The increasingly testy fight over three Prairie Village petitions to put rezoning and governance measures on the ballot is now going to court.
The city announced Thursday afternoon that it has filed a lawsuit seeking to have the petitions declared “legally insufficient,” arguing that both the petitions and the process to gather signatures for them violated state laws.
Because of those reasons, the city argues, the petitions should not be put on the ballot.
Prairie Village city officials want a Johnson County judge to reach a “declaratory judgment” that will “once and for all” decide the legal status of the three citizen-led measures before the Nov. 7 general election.
The petitions are backed by a group of residents called Stop Rezoning PV, among whose leaders are counted several former city councilmembers, including Brooke Morehead, Sheila Meyers and Dan Runion.
The group collected thousands of signatures for all three petitions over the summer.
The Johnson County Election Office last week verified each petition had enough valid signatures to meet state statutory requirements but expressly did not rule on the “legal sufficiency” of the petitions themselves.
One of the petitions aims to redefine rezoning to effectively limit what projects can occur in single-family neighborhoods.
The other two petitions seek broader changes to Prairie Village city government, including slashing the size of the city council in half.
What does the city want?
Prairie Village is seeking a declaratory judgment from the court that says the petitions should not be put before voters.
A declaratory judgment is “the court’s authoritative opinion regarding the exact nature of [a] legal matter,” according to Cornell Law School.
The city is not seeking monetary damages and is not accusing any individuals of illegally signing the petitions, according to its lawsuit.
Still, to sue for a declaratory judgment, the city must name defendants. And in this lawsuit, the city named PV United, a nonprofit active in advocating for the petitions and aligned with the more loosely organized Stop Rezoning PV group.
The other defendant is Rex Sharp, a Prairie Village attorney and husband of city council candidate Lori Sharp, who is challenging incumbent Bonnie Limbird in Ward 3 this November.
In its lawsuit, the city said Rex Sharp “organized, circulated and submitted the petitions … on behalf of PV United and ‘Stop Rezoning PV.'”
Rex Sharp did not immediately respond to the Post’s request for comment for this story. Neither did former Councilmembers Morehead or Runion.
When reached, former Councilmember Meyers declined comment for this story.
The city’s grounds for striking the petitions
In its lawsuit, the city lays out a number of reasons why the petitions should be deemed invalid for the ballot.
To read the city’s entire lawsuit, click on this link and scroll to the bottom.
Those include a number of technical issues with how signatures were gathered in recent months. For instance, the city alleges some pages that were circulated to gather signatures lacked certain state-mandated language.
The city is also arguing that “the petitions themselves violated Kansas law.”
Prairie Village’s lawsuit repeats parts of City Attorney David Waters’ argument made last week as to why the petitions should be invalidated.
Part of Waters’ argument is that the petitions, originally submitted to the county election office on Aug. 1, appear to be unchanged from when the county legal counsel rejected them due to formatting issues on May 1.
The city points to broader substantive issues with the petitions, including that the rezoning petition “is riddled with drafting errors” and at times is “factually and legally inaccurate.”
As for the two government-related petitions, the city argues they have the potential to yield contradictory results.
Prairie Village argues that inconsistent election results could lead to conflicting forms of government. For instance, the city “may have no form of government in place at all” or it may “have two forms of government in place.”
Below is the city’s petition for declaratory judgment. Item #5 under “allegations common to all counts” details what the city wants to come out of this petition.
What you may have missed
The Prairie Village City Council in a special meeting Wednesday authorized the mayor, city administrator and city attorney to “institute and defend” legal action on the petitions.
The move angered members of the Stop Rezoning PV group at the meeting. The group has been gathering signatures for months on the three proposed measures. The Johnson County Election Office determined Monday that the petitions have enough valid signatures.
Waters, the city attorney, argued that the petitions should be invalidated over several technical violations. But in a response to the city, County Election Commissioner Sherman explicitly did not weigh in on the legality of the petitions and instead asked the city for confirmation of whether the petitions were valid.
Leah Wankum contributed to this report.
