The fate of last year’s controversial Prairie Village petitions now rests with a three-judge panel of the Kansas Court of Appeals.
A year after a Johnson County judge ruled on the three petitions — saying two of them had technical issues that made them ineligible to go before voters — the appellate panel will now determine whether that ruling was the right call.
If the judges reverse the lower court’s ruling, the decision could open the door back up for the lightning rod measures to be put on a future ballot.
The petitions grew out of Prairie Village housing debate
The three resident-led petitions were borne out of a rancorous citywide debate over housing policy.
A group opposed to any rezoning in the city, PV United, crafted the three petitions: one seeking to limit the city’s ability to make rezoning changes, the other two proposing broader changes to the city’s form of government.
Last year, Johnson County District Judge Rhonda Mason ruled that just one of the petitions — one that proposed changes to city governance — was eligible for a future ballot.
PV United filed a notice of appeal days after Mason issued her final ruling. The city, in turn, filed its own appeal in response in early October 2023.
On Wednesday afternoon at the Leavenworth Justice Center, the Kansas Court of Appeals’ Chief Judge Karen Arnold-Burger, along with Judge Henry Green and Judge Stephen Hill, heard oral arguments from the attorneys representing both the city and PV United.
The panel of judges is expected to issue a written decision at a later date.
How did we get here?
Prairie Village has discussed attainable housing for years and charged a committee with developing ideas about housing to the city council.
Ultimately, based on that group’s work, the city council in summer 2022 advanced a set of three housing recommendations. The first recommendation called for amending “the city’s zoning regulations to allow quality, attainable housing, especially missing middle housing by-right in more zoning districts.”
That specific recommendation caused an uproar among residents, with opponents casting the recommendation — often misleadingly — as an opening for developments like apartments and other projects in single-family neighborhoods.
After months of intense pushback from residents organizing under the banner of PV United, also frequently referred to as Stop Rezoning PV, the group drafted and began circulating the three petitions in summer 2023.
Petition backers hoped to get each of the three measures onto the November 2023 ballot. Thousands of residents signed each of the three petitions.
What did the petitions say?
Here’s what the petitions said, in summary:
- A “rezoning” petition called for limiting rezoning and, in particular, curtailing the use of accessory dwelling units — such as so-called “granny flats” — and other multifamily projects in single-family neighborhoods in Prairie Village.
- An “abandon” petition aimed to throw out the city’s current mayor-council form of government. The petition’s organizers called the city’s current form of government a “strong mayor” form and signaled an interest in paring back mayoral power.
- An “adoption” petition sought to replace the mayor-council form of government with a mayor-council-manager form of government. That petition included language that would have slashed the city council in half from 12 councilmembers to six and would have effectively ended six sitting councilmembers’ terms two years early.
Legal wrangling over petitions
In the weeks leading up to last year’s municipal elections in November, the city and the PV United group tussled over the legality of the petitions.
The city sued, taking the three petitions to Johnson County District Court to determine whether the petitions passed legal muster in order to be placed on a ballot.
Mason issued three separate rulings in a matter of days in September 2023, but ultimately found that only one petition — the “abandon” petition — was eligible for a ballot measure.
Days after Mason issued her final ruling, a legal representative of PV United filed an appeal to reverse her decision on the two other petitions she deemed ineligible.
The city then filed a cross-appeal in October 2023.
Mason’s rulings were issued after the Johnson County Election Office’s deadline to place a measure on the November 2023 ballot, meaning none of the three petitions were included in last year’s election.
Ultimately, four city council candidates backed by the PV United group won seats on the council during the November 2023 election.
Read an in-depth explanation of how the city’s housing recommendations divided Prairie Village for the better part of two years.
PV United, city attorneys rehash arguments
On Wednesday before the appeals court panel, attorneys representing both PV United and the city of Prairie Village rehashed arguments that they shared during the Johnson County District Court hearings last year.
Rex Sharp of Prairie Village-based Sharp Law represented PV United. He argued that the city failed to sue the proper party by naming PV United and himself as the defendants.
Sharp, who is also the husband of Lori Sharp, a leader of the PV United group who was elected to the city council last year, argued that the city should have sued the petition circulators — individuals allowed to gather signatures for a petition.
Sharp said he was not a listed circulator, and PV United as an organization is unable to be a circulator.
Additionally, Sharp argued — similar to his original argument in district court last year — that ruling that both the “rezoning” and “adoption” petitions were ineligible for a ballot measure due to technicalities was insufficient to keep them from being put before voters.
The city’s response
Joe Hatley, an attorney with Spencer Fane representing the city, argued that the “adoption” petition (one of the petitions deemed ineligible) would have “led to chaos” without the district court intervening because of the call to remove six sitting councilmembers from office before their terms expired.
He also argued that petition in particular was drafted with “carelessness” because it failed to specify mayoral term limits past the current term.
Hatley repeated the argument that the “rezoning” petition was administrative in nature, saying the subject of housing and rezoning policy requires “specialized expertise,” and is therefore inappropriate as a ballot measure.
The “rezoning” petition would have left the city “powerless to deal with nightmare scenarios” because, had it been placed on the ballot and approved by voters, it would have been locked in for 10 years, Hatley said.
Hatley added that petitioners last year “charged forward” with gathering signatures despite a warning from the county counselor that there were issues with their petitions and proposed questions.
“You do that, you do it on your own risk,” Hatley said.
‘What’s going on here?’
During Sharp’s three-minute rebuttal period, Chief Judge Arnold-Burger asked him “what’s going on here?,” and pressed him to explain the underlying issue that led to the three petitions being circulated.
Sharp said that the city council wanted to “destroy” single-family neighborhoods, specifically R-1 zoning districts, by rezoning these districts with no warning or getting property owners’ consent.
Arnold-Burger asked if the point of the petitions was to go “scorched earth,” suggesting residents wanted rezoning to mean something specific in city policy and had to “throw everybody out to make sure it’s like that,” a reference to the fact that the petitions would have had the effect of ending six city councilmembers’ terms early.
Sharp said the petitions were “not throwing anybody out, there was no recall petitions of any kind.”
Sharp said citizens wanted its city back, and that the petitions accomplished that goal by shrinking the city council and removing the “strong mayor” government.
“And we will not let them run over us and do what they want on rezoning 90% of our city without our consent,” Sharp added.
At the same time as PV United was gathering signatures for its three petitions last year, there were several other completely separate efforts to recall Mayor Eric Mikkelson, who has frequently been a target of PV United supporters’ ire during the public comment portions of city council meetings.
PV United leaders previously tried to distance the group from citizens who repeatedly submitted recall petitions against Mikkelson over the past year.
A recall petition against Mikkelson was finally approved earlier this year for signature gathering, but organizers fell short of earning the requisite number of signatures to move forward to put it on a ballot.
Next steps:
- The panel of judges — Arnold-Burger, Green and Hill — are expected to take the case under consideration and issue a written decision.
- An October Kansas Court of Appeals press release stated a written decision is usually issued within 60 days of the oral argument, which would be Dec. 15 in this case.
- The live stream of the appeal hearing can be watched online here.
