County leaders pressured others to reject local PR firm, complaint says

Some Sedgwick County commissioners pressured the Greater Wichita Partnership and the zoo board to not work with a business they perceived as opposing them, a complaint filed with the Kansas Attorney General’s Office alleges.

The complaint goes further than concerns about a previously reported incident last spring when that business was removed from a county project.

“The facts which are sketched in this letter reveal retaliatory actions or threats against those who have spoken out in opposition to the policy positions of certain public officials,” according to the complaint filed by Wichita lawyer Jack Focht.

Numerous interviews by The Eagle confirmed some details listed in the complaint, like a Partnership volunteer being told the group should not work with the business, PR firm Bothner and Bradley. Two zoo board members said they weren’t told to avoid work with the firm, but that county officials made their dislike for the firm’s partners apparent. Other claims in the complaint were disputed in interviews.

Bothner and Bradley was removed from a county road study a year ago by a contractor after Commissioner Jim Howell told county staff he disliked the firm’s partners, Tami Bradley and Vera Bothner. They approached Focht before they were restored to the project.

Focht later filed a 10-page complaint with the Kansas Attorney General’s Office, acting as a private citizen, saying “this situation was not a singular occurrence.” He said Bothner and Bradley and other organizations faced accusations that they were behind a 2015 campaign against county budget cuts.

“This is not a political matter, but an issue of misconduct or bullying by public officials,” Focht wrote. “This is a grave concern, as public debate over matters of public concern is indispensable to a democratic society.”

“The … attempt to silence honest citizens from exercising First Amendment rights because of thin skin and public power should never be tolerated,” Focht wrote.

Howell said he did not pressure groups. “I never talked to any of those entities about Bothner and Bradley … That’s what I remember,” he said. “They can work with any of these agencies. That’s great.”

Former commissioner Karl Peterjohn, who was defeated in a bid for re-election, was named in the complaint but said he had no comment. Those commissioners, along with Richard Ranzau, often voted as a majority during 2015 and 2016 commission meetings.

An investigation into the complaint was concluded in January.

Kansas Assistant Attorney General John Wesley Smith wrote to Focht that the facts of Bothner and Bradley’s removal from the road project were “concerning” and may have violated their First Amendment rights because it was tied to their perceived political speech about the county commission. He said the conclusions were not serious enough to warrant any further action.

The investigation’s conclusions largely did not address one of Focht’s major allegations: That nonprofit agencies were warned by county officials they should not do business with Bothner and Bradley.

“I wanted a more broad investigation than they apparently did,” said Focht, who has since retired. “They just took the low hanging fruit.”

The investigation found no wrongdoing on the part of Ranzau. But Smith concluded that Peterjohn could have “made statements to the effect that it would be hard for the county to support anything with which Bothner and Bradley was involved.”

“However, no written evidence of such statements was found,” Smith added.

Greater Wichita Partnership

Former Spirit executive Jeff Turner, who volunteers with the Greater Wichita Partnership economic development effort, said Peterjohn told him that the county didn’t want to fund organizations that worked with Bothner and Bradley. The partnership gets $300,000 a year from the county and meets with commissioners quarterly.

Turner said the conversation with Peterjohn caught him off guard and was “so bizarre.”

“I just told him I thought it was inappropriate for him to go there … Black-balling an organization just because they didn’t agree,” Turner said. “It’s totally inappropriate for an elected official to require an adherence to his or her position as a prerequisite for doing business with the county.”

Turner said he was interviewed by an investigator with the Attorney General’s Office. Peterjohn did not return multiple phone calls from The Eagle, but responded in an e-mail: “Here is my quote: ‘No comment.’”

Partnership President Jeff Fluhr said Bothner and Bradley was discussed at a meeting with county officials, but that avoiding work with the firm was not a condition of county support.

“Their concerns were expressed about them,” Fluhr said. “We just, again, iterated they were part of our team.”

County Manager Michael Scholes added that Howell was the swing vote in his first meeting as chairman, opting to fund the Greater Wichita Partnership’s full request.

“The chairman did express, you know, his concerns about Bothner and Bradley,” Scholes said. “But it wasn’t to the point where he said ‘I would not vote for it.’”

Howell said he did not recollect talking about Bothner and Bradley with Greater Wichita Partnership officials.

“I would never swear to what I had said a year ago,” Howell said. “(But) I have consistently supported their funding, regardless of who they choose for marketing.”

Focht also said in the complaint that Howell told Intrust Bank president and volunteer co-chair Charlie Chandler that the county didn’t want the partnership to work with Bothner and Bradley. Howell said he did not talk with Chandler about Bothner and Bradley.

Chandler said he would not talk about a private conversation. But Focht’s complaint says Chandler was “very upset” and told Commissioner Dave Unruh and former county spokeswoman Kristi Zukovich about what happened.

Unruh said he recalled the conversation, saying Chandler was in disbelief over a request to not work with a specific firm.

“It’s pretty clear one of our commissioners didn’t want the county doing business with them,” said Unruh, now commission chairman, referring to Howell. “That’s not the way that we want to promote ourselves … to community partners.”

Zoo board

Sedgwick County Zoo Board president Mark DeVries said it “was not a secret that the county had issues with Bothner and Bradley, but I was never told not to work with them.”

DeVries said he did not know of board members being told not to work with the firm, as the complaint alleges.

Former president Stan Andeel said Howell had questioned why Bothner had attended a zoo board meeting.

“You certainly got the feeling it wasn’t a friendly relationship,” Andeel said. “The implication was, ‘What in the hell is she doing there?’ ”

Howell said board members were not told the county shouldn’t work with Bothner and Bradley.

“I know I didn’t and I don’t know of anybody else that did,” Howell said. “It’s not important to me what the zoo does. It’s their business.”

This story was originally published March 13, 2017 at 10:56 AM with the headline "County leaders pressured others to reject local PR firm, complaint says."