In 2025, Westwood voters will decide on the sale of Joe D. Dennis Park.
After a year-long legal back-and-forth between residents and the city, the Westwood City Council on Thursday unanimously voted to send the question of the sale of the park before voters.
For the past year, a group of residents calling themselves Friends of Westwood Parkland have called on the city to hold a public vote on the sale of Joe D. Dennis Park near 50th Street and Rainbow Boulevard. Under a specific state statute dealing with the sale of park land, a public vote can be called if a valid protest petition is filed against such a sale.
Up until Thursday, the city maintained that the specific statute residents relied on is inapplicable because the site is not legally designated as a park.
Westwood’s unanimous approval calling for a public vote comes about a month after the Kansas Court of Appeals sided with a resident, Beckie Brown, who was initially blocked from intervening in a case the city filed in January, naming only the state itself as a defendant.
The court of appeals decision is what changed the city’s stance on the state statute being inapplicable to Joe D. Dennis Park. The city attorney told the city council last Thursday that the court’s decision provided enough legal sufficiency to move forward with a vote, as outlined in the statute residents have cited for the past year.
The public vote on the sale of Joe D. Dennis Park will be a mail-in ballot on April 1, 2025.
A look at the project’s road to approval
- In spring 2023, the city of Westwood and Mission Hills-based developer Karbank began discussing the potential for a development at 5000 and 5050 Rainbow Blvd., the former being the site of Joe D. Dennis Park.
- Karbank’s design, approved by the city, calls for an office and retail development made up of six buildings on Joe D. Dennis Park as well as the former Westwood Christian Church site just to the south.
- In exchange for the park land, Karbank agreed to give the city money to buy the neighboring Westwood View Elementary property at 2511 W. 50th St., in order to build a new city park on the school site.
- Residents pushed back on early concepts of Karbank’s office idea due to the buildings’ height and color and urged city officials to vote against it because they believed it was a wrong fit for what is seen as the city’s last block of green space.
- Despite resident pushback, the city council approved the Karbank project in October 2023.
- Under the plan, a 3.86-acre park — to be developed by the city and funded through public tax increment financing dollars generated by Karbank’s office-retail project — would take over the former Westwood View property.
The legal battle began after the project’s approval
In late fall 2023, residents and the city began trading legal threats over whether Joe D. Dennis Park is subject to a state statute (K.S.A 12-1301) that requires published notice of intent to sell park land.
Residents said that the city’s failure to publish a notice of intent to sell violated state law. Up until recently, the city maintained that Joe D. Dennis Park — though named and used as a park — is not legally designated as park land, making K.S.A. 12-1301 inapplicable in this case.
Here’s a brief overview of the series of events that led to the legal battle:
- As residents and the city traded legal threats, the city published a notice of intent to sell Joe D. Dennis Park in November 2023.
- In response to that notice of intent to sell, residents submitted a protest petition in December 2023.
- The city council invalidated that protest petition in January, and then filed a lawsuit in Johnson County District Court to clarify the validity of the petitions.
- Brown, the resident, filed a motion to intervene in that lawsuit to voice resident concerns because no residents were named as a defendant.
- A Johnson County District Court judge ruled the protest petition invalid in February and dismissed Brown’s motion to intervene.
- That same month, Brown filed a motion to appeal to reverse the court’s dismissal of her motion.
- After several months, the Kansas Court of Appeals on Nov. 15 sent the case back to district court, ordering the lower court to find more evidence before dismissing Brown’s motion.
Meanwhile, the city of Westwood in spring 2024 kicked off a park planning process for the 3.8-acre space that would come under city ownership as a result of the Karbank development moving forward.
Days before the Kansas Court of Appeals’ Nov. 15 decision, the city council got a first-look at early concepts for what could become of the 3.8-acre park, built where the original Westwood View Elementary currently sits.
City officials at that time were careful to note the project was on pause until the legal dispute was resolved.
The court of appeals decision changed city’s stance
City Attorney Ryan Denk told the city council on Thursday that following the Nov. 15 Kansas Court of Appeals decision, he believes the city now has the legal sufficiency to hold a public vote on the sale of the park.
