"Kevin Cook" Buy the the man a [hot Dog] some therapy time

Title: A Hot Dog, a Witness, and a County Commissioner

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I pulled up to talk to my county commissioner. That is supposed to be an ordinary thing in Shawnee County. You have a question. You see the man who holds the office. You roll the window down, or you step out, and you talk.

What I did not expect was to be accused of electioneering.

I might have bought somebody a hot dog.

That sentence still makes me pause, not because a hot dog is a scandal, but because of how quickly a simple conversation was turned into a crime scene. Kansas is not vague about electioneering. The statute is about polling places and advance voting sites. Two hundred and fifty feet. Campaign materials. An attempt to persuade voters where they vote. A class C misdemeanor if you do it there.

A hot dog, purchased somewhere that is not a polling place, is a hot dog. If mustard has become a campaign contribution, someone should send a memo to the Governmental Ethics Commission before the next county fair.

I was running at the time — for county commissioner against Kevin Cook in 2024, and later for mayor. The office on the yard sign is not the point. The point is what happened when a constituent showed up.

I was not alone. I had a passenger. He is the sort of man who does not let people get under his skin. Even-keeled. Unimpressed by theater. He sat in that car and watched a public official come at me with a tone so sharp, and a posture so aggressive, that the veins stood out in his neck.

It was not anything I said. It was my presence.

That is the part the press conference never covers. The public version of Kevin Cook is the man on the morning show talking about parks, mental health, and momentum. Fair enough. Those are the talking points. What my friend saw was something else: how fast the temperature rises when the wrong person appears in the wrong parking lot.

I have thought about that day more than I wanted to. Not because I need a grudge. Grudges are expensive and they do not pave a road. I have thought about it because temperament is part of the job description, whether anyone prints it on the ballot or not. Constituents will show up. Opponents will show up. People you do not care for will show up. The work is to keep the voice even and the veins down.

If mere arrival is enough to produce that kind of anger, the public is entitled to a fuller picture than the one that fits in a thirty-second clip.

My friend has no interest in politics as sport. He does not perform outrage. He does not need a headline. He simply watched a man snap. I do not think most people in this county have seen that version. He and I have.

I am trying, these days, to say hard things without raising my own voice. So I will leave it here: public office is not a private club. If a conversation with a constituent — and possibly a hot dog — can do that to a man, the hot dog is not the story.

The story is the snap.

Henry McClure
Time kills deals
785-383-9994 · www.henrymcclure.live

ghrelin

That “hole in the stomach” is real physiology, not just willpower failing.

When you eat early and stay up late, several things stack:

The stomach empties. A normal mixed dinner leaves the stomach in roughly 2–4 hours. After that the organ is empty. Empty-stomach cells start pumping out ghrelin, the main hunger hormone. Ghrelin tells the brain “find food.” It also makes the stomach contract.

Hunger contractions (the actual “hole” feeling). Once the stomach is empty it runs a housekeeping cycle called the migrating motor complex. Every 80–120 minutes it produces strong, rhythmic contractions (phase III). Those are the gnawing, hollow, rumbling pangs people describe. They are not an emergency; they are the gut clearing itself and signaling that the last meal is gone.

Your body clock is already biased toward evening hunger. Even when calories and meal timing are controlled, hunger has a built-in circadian peak in the biological evening (around 8 p.m. for most people) and a trough in the morning. Staying awake late puts you right in that high-hunger window while the stomach is also empty. Sleep itself blunts some of the overnight ghrelin rebound; staying up does not.

Blood sugar can dip. After the early meal is digested, glucose can drift down. The brain treats that as a reason to seek quick energy, which is why late-night hunger often feels like “I need something now.”

So the combination is: empty stomach + rising ghrelin + evening circadian hunger peak + being awake instead of asleep. That is the hole.

What actually helps if the goal is to stop eating late

• Time dinner so the gap to bedtime is closer to 2–3 hours rather than 5–7. An early dinner plus a late bedtime is the exact setup that recreates the hole.
• If the gap has to stay long, a small, protein-forward snack (not a second dinner) 2–3 hours before bed usually prevents the full empty-stomach + ghrelin surge without wrecking sleep or digestion.
• Protein and fiber at dinner slow emptying and blunt the later ghrelin rise better than a carb-heavy early meal.
• Ghrelin comes in waves. Water, tea, or just waiting 15–20 minutes often lets a wave pass.
• Going to bed earlier is the cleanest fix if the late-night hours are the problem.

Late eating is generally worse for sleep, reflux, and next-day hunger hormones than finishing earlier and going to bed at a matching time. The hole appears when those two clocks get out of sync.

Exposing corruption

If anyone missed Mayor Spencer Duncan’s 11-minute AI-generated speech explaining why he’s taking the first step toward raising property taxes on Topekans, you didn’t miss much. Most of it made no sense, and many of his words have already been contradicted by his own actions.

His excuse? Cutting the budget could hurt public safety.

Guess what? Our city already doesn’t feel safe.

Police are taking longer than ever to respond to calls, if they even do. State Troopers and Sheriff’s deputies are often getting to emergency calls before our own police officers. Houses are burning, along with people and family pets, because of low water pressure or inoperable fire hydrants. Streets aren’t getting plowed in the winter. Homeless people walk around carrying knives, swords, bats and whatever other weapons they can get their hands on. Junkies are everywhere!

