Come November, Prairie Village will pick a new mayor, but whoever it ends up being won’t be a new face for residents.

Two current city councilmembers, Cole Robinson and Inga Selders, are vying to succeed Mayor Eric Mikkelson, who announced earlier this year he would not seek a third term.

Both candidates are well-known to residents, having been part of much-watched city council reelection battles in recent years (Selders in 2023 and Robinson in 2025) defined by fights over housing and zoning and a debate over a new city hall, which is now under construction along Mission Road.

The profiles below were compiled using information from the candidates’ responses during a Johnson County Post forum on Oct. 1, the candidates’ own websites and social media accounts, and the candidates’ responses to Vote JoCo questionnaires distributed by local chambers of commerce.

Robinson and Selders have also been invited to respond to the Post’s five-item questionnaire based on reader input, which we will publish before early voting starts on Oct. 17.

Cole Robinson

• Political experience: Robinson has represented Ward 1 on the Prairie Village City Council since 2021 and won reelection last year. He currently serves as the council president, a one-year term selected by the council. He has also worked on the campaigns of other local elected officials, including County Chair Mike Kelly and Overland Park Mayor Curt Skoog.
• Personal life: Robinson grew up in Prairie Village and attended Shawnee Mission East High School. According to his campaign website, he earned a business degree from KU and then spent much of his 20s and 30s playing professional poker and working as a financial markets trader in Europe and Asia. He moved back to Prairie Village in 2016 and now works in political consulting and commodities trading. He and his wife, Danielle, have four children.
• Platform: At the Post forum, Robinson said his top first-year priority would be revisiting the city’s employee compensation plan with the aim of recruiting and retaining police and public works staff. He was a vocal backer of the new city hall project and has defended financing the project without a public vote. He was critical of a citizen-led petition to “abandon” the city’s form of government, which voters defeated by a wide margin last year. He pledges to keep the police department fully funded and supports expanding its space in conjunction with the new city hall. At the Post forum, Robinson said he had been endorsed by nine of 12 current councilmembers.

Campaign website; Facebook page; X account 

Inga Selders

• Political experience: Selders has represented Ward 2 on the Prairie Village City Council since 2019, winning reelection in 2023. She was the founding chair of the city’s Diversity Committee and has also served on the Arts Council. According to her campaign website, she got into electoral politics after she organized neighbors to push for electrical grid upgrades following repeated power outages.
• Personal life: Selders is a lifelong resident of Prairie Village and attended Shawnee Mission East. She earned an elementary education degree from UMKC and taught in the Shawnee Mission School District, according to her campaign website. Since 2024, she has overseen hemp lobbying for American Shaman. She is also vice president for the U.S. Hemp Roundtable. She has three children.
• Platform: On her campaign website, Selders says she wants to bring a “softer, gentler” form of leadership to City Hall. She lists affordability and finding budget efficiencies to lower property taxes among her top priorities. At the Post forum, she said she would not vote to exceed the revenue-neutral rate and called for a line-by-line review of department budgets, including eliminating one of the city’s two city administrator positions. She pushed for a public vote on financing the new city hall project. At the Post forum, she said that while the police department needs more room, a “whole new city hall” may not have been needed. When pressed for her stance on last year’s “abandon” petition, she said she had personally voted against the measure.

Campaign website; Facebook page