Spencer
The good news you are NOT the final authority in this matter.
Lauren's Bay starts again
H
Henry McClure
Time Kills Deals
785.383.9994
444
From: Henry McClure <mcre13@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, September 21, 2026 1:59 PM
To: Spencer Duncan <sduncan@topeka.org>; MCRE Media <mcre1.9999@blogger.com>
Cc: City Clerk <cclerk@topeka.org>; countyclerk@snco.us <countyclerk@snco.us>; Kevin Cook <kevin.cook@snco.us>; Brett Kell <bkell@topeka.org>; Christina Valdivia-Alcala <cvaldivia-alcala@topeka.org>; David Banks <dbanks@topeka.org>; Jane M. Murray <jmurray@topeka.org>; Karen A. Hiller <khiller@Topeka.org>; Marcus Miller <marcusm@topeka.org>; Michelle A. Bradberry <mabradberry@topeka.org>; Michelle A. Hoferer <mahoferer@topeka.org>; Murray T. McGee <mtmcgee@topeka.org>; Sylvia Ortiz <sortiz@Topeka.org>; Tara R. Jefferies <tjefferies@topeka.org>; Tonya L. Bailey <tlbailey@topeka.org>; Robert M. Perez <rmperez@topeka.org>
Subject: Re: Demand that JEDO and the City and County terminate Service Contract No. 2019-01 with Growth Organization of Topeka/Shawnee County, Inc. (GO Topeka) and stop all half-cent draws not authorized by the 2014 ballot
Subject: Re: Demand that JEDO and the City and County terminate Service Contract No. 2019-01 with GO Topeka
Spencer,
Your email is wrong on the law and softer than the facts.
The 2014 ballot authorized a 15-year half-cent through December 31, 2031 for listed purposes, including economic development. It did not name GO Topeka. It did not put a contractor on the ballot. It did not give the Chamber a permanent claim on the tax. Dollar splits and the services contract came later, in an interlocal and in JEDO votes. Calling later draws “unauthorized by the ballot” is a talking point, not a reading of the question voters passed.
Service Contract No. 2019-01 is still the live deal. The December 19, 2019 amendment renews unless someone gives 180 days’ written notice. Cash and property revert to JEDO on termination. That is an exit. Use it. Do not pretend the contract is immortal and then keep voting under it.
You have kept voting under it. On December 10, 2025, JEDO approved the 2026 GO Topeka budget, a $13.6 million cash carry-forward, and a residency waiver under Section 4(b) of 2019-01. You seconded the waiver and moved the carry-forward. You cannot treat that contract as unauthorized on Monday and treat it as good enough to amend on Wednesday.
If this Board ever ordered a real audit of the full half-cent era — not another clean opinion on last year’s statements — it would not find one tidy $5 million pipeline. It would find a 20-plus-year pattern: rolling contracts, growing carry-forwards, incentives that wander off “new primary jobs,” and an organization that has served the Greater Topeka Partnership / Chamber circle first. GO Topeka was never a neutral public agency. It is a private nonprofit paid with a public tax to run a public program. The beneficiaries have too often been the same membership, the same downtown deals, and the same payroll.
That is the nest. Fat salaries and titles for people who have never closed a private deal without a public check. Choose Topeka relocation matches. Redevelopment grants. Code-named packages that look like retention gifts to firms already here. The AT&T building deal was out of line. So was the last large subsidy run through this machine — Magellan / Project Omega, $1.43 million on top of the earlier authorization, sold as “positive strings” while the same contractor writes the package, brief the Board, and cash the operating transfer. Paint that far outside the lines long enough and the half-cent stops being economic development and starts being a private operating budget with a public logo.
Letting this ride does not protect “stability.” It protects a voter base and a donor network that lives inside that building. The voters who passed the tax in 2004 and extended it in 2014 were told infrastructure and jobs. They were not told a self-renewing services contract, a $13.6 million slush carry-forward, and a Chamber affiliate that audits clean while the program purpose gets thinner every year.
If you want to do this right:
- Serve the 180-day notice under 2019-01.
- Order an independent forensic look at transfers, carry-forwards, incentive performance, and related-party overlap from the original tax through today — not another unmodified opinion from the same circuit.
- Put the work out to bid.
- Wind down the existing incentive book in writing so companies that actually earned a check still get paid, and so JEDO — not GO Topeka — holds the cash.
Anything short of that is protection of the incumbent contractor. I am not interested in protecting the incumbent contractor.
Copying the City Clerk, County Clerk, and Commissioner Cook.
