The Roeland Park City Council unanimously voted this week to appoint Michael Poppa as the city’s new mayor until November’s election.
Former mayor Mike Kelly stepped down
- Kelly was elected in November as the next chair of the Johnson County Board of County Commissioners and is set to be sworn in Monday, Jan. 9.
- On Monday, Kelly formally submitted his resignation as mayor at the council’s regular meeting.
- “Don’t expect that I leave you empty-handed,” Kelly said at the meeting. “I hope to continue to serve the city of Roeland Park in my role as county chairman and will still be your neighbor. So, if I happen to show up as a member of the peanut gallery, do not be surprised.”
Poppa had been serving his second term on the council
- Poppa was most recently elected to the city council in 2021, after serving a full term between 2015 and 2019.
- Before that, he was one of the leading advocates for Roeland Park’s non-discrimination ordinance giving LGBTQ individuals protections, the first of its kind in Johnson County.
- Poppa told the Post in an interview after Monday’s meeting that when he was advocating for a nondiscrimination ordinance in Roeland Park in 2014, he never imagined he would serve on the council, “let alone (be) appointed to mayor by my colleagues. It was not something that was even in my realm of possibility.”
The Rocks site is his ‘number one’ priority
- Poppa called the pending redevelopment of The Rocks site, where the city swimming pool was located decades ago, an “amazing opportunity to get the very much anticipated sit-down restaurant in Roeland Park to help increase our residents’ quality of life and give some more opportunities to keep people in the city.”
- Other priorities for Poppa as mayor include lessening the tax burden on residents “as much as possible” and working with the owners of the Walmart on Roe Boulevard on opportunities there.
- “I think we’ve seen with previous and current leadership on the council and the staff that we’re able to collaborate with other northeast Johnson County cities to really get stuff done,” he said, citing projects with Mission “that intersect our gateways.”
Council prepared for possibility of filling mayoral vacancy
- For months leading up to November’s election, the council discussed how to handle a mayoral vacancy if Kelly were to the win election as county chair.
- The council approved an ordinance Oct. 3 to allow the appointment of a current councilmember as mayor — not “interim mayor” by proper title as described in the ordinance—until the November 2023 election.
- That process heads off the need for a special election earlier in 2023, when two other local Johnson County jurisdictions are also set to hold special elections, something Roeland Park city officials had said they preferred to avoid.
Committee will interview candidates to fill Poppa’s council seat
- As one of a three-person committee, Poppa will recommend a successor for his vacated council seat.
- That person would also serve until the next general election in November.
- The committee will interview applicants for Poppa’s vacant seat and make a recommendation to the full council, which will vote on the applicant.
- Michael Rebne, the other Ward 4 councilmember, and Ward 2 Councilmember Jennifer Hill, who was also appointed the new council president on Monday, are the other committee members.
- Those interested in applying for the open council seat can do so on the city’s website.
Jerry LaMartina is a freelance journalist who contributes frequently to the Shawnee Mission Post and other Kansas City-area publications. He can be reached at lamartina.jerry@gmail.com.
