September 20, 2026
Joint Economic Development Organization
Mayor Spencer Duncan
City Manager Dr. Robert Perez
Topeka City Council
Shawnee County Board of Commissioners
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.
cc: Karen Hiller; Kevin Cook; City Clerk; Shawnee County Clerk; Shawnee County Counselor
Enclosure: Exhibit A — KORA request (already transmitted)
Enclosure: Exhibit A — KORA request (already transmitted)
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