by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — 2016 was nuts. We know on a national level, this year defied description.

But I’d venture to say it was one of the craziest years on the local level as well.

We had tragedy, unusual sex scandals, wild local election races, earthquakes, extremely successful sports teams and extremely unsuccessful sports teams. And, depending what happens in the future, Sumner County voters may have pulled off the story of the decade by passing a half-cent sales tax referendum to build a Cowley County Community College in Sumner Campus. And as if it was a two-for-one-special, the Bill and Marjorie Short family donated 18 acres of land to build the campus east of Wellington Wal-Mart.

Even so, while that may be the story of the decade, it isn’t my story of the year. For me, the story of 2016 was the dysfunctional Wellington City Council.

Perhaps, my years of covering local government over a span of three decades has made me expect a few things. Municipal councils and school boards are like the weather. Most generally, they are partly cloudy or sunny with an occasional thunderstorm.

But the Wellington City Council in 2016 was an out-and-out tornado. I have never seen anything like it.

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It started in January with the sudden approval of the $226,000 computer irrigation system for the Wellington golf course for the during a special meeting in late January.

This was a good investment since the old one had been in place since the mid-1990s. But the approval was made before a bid process ever took place which was highly unusual. The council also approved it on the heals of passing an unpopular 30 percent increase in utilities because the municipality was running out of money and its bond rating was in peril.

Many in town went nuts. But this was just window dressing.

On May 27 during another special meeting, the Wellington City Council voted 3-3 with Hansel casting the tie-breaking affirmative vote to dismiss Wellington City Manager Roy Eckert immediately. Eckert, who would eventually get hired in Pratt, had a stormy 19 month tenure in Wellington.

The firing in itself was a remarkable event because a Wellington Council had never removed a city manager before in its 50 year history of city manager government. The vote came after what was described as three emotionally fraught private executive sessions lasting 60 minutes.

But the council — in a sign of things to come — was split on whether or not to terminate Eckert immediately thus paying a 12-month severance package costing the city $100,000, or let him complete the year and not renew his contract in November – thus paying $63,392 to a lame-duck city manager, who would already know his days were numbered. Kip Etter, Kelly (Green) Hawley, Bill Butts and Hansel voted to make the termination right then and there, giving Eckert until midnight to gather his stuff from his office and leave.

That in itself appeared to be the crescendo of a very volatile moment in city history. So we thought… The three-month soap opera was just getting started.

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One could legitimately argue, the mammoth “Kip Etter resignation that wasn’t a resignation” summer of 2016 controversy may have never happened had the council did just one thing on that May 27 meeting – immediately hire an interim city manager.

Customarily when a city manager resigns (or in this case fired), the hiring of an interim goes hand in hand – a person who fills the void until a permanent replacement was made. Not this time. No motion was made at the special meeting and the council adjourned and Wellington was without a city manager of any kind.

One could forgive the council for not addressing the issue at the Eckert firing special meeting because of the emotionality of the moment. But the council reconvened 10 days later during a regular June 7 meeting giving them ample time to decide on an interim. Still, the council, took no action —leaving Wellington without a city manager figurehead for an additional 14 days. Finally, Shields was named the interim city manager at the June 21 meeting – 24 days too late.

The irony of this was as slow as it took the council to name Shields an interim manager, it would name nearly a month later, Shields the permanent city manager unexpectedly and in a hurry.

The council never once demonstrated a specific course of action in the hiring process of a city manager. In years past, the council either hired an outside firm or it would direct the job search itself. Nevertheless, the search was always conducted in a specific fashion and the hire was made in an orderly La-di-da way.

The past council spent exhausting amount of hours in the Eckert search only to see it unravel. So this council appeared to be gravitating toward having the League of Municipalities conduct the job search process. But some of the council members were uneasy with the cost of the LKM job search as well as its stipulation of going with its recommended candidate. It was safe to say, Shields was the overwhelming choice for the position by many of the vocal public.

During a work session on July 26, the board met with Anna-Marie Kenna, Member Services Manager with the League of Kansas Municipalities. In the official city minutes approved by the council it stated:

“Consensus of the Council was to move forward with the contract with LKM to ensure the right person would lead our City… Mayor Hansel informed Ms. Keena that the Council would make a formal decision at the next council meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 2.”

However, on that fateful August 2 meeting, Wetta motioned the hiring of Shields as city manager. By a 4-2 vote, the council approved the hiring. The two council members voting against the motion, Etter and Hawley, both said they were blind-sided by the vote. Hansel called the vote “a surprise.”

