In an unprecedented move, Johnson County-based political advocacy group Mainstream Coalition has retracted its rating for Lori Sharp, a city council candidate in Prairie Village’s Ward 3.
Mainstream, which has a stated mission of “guard[ing] against ideological extremism,” said Sharp “is not a Mainstream [Coalition] candidate” in an open letter published on the group’s website late last week.
The nonpartisan political organization officially retracted Sharp’s 95% rating from its updated 2023 candidate ratings.
In recent years, Mainstream has provided voters with information about local candidates who align with the organization’s values and publishes ratings for each candidate for city council, school board or other elected positions based on how the candidates themselves respond to a survey.
The higher the rating, the more aligned the candidates’ responses are generally with Mainstream’s organizational values, the group’s Executive Director Michael Poppa told the Post.
Poppa, who is also currently the mayor of Roeland Park, told the Post that this is the first time Mainstream has ever retracted a candidate rating and survey since the survey-and-rating process went into effect about three years ago.
Sharp told the Post via email that she stands by her answers to Mainstream’s survey and the 95% rating it generated, pointing out that her rating was published on Mainstream’s website for months before being retracted less than three weeks before Election Day.
Sharp touted her Mainstream coalition rating in her campaign mailers, which also stated her focus is on nonpartisan leadership in Prairie Village and that she is “supported by key Democrat leaders.”
What led to this decision?
Sharp did receive a 95% rating from the survey’s automatic scoring system, Poppa said, but “it seems she knew how to answer the questions” to artificially inflate her rating.
“When a final rating does not correlate with a candidate’s public record or when evidence contradicts a candidate’s response(s), Mainstream reserves the right to withhold or withdraw the release of the candidate’s final rating and/or completed survey,” Poppa wrote in a letter posted to the organization’s website. “Unfortunately, we found this to be the case with a survey submitted by Lori Sharp.”
Poppa said Sharp’s open-ended responses were either unrelated or conflicted with preceding multiple choice questions on the survey.
“In light of her actions and repeated public statements about limiting representation in Prairie Village, we had no choice but to withdraw the rating,” Poppa said.
Poppa told the Post that the reference to “limiting representation” is regarding Sharp’s support for an citizen petition circulated in Prairie Village earlier this summer that would have cut the Prairie Village City Council’s in half from the current 12 members to six and effectively ended the terms of six councilmembers who were elected in 2021, ending their terms two years early.
That petition was ultimately thrown out by a Johnson County judge last month and will not appear on an upcoming ballot.
Poppa said the intent of the petition would have limited participation and resident voices on the city council, which goes against Mainstream’s values.
Sharp’s rating and survey were initially shared on the coalition’s website during August’s primary election, Poppa said.
Mainstream’s full statement on withdrawing Sharp’s rating and survey can be found online here.
Sharp says she stands by her rating, survey responses
Sharp told the Post she answered the survey questions honestly.
She also noted that her answers and rating were accepted and published on Mainstream’s website for months without issue.
“Mainstream accepted my answers for months,” Sharp told the Post via email. “I never received so much as a phone call from them questioning anything. I think it is totally fair to ask them to substantiate the claims they have made.”
Sharp has been one of the most visible critics of Prairie Village’s housing recommendations, first produced by an ad hoc committee more than a year ago and aimed at beginning to address the rising cost of housing in the suburb.
She is one of the leaders of the citizen group Stop Rezoning Prairie Village, which gathered thousands of resident signatures this summer for three separate petitions — two of which aimed to remake city government and a third that would have limited rezoning in single-family neighborhoods.
A Johnson County judge ultimately rejected the rezoning petition and one of the governance petitions but said the third petition could be eligible for a future ballot.
How does Mainstream’s rating process work?
- Poppa said the coalition started giving ratings three years ago to give voters more information about the candidates. The ratings process intends to show voters how closely a candidate may align with issues that are most important to them and Mainstream.
- Before that, the coalition’s political action committee would officially endorse candidates, but the committee no longer does that, he added.
- The higher the rating, he said, the higher the likelihood that a candidate aligns with Mainstream’s values.
- The coalition also publishes the surveys as a way to help voters differentiate between candidates who may have similar ratings but answered open-ended questions differently.
Mainstream Coalition has Prairie Village roots
- Mainstream formed in 1993 to “[guard] against ideological extremism and [protect] the separation of church and state,” according to its website.
- It was founded by a “bipartisan coalition with legislators, faith leaders and community activists.”
- Among the founding members was the late Robert Meneilly, who was also the founding pastor at Village Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village.
- Poppa said when it came to housing, Meneilly was “pro-diverse housing and pro-affordable housing.”
- “I think he would be with us,” Poppa said. “Not to speak for him, may he rest in peace, but I think he would agree that withdrawing Ms. Sharp’s rating was the right thing to do because we’re here to, you know, stand up for democracy and stand up for the people.”
Go deeper: Prairie Village’s housing recommendations have split the city — how did we get here?
