Ethics, COVID-19 are marquee issues in races for Sedgwick County Commission
Governmental ethics and Sedgwick County’s coronavirus response have taken center stage in the lead-up to the Nov. 3 election for County Commission.
Two seats are up for grabs on the ballot as Democrats Sarah Lopez and Mike Iuen try to unseat Republican incumbents Michael O’Donnell and David Dennis.
It’s the first major local election in the age of COVID, and the pandemic has crimped the race and taken away opportunities to bring a personal touch to campaigning.
As election day approaches, the campaigns appear to increasingly hinge on social media, direct mail and yard signs.
Michael O’Donnell vs. Sarah Lopez
By far the campaign that has drawn the most interest in this election cycle is in the 2nd District, currently represented by O’Donnell.
O’Donnell declined to comment for this story.
His public campaign materials have focused mainly on his early support for President Trump and opposition to demolishing the Century II Convention and Performing Arts Center as part of the Riverfront Legacy Master Plan.
From Lopez’s perspective, one of the main issues is O’Donnell’s ethics.
“A big part of (being a commissioner) is integrity and being truthful and building trust with the constituents in the district,” Lopez said. “And we’re lacking that in some major ways.”
In May 2018, O’Donnell was indicted on federal charges of fraud and money laundering, alleging that he converted campaign funds for his own and his friends’ use.
He was acquitted on the fraud charges at trial in March 2019 and federal prosecutors declined to refile money laundering charges after the jury deadlocked on those counts.
Now, O’Donnell is a key figure in a defamation lawsuit filed by Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple in connection with last year’s mayoral race.
O’Donnell was part of a group of Republican officials and activists — also including Rep. Michael Capps and City Council member James Clendenin — connected to a false attack ad accusing Whipple of sexually harassing legislative interns while he served in the Legislature.
The ad was launched from behind the shield of an anonymous New Mexico shell corporation and Whipple has sued in an effort to find out the identities of people behind it.
O’Donnell has admitted raising money that was used to produce and distribute the ad, although he has said he thought the money was to be used for anti-Whipple and pro-Longwell billboards.
He has been ordered to testify by deposition in the case later this month.
Acting on an O’Donnell request to push the testimony back until after the election, a judge has ruled that he must testify as scheduled, but that nothing in the deposition can be disclosed to the public or in court records without another court order.
Lopez said O’Donnell “needs to really own this and take responsibility for his actions.”
“I don’t think he’s ever really had to do that,” she added. “He’s kind of gotten away with maybe more than the ordinary person.”
Lopez said she thinks the attack on Whipple, who was a state Representative from south Wichita before his mayoral run, was a bad move for O’Donnell.
“It just seems like he spends more time maybe fighting these battles and playing these political games and trying to tear other people down, than he does getting the job done,” Lopez said. “This was just the latest scheme, with everything that’s going on with our mayor and everything with the video, I think that’s just the latest one and I don’t feel like it will be the last if he continues to stay in this seat.”
Lopez also criticizes O’Donnell for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
The County Commission is also the county’s Board of Public Health and O’Donnell has consistently resisted mask mandates, bar curfews and other measures recommended by the county health officer, Dr. Garold Minns, to slow community spread of the virus.
Lopez works in information technology for Ascension, the parent company of Wichita’s Via Christi hospital system, and said she’d bring a fresh and more informed perspective on the issue.
“My background is in health care,” she said. “And for my representative to vote against every single safety measure is just mind-blowing.
“We need to do what’s going to be right by public health and safety because that’s the Board of Health’s job. It’s hard, it’s frustrating and I understand people hate to wear masks, but unfortunately we need to do what’s right by our community.”
She said she also wants to explore ways to equip and empower more county employees to work from home during the pandemic.
“I think we’re seeing within COVID, there are a lot of different ways to work, there are remote options, and so we can really start over and do some really cool, innovative things,” she said. “And I think I have a better eye for some of that than Michael does.”
David Dennis vs. Mike Iuen
The race between Dennis and Iuen in the 3rd District has been low-key and mellow.
When asked to contrast their positions, Dennis said he really couldn’t because he doesn’t know exactly where Iuen stands on major issues, including the COVID pandemic, which has dominated commission meetings for the past six months.
Usually, those differences emerge in the frequent public forums that are at the heart of commission campaigns, but those haven’t been held this year because of the COVID pandemic.
“All the other campaigns I’ve been able to be involved in, you get to know the opponent because you show up to the same different events and talk,” Dennis said. “I haven’t had a chance to really get to know him (Iuen) at all, so I can’t speak with any authority on our differences.”
Dennis is running primarily on his record of service as a commissioner, a retired Air Force colonel, a teacher and state Board of Education member.
Without opportunities for in-person campaigning, Iuen said his campaigning has mainly been a matter of social media and literature drops.
“It’s just a question of how many we can reach in the short time we have left,” he said.
Iuen is a familiar face from Wichitans’ TV screens. He worked as a newsman for 35 years at KAKE-TV, including 23 years anchoring Good Morning Kansas.
He said his journalism background is an asset because it’s taught him to consider all sides of issues.
As it turns out, he and Dennis see almost eye-to-eye on the COVID pandemic.
Both support the current requirement for masking up in public places and a midnight curfew on carousing at bars and nightclubs.
“In order to heal the economy and get people back to work and get businesses running full steam and jobs back, you’ve got to get this COVID crisis under control first,” Iuen said.
He said the commission could have and probably should have moved earlier and more authoritatively on masks and social distancing.
Still, Sedgwick County is in much better shape than most of Kansas because of the regulations that have been put in place, he said.
“I think because of those measures that were taken, we saw a decrease in the numbers,” he said. “Some people don’t want to make that connection, but I don’t see how you can not make that connection.
“If we are aggressive in how we respond to COVID-19 by following the advice of the medical professionals, we can start to flatten the curve and get the numbers down to the point where life can try to get back to normal in some areas.”
He said that although he feels for bar owners trying to make a living, he supports the county’s curfew that closes bars and clubs at midnight.
Bars emerged as a special concern when they reopened after Gov. Laura Kelly’s stay-at-home order expired in early May, Iuen said.
“Not all of them, but a lot of them had big crowds of people, not wearing masks, yelling because the music was going and people were packed together,” he said. “That’s not the way to achieve our goals as far as controlling COVID.”
Dennis sounds similar themes and has been generally supportive of recommendations from Minns and other community experts from hospitals and health care services.
“We got off to kind of a slow start and we had to feel our way along,” Dennis said.
On the mask mandate, he said “we thought that ‘strongly recommend’ would work, but it didn’t seem to work . . . people didn’t seem to take it seriously and our numbers kept going up.”
Since the mandate, “the numbers kept coming down.”
Ditto with the bar curfew.
Despite stern warnings, “we did discover a lot of people who were coming down with COVID were going from one bar to another” and that had to stop, he said.
The county’s measures have drawn hundreds of angry e-mails and dozens of in-person speakers at commission meetings who see the mask mandate as medically unnecessary, an infringement of their personal rights or even the biblical mark of the Anti-Christ.
Dennis acknowledges there’s been a big backlash but he said the mask opponents don’t have access to the information that Minns and the commissioners do from hospitals and infectious disease doctors.
He said he intends to stay the course and continue to follow the advice of medical experts as long as he’s there.
“If there’s a political cost, I was retired when I got this job and I can be retired at the end,” he said.
This story was originally published October 11, 2020 at 5:51 AM.