Henry McClure
MCRE, LLC
3625 SW 29th Street #100
Topeka, KS 66614
785-383-9994
mcre13@gmail.com
From: Spencer Duncan <sduncan@topeka.org>
Sent: Monday, September 21, 2026 11:51 AM
To: Henry McClure <mcre13@gmail.com>; MCRE Media <mcre1.9999@blogger.com>
Cc: City Clerk <cclerk@topeka.org>; countyclerk@snco.us <countyclerk@snco.us>; Kevin Cook <kevin.cook@snco.us>; Brett Kell <bkell@topeka.org>; Christina Valdivia-Alcala <cvaldivia-alcala@topeka.org>; David Banks <dbanks@topeka.org>; Jane M. Murray <jmurray@topeka.org>; Karen A. Hiller <khiller@Topeka.org>; Marcus Miller <marcusm@topeka.org>; Michelle A. Bradberry <mabradberry@topeka.org>; Michelle A. Hoferer <mahoferer@topeka.org>; Murray T. McGee <mtmcgee@topeka.org>; Spencer Duncan <sduncan@topeka.org>; Sylvia Ortiz <sortiz@Topeka.org>; Tara R. Jefferies <tjefferies@topeka.org>; Tonya L. Bailey <tlbailey@topeka.org>; Robert M. Perez <rmperez@topeka.org>
Subject: Re: Demand that JEDO and the City and County terminate Service Contract No. 2019-01 with Growth Organization of Topeka/Shawnee County, Inc. (GO Topeka) and stop all half-cent draws not authorized by the 2014 ballot
Henry -
I take the restriction on voter-approved sales-tax revenue seriously. Public money must be spent for its authorized purpose, and approval of a budget category does not, by itself, establish that every payment within that category was appropriate. However, I have looked at the information you sent. I disagree with your conclusion that the material presented establishes grounds to automatically terminate the entire GO Topeka service agreement or immediately stop every payment outside jobs, buildings, equipment, and training. But I also think the specific expenditures you identify deserve a closer look before anyone reaches a conclusion about them.
K.S.A. 12-187(g) required a general description of the tax’s purposes in the ballot proposition. Neither JEDO nor its contractor can use a later agreement or budget to authorize spending outside a purpose approved by voters. The
2016 City–County interlocal agreement governing the tax beginning in 2017 says voters renewed the half-cent tax for economic development, infrastructure improvements, and quality-of-life projects. It describes economic development more broadly than direct payments for jobs, plants, equipment, or training. Its examples include research, target marketing, business retention and recruitment, site acquisition, incentives, workforce development, and support for socially and economically disadvantaged individuals and businesses. It also provides for JEDO to establish economic-development priorities.
I think your description of events and sponsorships leaves out a part of how economic development can work. Attracting an employer involves more than offering an incentive for a building or a set number of jobs. Businesses consider whether they can recruit people, retain employees, build relationships with other businesses, and become part of a community where they can succeed. An event can bring employers, entrepreneurs, prospective employees, and community partners together. Supporting an event may give local businesses access to customers or connections they would not otherwise have. It may also help demonstrate to a prospective employer that Topeka and Shawnee County have an active business community and strong local partnerships. Those are possible economic-development benefits, and they should not be dismissed simply because an expenditure is called a sponsorship rather than an incentive.
I would also be careful about treating every payment to a civic or nonprofit organization as interchangeable. An organization may host an event with a meaningful connection to small-business development, workforce, or outreach to businesses that have not historically been included in those opportunities. The organization’s name does not establish that connection, but it doesn't rule it out either.
At the same time, saying an event is good for the community is not enough, by itself, to justify paying for it with this tax. For a particular sponsorship or table purchase, the fair question is what GO Topeka was trying to accomplish, what participation or benefit the payment secured, how it advanced an approved economic-development priority, and whether the amount was reasonable for that purpose. Some expenditures may have a clear answer; others may not. So I will examine the examples you provided on their individual facts and have conversations about how JEDO and GO Topeka can better document these purposes moving forward to better evaluate these expenses.
The
2019 JEDO–GO Topeka service agreement calls for an annual business plan and budget approved by JEDO. It provides that grant funds are to be spent as authorized in that budget and requires quarterly program reports and financial statements.
The published
2023 plan and
2024 plan contain the combined “grants/sponsor/contrib/scholar” budget lines you cite: $687,564 and $643,259, respectively. Those figures are budgeted amounts spanning multiple programs and purposes. They do not establish that the full amounts were spent, that every payment was improper, or that approval of the category resolved the propriety of each payment.
I understand your concern about banquet tables, dinners, festival sponsorships, and awards events. I would want to know what each payment was intended to accomplish, which funds paid for it, how it related to an approved economic-development program, and what documentation supported the decision. I will take a further look at the information you sent. I am not prepared to characterize the individual payments as authorized or unauthorized based on their descriptions alone.
You are correct that the 2019 agreement contains a termination procedure requiring at least 180 days’ written notice. It also addresses obligations during that period and the treatment of cash and real property upon termination. The existence of that option does not mean JEDO must exercise it before determining whether the problems you allege occurred and, if so, their scope.
Separately, I agree that the service agreement itself should be reviewed. It has operated through automatic renewals for years without being opened for a broader examination. It is reasonable to ask whether its terms still provide the clarity, reporting, and accountability JEDO and the public should expect. That is a worthwhile discussion regardless of where an examination of the particular expenses leads.
The Kansas cases and statutes you cite raise principles about the limits of governmental authority. They do not, on their own, establish that this agreement is void or that the expenditures you list constitute false claims or criminal misuse of funds. Those conclusions require facts and legal analysis tied to the particular transactions.
