple bond elections with defects in notice or administrative errors have been found valid without the need for legislative intervention,” Barker said.
Christy Hopkins, owner and editor of the Greeley County Republican, said interior work should be underway on the 500-seat gym. Children should be bundling up to use a playground blending modern equipment with a safe surface for youth with a disability, she said.
“Instead, we are here, asking you to enable our county to utilize the funds our voters approved in a fair, legal, binding election,” Hopkins said.
She said Greeley County residents could have learned about the bond election through official legal notices published by the newspaper in March, April and May. They also could have been informed by news articles and letters to the editor. The newspaper has a circulation of 530 — a total that exceeded the number of households in the county.
The Greeley County school district posted to its website a 19-page explanation of the project with maps, renderings and answers to 50 questions.
“You’d have to be living under a rock to not have known about this election,” said Sen. Bill Clifford, a Garden City Republican serving the Senate district that included Greeley County.
Sen. Joseph Claeys, R-Maize, said the law on public notification appeared to have been poorly written and probably needed to be amended. He said he was inclined to vote for Senate Bill 2 because the school district appeared to have done all it could to inform potential voters.
The school district and its attorney self-reported the miscue to the attorney general’s office, said John Niehues, superintendent of Greeley County Schools.
“The absence of the (website) post did not meet the statute, but it also didn’t negate or damage the community’s understanding that there was a special election or what it was about,” he said.
Apparently, no complaints were filed at the state or local levels about the bond election.