This city is out of control, and the problem isn’t simply a lack of money. It’s how the money is being spent. Budget the city like you’d budget your own household. When you’re broke, you cut unnecessary spending. You don’t make big purchases. You don’t hand out donations. You pay for the necessities FIRST.

Before asking Topekans for another dime, get control of the money you already have and let us know where the money is really going. FORENSIC AUDIT is long overdue.

Fw: Dornwood

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From: Angela Lake <lakeangela98@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, August 28, 2026 1:29 PM
To: mcre13@gmail.com <mcre13@gmail.com>
Subject: Dornwood

 

Dear Mr McClure

Hi! You came out to Dornwood a few years ago and talked with us about the problems and the improvements that were needed. We are still fighting to get those improvements done, and we really need your help.

I’m trying to bring more attention to Dornwood and put this issue in the public eye. Our kids and our community deserve better, and we need the community to come together and support this effort.

Would you be willing to meet with me and talk about how you could help us bring attention to Dornwood and finally get the improvements we’ve been asking for?

Thanks so much 

Angela Lake

President TBSA 

What counts as a “substantial interest”

The Capital-Journal’s exclusive, published today, examines claims by the tenant advocacy group Topeka Tenants that District 1 Councilwoman Karen Hiller has a conflict of interest on the proposed landlord registry. Hiller chairs the Public Health and Safety Committee that has been reviewing a pilot program.

cjonline.com

What Topeka Tenants says
The group issued a statement arguing Hiller has shown bias in committee discussions and votes, and that her status as a landlord plus campaign donations from real-estate interests create a conflict. They contend this has contributed to the proposal being “slow-walked.”

cjonline.com

What the newspaper found

• Hiller owns three homes: the one she lives in and two she rents out. The current pilot would apply only to properties with five or more units, so her rentals would not be covered now. A later expansion could change that.
• In her 2025 re-election campaign, roughly $2,900 (about 23 percent of total donations) came from people or entities in real estate or the landlord industry. Named examples include North Homes LLC ($1,000), developer Jim Klausman’s Kansan Towers LLC, and the attorney for the Shawnee County Landlord Association.
  cjonline.com

Hiller’s response
She told the paper she bought the two neighboring houses and that her 30-year background in tenant-landlord matters makes her well-qualified to work on the issue. She has publicly said she has concerns about the current draft, wants more work done before a vote, and does not want the city to lose momentum on other property-maintenance initiatives already under way. She declined to put the pilot to a committee vote; the city manager later brought it to the full council.

cjonline.com

The article does not conclude there is a legal conflict under Kansas ethics rules. It presents the tenants’ appearance-of-conflict argument, the donation data, Hiller’s ownership of two small rentals, and her stated reasons for caution. The pilot remains under discussion and has not been adopted.

What counts as a “substantial interest”

Kansas local officials, including city council members, are covered by a specific set of state conflict-of-interest statutes in K.S.A. 75-4301a through 75-4306. These rules are administered by the Kansas Public Disclosure Commission (formerly the Governmental Ethics Commission) and focus on financial “substantial interests,” disclosure, and self-dealing contracts—not on general political appearance or campaign donations.

What counts as a “substantial interest”

A local official has a substantial interest in a business if any of these apply to the official or the official’s spouse:

• Ownership of more than $5,000 or 5% (whichever is less) in the preceding 12 months.
• $2,000 or more in taxable compensation from the business in the preceding calendar year.
• Goods or services worth $500 or more received without reasonable consideration in the preceding 12 months.
• Serving as an officer, director, partner, or proprietor (except certain nonprofits).
• Receiving $2,000 or more in fees or commissions tied to a particular client.

Owning rental houses as a personal landlord generally falls under the ownership or proprietor test if the properties are held in a way that meets the dollar or percentage thresholds. Simply being a tenant in a lease does not create a substantial interest in the landlord.

Disclosure requirements

Elected local officials must file a Statement of Substantial Interests with the county election officer (typically when they become a candidate and annually if interests change). If they have not filed one and a matter before them would affect a business in which they have a substantial interest, they must file a written report of the interest before acting.

Restrictions on acting

• An official may not make or participate in making a contract with a business in which they have a substantial interest, unless they completely abstain. Competitive-bid contracts and contracts with prices fixed by law are exceptions.
• Abstaining from all action on a matter is treated as not “acting” on it.

The statutes do not automatically bar an official from voting on general ordinances that apply to an entire class of people (for example, all landlords of five-or-more-unit buildings) even if the official owns smaller rentals that might later be covered if the ordinance expands. The key questions are whether the official has a current substantial interest in a specific business that would be affected and whether the official participates in a contract with that business.

Enforcement and limits

Violating the contract-prohibition statute can result in forfeiture of office. The Commission issues advisory opinions that officials can request; following an opinion creates a presumption of compliance. Cities may adopt additional ethics rules, but they cannot weaken the state requirements. Campaign contributions from an industry are not treated as a “substantial interest” under these statutes.

In short, Kansas law requires disclosure of defined financial interests and prohibits self-dealing on contracts. It does not create an automatic recusal for every policy that could someday affect an official’s private property if the official’s current holdings fall outside the immediate scope of the measure. Officials who want certainty on a specific situation can request an advisory opinion from the Kansas Public Disclosure Commission.What counts as a “substantial interest”