The Lenexa City Council meeting on Tuesday devolved into finger-pointing as two councilmembers went back and forth in a heated exchange over a ruling that several councilmembers broke Kansas’ open meetings law.

From the dais on Tuesday, Councilmember Bill Nicks accused four other councilmembers of “secretly involving” him in private conversations about a proposed Habitat for Humanity housing development in western Lenexa before the council took a vote on the project in February.

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach ruled on Sept. 16 that five councilmembers, including Nicks, had broken the Kansas Open Meetings Act, or KOMA, a state law that requires meetings of state and local public agencies to be open and transparent to the public.

Besides Nicks, the councilmembers sanctioned include Courtney Eiterich, Christopher Herron, John Michael Handley and Chelsea Williamson.

“This violation goes, I think, to the heart of trust between Lenexa residents and her elected governing body … That trust has been broken,” Nicks said on Tuesday.  

He called for his four colleagues to be formally censured.

In response, Herron accused Nicks of making a self-serving statement.

“For you to sit there and condemn us. I don’t accept that,” Herron said.

In his ruling, Kobach said that Williamson, Eiterich, Herron and Handley engaged in private discussions in a text message group and that Herron and Williamson met with Nicks in person in February before voting on a rezoning ordinance and a preliminary plan for the Clear Creek Subdivision proposed by Habitat for Humanity.

After their meeting with Nicks, Herron and Williamson relayed information from it back to the text message chain with Eiterich and Handley, in an apparent attempt to see if the project had enough votes to pass.

On Feb. 17, the Lenexa City Council voted 7-2 in favor of three different measures to approve the Habitat project. Nicks, along with Councilmember Mark Charlton, voted in dissent on all three items.

As part of their punishment, the five councilmembers had to complete one hour of KOMA training and provide written certification of its completion. They also had to agree to cease and desists from future KOMA violations.

The four councilmembers other than Nicks also had to pay a $50 civil fine, which had to come out of the councilmembers’ own pockets and not from public funds. Nicks was excluded from that sanction because Kobach said Nicks was not aware of the text message group.

Nicks addressed the KOMA violation

Tuesday’s city council meeting occurred a few hours after the Johnson County Post published a story about Kobach’s KOMA ruling against the councilmembers.

Kobach’s ruling came on Sept. 16 but had not been publicly reported before Tuesday.

During the meeting’s council reports section, when councilmembers bring up topics of their choosing, Nicks addressed the KOMA violation, asking the other four city councilmembers — whom he called “The texters” — to apologize publicly.

“Apologize not to me for secretly dragging my name into the violation, but apologize to the residents of Lenexa,” he said. 

Nicks also floated the idea of the city council voting to censure the councilmembers named in Kobach’s ruling at its next meeting on Nov. 17.

“I think we should censure the texters. This symbolic vote of censure would be an appropriate demonstration to Lenexans that moving forward, this is not the way the Lenexa’s governing body conducts its business, and that we are serious in seeing that it will never happen again,” he said.

He added: “I trust that the texters have a sense of shame and that they will indeed apologize,” he said. 

Nicks also suggested Lenexa residents could make their opinions heard by whom they vote for in the 2027 municipal election. (Eiterich, Herron and Williamson are all up for reelection next year.)

In response to a Post question on Thursday, Mayor Julie Sayers said, “We will address the Councilmember’s [Nicks’] request” at the Nov. 17 meeting. “I’d like to reserve any comment until that evening.”

Herron responded to Nicks’ statement

During Tuesday’s meeting, Herron responded to Nicks, pointing out that he had fulfilled the punishment required by Kobach’s office. He also asked why Nicks hadn’t talked to him before the meeting.

“That’s very self-serving. You’re not a victim,” Herron said to Nicks. “I’ve already apologized to the people of Lenexa, and I don’t feel this shame and … (your statement is) very patronizing here. You’re not innocent.”

The city councilmembers that were named in the KOMA violation have already apologized, accepted their punishment and are ready to move on, Herron said.

“I paid my fine. I took the hour-long class, and I’m putting it behind us. But for you to sit there and condemn us. I don’t accept that because I think you’re better than that, and you know that this was not intentional, and so to go forward as if we deliberately set you up is beyond the pale,” he said.

Nicks denied suggesting that he felt set up by the other councilmembers.

“(I) never said that. And I think your fake outrage is ridiculous,” he told Herron. 

Herron responded, “Oh, you think this is fake?”

Mayor, residents respond to Nicks’s statement

As the exchange between Herron and Nicks grew heated, Sayers interrupted to encourage everyone to cool down.

“The message behind Bill is one of moving forward and putting this behind us. And I don’t think going at each other is going to move forward in that direction, so I’d ask that you cool off, and we consider what Bill has brought to us tonight,” Sayers said. 

She also expressed her surprise at Nicks’ statement.

“I don’t know that anybody realized that you were going to have a statement tonight,” she said.

Later in the meeting, during public comment, four residents expressed their support for Nicks and disappointment in the city council.

“Bill didn’t ask to be dragged into the private conversation. Others brought his conversations with residents into it, and then his willingness to listen was used against him. That’s not fair to Bill, and it sends the wrong message to the public. We should want council members talking to residents, asking questions,” Dan Wilkes, a Lenexa resident, said. 

Lenexa resident Catalina Steinberg agreed and asked that the land that the council has approved for the Habitat for Humanity development be returned to being green space.

“I’m appalled by the shadow government that several councilmembers have been running outside of view of the constituents to make decisions like taking our green space and park for Habitat,” she said. 

The Lenexa City Council will meet at 7 p.m. on Nov. 17 at Lenexa City Hall.