One of the city’s other options was to cross-appeal Brown’s motion to appeal, which would have meant bringing litigation against a resident.
Denk said that following the court of appeals decision — which he noted contradicts the county counselor and district court opinions — the city has abandoned its opinion that K.S.A. 12-1301 is inapplicable to Joe D. Dennis Park.
The city also abandoned a Nov. 8, 2023, letter sent from Denk to Todd Hauser, a Lee’s Summit-based attorney with Bushyhead Law LLC who sent a letter to the city threatening legal action in October 2023.
That Nov. 8, 2023, letter said the city was “prepared to take such legal action against you and/or your clients as may be necessary to protect its title and its contractual relationships.”
Brown says she has “mixed feelings” about public vote
Brown told the Post in an interview on Friday that she has “mixed feelings” about the city council’s decision to take the sale of the park to a public vote.
While this is what she and the Friends of Westwood Park Land neighborhood group have been requesting for more than a year, she said, this is also what the city should have done before the protest petition was first filed.
“They should’ve done this before they ever signed a contract for sale, and it’s really wrong the way they handled it for so many reasons,” Brown said. “It’s good that it’s going to a vote, but it’s pretty sad the way they’ve chosen to do it.”
Brown said she and the Friends group ultimately want to see the former Westwood View building turned into city hall and police department headquarters, with an expanded park and green space.
In an emailed statement to the Post, Brown’s attorney Ryan Kriegshauser of Kriegshauser Ney Law Group, said residents “have been bullied, threatened, and shut out of conversations” about the sale of Joe D. Dennis Park.
Kriegshauser went on to say that the city “intentionally tried to cut its own citizens out of the” lawsuit when it named the state of Kansas as a defendant in the case.
“One woman’s tenacity all the way through a Court of Appeals victory finally broke the dam,” Kriegshauser said. “Because of one ‘mere’ citizen, voters will have the final say on what happens to their park.”
‘The City will respect this process’
In an official message to residents on Friday, Mayor David Waters echoed some of Denk’s points, stating that the appeals court decision suggested the petitions may be valid and that the city is able to take the matter to a public vote.
Rather than “relitigating the matter at the District Court level” or cross appealing to the Kansas Supreme Court, Waters said the city opted for a public vote.
That will be an April 2025 mail-in ballot, the results of which will be completed and tallied on April 1, 2025, Waters said.
Waters said that while it took a while to get to the point of a public vote, “the city respects the decision of the Court, the request made by the petitioners, and the decision to be made by the residents of Westwood.”
Waters said that no matter the outcome of the mail-in ballot, “the city council trusts … the results of this election will be respected by the residents of Westwood.”
“As Mayor, I can certainly commit that the City will respect this process and the ultimate decision made by our Westwood community,” Waters said in an official message to residents.
In a separate email to the Post, Waters said Joe D. Dennis Park will remain city property if residents reject the sale of the park.
Waters told the Post that he sees rejecting the sale of the park to also mean the approved Karbank office-retail project would not be built. The city would no longer be able to buy the former Westwood View property, because Karbank is paying for that transaction, he said.
The new park as envisioned by the city would not be developed, Waters said. The city will continue to own the former Westwood Christian Church site and the associated $275,000 in debt on the property, he said.
Currently, there are no other plans to renovate or expand either Joe D. Dennis Park or the former church site, Waters said.
Real estate transactions in limbo amid vote
- Since the mail-in ballot is taking place on April 1, 2025, the city council also approved additional extensions of the due diligence period for both the sale of Joe D. Dennis Park and the purchase of the original Westwood View building.
- Both of those closing dates have been pushed to July 1, 2025.
- Denk told the city council that this is expected to be enough time to hold the election and determine the results.
- Shawnee Mission asked the city to pay $135,000 due to the ongoing litigation, and Karbank agreed to pay that amount to the district.
Keep reading: Westwood gets look at new park design, but lawsuit puts plans on hold indefinitely