Then after the vote, Etter whispered in the microphone that would connect the funnel cloud to the earth:

“I am resigning.” He then would walk out.

Oh, boy. Here we go.

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Looking back at that moment, it was clear there was little immediate impact with Etter’s comment. On the Channel 55 Sumner Cable video, it was clear no other council member at that specific time had heard Etter make the statement. Sumner Newscow reporter James Jordan in the next day’s report made no mention of the resignation (see story here). It reads:

The motion was approved by a 4-2 count with Kip Etter and Kelly Hawley voting no. Immediately after the vote, Etter left the room quickly and did not return. Shortly after that Hawley left too but came back soon.

But the funny thing about the video world we live in, things get captured and Channel 55 ran a video in which Etter clearly made the statement. Allegedly, people in the hallway off camera had heard an Etter rant confirming his intentions to quit.

What happened next between meetings is clearly a matter of debate. Hansel said she communicated with Etter and he never responded. He said this is not true. Who said what to who between the two meetings may never be resolved.

But by the time the August 16 meeting had rolled around, it was clear this item was not resolved.

At the tap of the gavel, Mayor Hansel started the process of removing Etter from the council when he was not there. He arrived late stating he had been visited a person at the hospital. He then told the council his intentions was not to resign but was frustrated at the time about the “good ole boy” mentality of the council. Then Mayor Hansel asked city attorney Mike Brown if Etter’s resignation was valid. Brown responded that “he resigned.” Hansel then turned to Etter and told him to “step down.” Etter left the meeting.

With the force of the tornado in destruction, Etter dug in for the fight.

Sumner Newscow then stepped into the fray. There were two arguments we wanted answered after that meeting:

1) Whether verbal resignations count as valid resignations;

 2) Whether the mayor has the authority to remove a city council person.

Through our research through various Attorney General opinions (see story here) , we could find no case that came close to this one. But there had been several A.G. opinions in years past that stated: that not only can a mayor not remove a fellow councilman, but the council had to receive the resignation in writing to establish intent. Another opinion rendered that if there is no motion to accept the resignation, then there was no resignation.

It was clear that Hansel was ready to move on from the subject. After this A.G. article was published on the Friday after the meeting, Hansel contacted Newscow to question why she was not interviewed for the story. After a Sunday editorial was run in Sumner Newscow where I expressed my displeasure with the situation, Hansel contacted me again, telling me basically to drop the matter. Then on Monday, after I asked to interview her to get her side of the story, she declined saying it only adds to the “negativity of the community.”

On that same day, the city of Wellington issued a press release advertising for the council vacancy left by Etter. It was clear neither side was budging.

On August 23, Etter submitted an apology to the public in Sumner Newscow.

Then on Sept. 2, Etter filed an injunction and restraining order against the rest of the Wellington City Council to recognize him as the rightful elected occupant of his council seat until the end of his term on January 13, 2020 and for the council to cease and desist advertising for the position.

That set up a hearing on the Monday afternoon before the Sept. 7 meeting. In a closed session, a Sumner County District Court judge (we weren’t privy to which judge that was) issued a temporary restraining order – prohibiting the city council from taking any action on Etter’s verbal resignation.

Let that sink in – the Wellington City Council was served a temporary restraining order.

As part of the agreement, Etter was not to attend the Sept. 7 meeting.

On Sept. 7, the council took no action after a 30 minute executive session thus allowing Etter back on the council.  Two sources have confirmed that it was the mother of acrimonious executive sessions.

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Perhaps, looking back at it, how could the city council get so sidetracked? It’s probably a question each and every one of them are asking themselves today.

So many things had to happen in sequence between the May 27 Eckert termination meeting to its non-action conclusion.

The council has had little dysfunction since. But one wonders that attorney Brown’s out-of-the-blue resignation in December was somehow linked to the summer fiasco.

One can see just by the seating arrangement of the council meetings in which Etter is now placed on the end of the council row, that not all is well with the council. Just recently during a work session, council members Korte and Wetta, were requesting that Etter not vote on the Mayfield raw water issue because it was a conflict of interest.

2017 will be an interesting year. Thanks to the state legislation’s actions of moving the local elections to the fall, we are assured 12 more months of this specific group serving the Wellington City Council.

The members would be hard pressed to match the goings on of 2016.

But like the incoming Trump administration, who knows what the coming year will bring.

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