Goddard Mayor Marcey Gregory touts vision, business experience in county race

When Marcey Gregory knocks on doors, campaigning for a Sedgwick County Commission seat, she makes sure to tell residents her personal cellphone number.

“I’m very responsive. I’m very concerned about knowing what is important to the people that I serve,” Gregory said. “That has been my approach as (Goddard) mayor. And that will continue to be my approach as a county commissioner.”

Gregory is running as an independent candidate in District 3. She faces retired Air Force Col. David Dennis, who defeated Commissioner Karl Peterjohn in the Republican primary. She lost a 2008 commission race to Peterjohn as a Democrat.

Gregory says she’ll use her experience as a small-business owner and the mayor of Goddard to attract businesses to Sedgwick County.

District 3, which is heavily Republican, includes large parts of west Wichita and small cities Goddard, Cheney, Colwich, Garden Plain, Andale, Mount Hope, Bentley and Viola scattered across the western half of the county.

Gregory, 54, says she would attend meetings hosted by all of the smaller cities, which she says have been neglected by county government.

“You don’t have to be invited: It’s part of your job description,” Gregory said. “You are responsible for those communities, so you need to know what’s going on with them, what their concerns are and how best to serve them.”

Business owner

Gregory is a native Wichitan who attended North High School.

She went to Wichita State University for a couple of years, then moved with her husband, Gary, to California, where he had an opportunity to run with the Santa Monica Track Club.

She was an officer manager for several land investment companies while they lived in the Los Angeles area for five years.

They returned to Kansas in 1988 after their first child was born. After a brief stay in College Hill, they settled down in Goddard.

Gregory owns MG Ventures, which is in commercial and residential real estate.

She ran for the Goddard City Council in 2005 and lost a close race to Craig Bassett and Todd Wentz.

“First time I ever ran for office, I lost by six votes. Every vote counts,” she said. “I’m living proof of that.”

She ran again two years later, winning by 42 votes over Bassett.

“I had gotten well-enough known by a lot of people in the community,” Gregory said.

Tenure in Goddard

Gregory became mayor in 2007. Shortly after that, the Goddard City Council unanimously passed a property tax increase because staffing levels hadn’t increased since 2000 despite a large population increase.

“It was not just me. It was all of my council,” Gregory said. “We had to increase the mill levy to be able to bring in enough police officers and enough public works people to be able to serve that huge population increase.”

She ran for the county commission in 2008 as a Democrat, hoping to take Commissioner Tom Winters’ seat. Winters was defeated in the Republican primary by Peterjohn.

Gregory lost in the general election to Peterjohn. She says he successfully used the Goddard tax increase against her in the campaign.

“Everything worked out for the best, because I still had a lot to do in Goddard,” she said.

Gregory says Goddard has grown significantly during her tenure, pointing to more green space and retail outlets such as Wal-Mart. She also touts an aquatic complex that will open soon.

“That’s going to be so fabulous for not only our economy but the entire region,” Gregory said.

Wendy Ramirez, the Goddard Chamber of Commerce’s director, said Gregory pays close attention to citizen input.

“She goes out of her way to make sure that she’s there for the city,” Ramirez said. “She’s very community-oriented.”

‘Quality-of-life issues’

Gregory decided to run for the commission again this year to try to unseat Peterjohn. She gathered more than 3,000 signatures from District 3 voters to qualify for the general election as an independent candidate, which she said would allow her to pursue nonpartisan solutions and cooperate more easily with other commissioners.

Peterjohn and Commissioners Richard Ranzau and Jim Howell form the current commission majority. They want to limit the county’s debt, focus on core government services like roads and public safety and reduce government spending on services that can be provided in the private sector.

Like Dennis, Gregory is concerned about the majority’s use of cash reserves to pay for road and bridge projects.

“We cannot continue to deplete our reserves, or we’re going to be in a bad financial situation,” Gregory said.

Gregory says the county forced unpopular cuts in the 2016 budget process last summer. She says she’s a strong supporter of quality-of-life attractions like the Sedgwick County Zoo and Exploration Place.

“We have a majority that is more concerned with keeping taxes low than they are about pushing quality-of-life issues,” Gregory said. “Their focus has been entirely on lowering taxes, not just keeping taxes low, but continually lowering taxes.”

That budget lowered the property tax levy from 29.381 mills to 29.359 mills. She says taxpayers did not gain much savings from that decision.

“It’s so insignificant that it doesn’t even buy a pizza for my household,” Gregory said. “People are not seeing a significant tax decrease.”

Gregory also opposed a recent change to plumbing code that allows plumbers to choose between two different standards. She wants Goddard to be exempt from the code change, which was opposed by the county’s plumbing board.

“Our current county commission, especially the majority, are putting good people in place and then they’re not listening to them,” Gregory said. “They’re going with their own particular agenda and not listening to their experts. That’s a worry for me.”

She also opposes a recent deregulation of the county’s wastewater inspections. Unlike Dennis, she opposes placing gun lockers in the courthouse lobby.

Gregory said she hopes to form a new majority with current Commissioners Dave Unruh and Tim Norton, should Norton defeat challenger Michael O’Donnell in the District 2 race.

She says she’ll use her experience as a business owner to work with organizations like the Regional Economic Area Partnership to attract businesses to Sedgwick County.

“There are just things that have not been pursued because we’ve been too focused on trying to lower taxes,” Gregory said. “Our city officials and our county officials need to kind of refocus.”

This story was originally published October 15, 2016 at 5:02 PM with the headline "Goddard Mayor Marcey Gregory touts vision, business experience in county race."