I understand that you have directed a Kansas Open Records Act request to the City, County, and JEDO. The appropriate records people will respond to the portions directed to their entities under the Act. Their response is separate from my consideration of the questions you have raised.
Thank you,
Spencer
Spencer L. Duncan
Mayor, City of Topeka
785-207-8985
From: Henry McClure <mcre13@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2026 12:23 AM
To: City Clerk <cclerk@topeka.org>; countyclerk@snco.us <countyclerk@snco.us>; Spencer Duncan <sduncan@topeka.org>; Kevin Cook <kevin.cook@snco.us>; MCRE Media <mcre1.9999@blogger.com>
Subject: Re: Demand that JEDO and the City and County terminate Service Contract No. 2019-01 with Growth Organization of Topeka/Shawnee County, Inc. (GO Topeka) and stop all half-cent draws not authorized by the 2014 ballot
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Notice: -----This message was sent by an external sender-----
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September 20, 2026
Joint Economic Development Organization
Mayor Spencer Duncan
City Manager Dr. Robert Perez
Topeka City Council
Shawnee County Board of Commissioners
I am a citizen of Topeka and Shawnee County. I demand that you terminate the service agreement with GO Topeka now — give the 180-day notice the 2019 instrument requires if you must, and stop every unauthorized payment today.
JEDO’s own audits state the deal: JEDO pays GO Topeka $5 million a year to carry out an economic-development program designed to expand employment, strengthen the tax base, and diversify the city and county economy. Either party may terminate. Cash and real property under the program revert to JEDO. That is the off-ramp. Use it.
Why the contract must end
The half-cent is a special-purpose tax. K.S.A. 12-187(g) put the purpose on the ballot. Kansas Attorney General Opinion 2001-014 allows sales-tax money for economic development only if the electorate approved that use. Attorney General Opinion 2017-015, written to this City on this tax, ties spending to the ballot and the interlocal. The interlocal did not create a charity account.
GO Topeka has spent that slice on grants, contributions, sponsorships, scholarships, meals, and banquet tables. Molly Howey’s May 6, 2024 list put the civic/banquet/church/festival slice for 2022–2023 at $93,235 and the drawer those checks were filed in at $861,750. JEDO approved a lump line — $687,564 in the 2023 plan, $643,259 in the 2024 packet — not those payees. A Freedom Fund banquet, a church dinner, and a YWCA awards table are not payroll, not a plant, and not a widening of the tax base.
A later service agreement cannot amend the ballot. A JEDO vote cannot ratify what the municipality had no power to spend. The contractor is charged with knowing the public body’s authority. So is every official who kept signing the work order.
Kansas precedent
- Genesis Health Club, Inc. v. City of Wichita, 285 Kan. 1021 (2008): a contract a municipality had no power to make is ultra vires and unenforceable. It cannot be ratified. The other party is bound at its peril to know the municipality’s authority. Benefits received do not estop the public body.
- State ex rel. Hecht v. City of Topeka, 296 Kan. 494: contracts in violation of the cash-basis law are void. A contract the city was not legally allowed to enter is void. Estoppel will not save a contract made in express violation of law.
- K.S.A. 10-1119: any contract between a municipal governing body and any person that violates the cash-basis act shall be void. An appropriation for a municipal fund shall not be used for any other purpose.
- Shawnee County District Court, Judge Franklin Theis, July 2004: the JEDO–GO Topeka contract was illegal for failure to bid under city ordinance and would be set aside if the plaintiffs finished the case. They did not. JEDO then passed a bid-exemption resolution. That history is why “we have always done it this way” is not a defense. The defect was named twenty-two years ago.
Unauthorized payments are recoverable. K.S.A. 75-7503 (false claims) reaches a knowing claim for public money. K.S.A. 21-6005 reaches a person who has control of public money by official position and knowingly uses it in a manner not authorized by law.
What I demand, in writing, within ten days
- JEDO votes to give notice of termination of Contract No. 2019-01 and of every automatic renewal.
- The City and County, as parties to the interlocal, concur and stop forwarding half-cent money for any use not specified as jobs, plant, equipment, or training the 2014 ballot will bear.
- GO Topeka is ordered to split true performance incentives from contributions, sponsorships, scholarships, meals, and banquet tables, and to return unauthorized amounts.
- Cash and real property under the program revert to JEDO as the audits already say they must on termination.
- No further banquet, church, festival, or awards-table check is written from this tax while the notice period runs.
Letters already went to Councilmember Karen Hiller, Commissioner Kevin Cook, Mayor Duncan, and Manager Perez. A Kansas Open Records Act request for the twenty-five-year total of those payments is Exhibit A to those letters and is submitted to the City Clerk, the County Clerk, and the County Counselor.
The voters approved a purpose. They did not approve a contractor that treats pledged tax as customer loyalty. If this government will not pull the contract after that record, the public is entitled to ask which statutes you still consider binding.
Terminate it.
Henry McClure
3625 SW 29th Street #100
Topeka, KS 66614
785-383-9994
mcre13@gmail.com
cc: Karen Hiller; Kevin Cook; City Clerk; Shawnee County Clerk; Shawnee County Counselor
Enclosure: Exhibit A — KORA request (already transmitted)