mcre Media .......[Henry McClure Publisher]

The December 3, 2024 GO Topeka Full Board minutes show how the 2025 public budget was locked in before JEDO voted. GO Topeka is the contractor. JEDO is the public board that appropriates half-cent sales-tax money to that contractor. On December 3 the contractor’s own board approved (1) the 2025 Budget and (2) the 2024–2025 cash carry-forward. JEDO took up those same items eight days later. Commissioner Kevin Cook is listed as a GO Topeka board attendee at that meeting. He also sits as a voting member of JEDO. The same person helped approve the contractor budget and later votes, as a public officer, on whether that budget may spend voter-pledged sales tax. Mayor Padilla was in the room for the GO Topeka vote as well. What the minutes do and do not show: They show a lump-sum 2025 budget and carry-forward passed on a simple motion. They do not attach a recipient list for “grants/sponsor/contrib/scholar.” They do not name banquet tables, church dinners, festival sponsorships,...

Rhiannon — Below is a law-only note you can copy into an email. No personal framing. It is written so a lawyer or JEDO member can answer the spending question on the statutes, the AG opinions, the ballot/interlocal, and the GO Topeka contract. The Shawnee County half-cent retailers’ sales tax is a special-purpose tax. K.S.A. 12-187(g)(1) requires the governing body to specify the purpose or purposes for which the revenue will be used and to put a statement of that purpose on the ballot. The 2014 extension language pledged the tax for economic development and named infrastructure/quality-of-life projects. Spending must stay inside that approved purpose. Kansas Attorney General Opinion 2001-014 holds that sales-tax proceeds may be used for economic development only if the electorate approved that use . A later contractor or board cannot expand the purpose because a dinner, banquet, or sponsorship “feels like vitality.” AG Opinion 2017-015, issued to the City of Topeka on this...

Creekside at I-435 and Highway 45 in Parkville, Missouri, is a 300-plus-acre mixed-use project (often cited as about 337 acres) led by local developer Brian Mertz , not a national homebuilder or REIT. Mertz owns Parkville Development and related LLCs (Parkville Development 50, 70, 140, 38, etc.) plus PC Homes LLC. He is a University of Kansas accounting and business graduate, a CPA, a longtime Platte County resident, former CFO at S&T Enterprises, and later a Park University trustee and Parkville EDC board member. He has said the baseball-complex idea came from a trip with his son: why didn’t the Northland have a destination like that? Cost estimates have moved from roughly $300–$335 million at approval toward $350–$380 million as phases added on. The land had been annexed into Parkville around 2000 and sat mostly empty after an earlier scheme failed in the 2008 downturn. The city ended up owning large tracts and was making about $300,000 a year in Neighborhood Improvement Dist...

The lady that runs the pet hotel. Seems to get grants right and left. Karen do you know how many shes had over the time of her deal   Henry McClure 785.383.9994  Sent from my T-Mobile 5G Device Get Outlook for Android From: Rhiannon Friedman <rhiannon.friedman@topekapartnership.com> Sent: Monday, 14 September 2026 10:31:55 To: Henry McClure <mcre13@gmail.com>; James L. Bolden, Jr. <jbcarpet2@aol.com>; Stephanie Moran <stephanie.moran@topekapartnership.com>; Stephanie Norwood <stephanie.norwood@topekapartnership.com> Cc: sduncan@topeka.org <sduncan@topeka.org>; dbanks8487@yahoo.com <dbanks8487@yahoo.com>; Robert M. Perez <rmperez@topeka.org> Subject: RE: Subject: Ready project — JB Carpet & Upholstery (James Bolden Jr.) / 10% funds   Hi Henry,   Thanks for reaching out on behalf of Mr. Bolden.   Hi James, I hope you’re doing well!   ...

  The rest of the Legislature changed the law so Shawnee County would never have to do what the statute already required. Four members refused. Esau, James, Rhiley, and Schwertfeger voted to keep the public’s seat. Kevin Cook never created the commission when the law said shall. Then the statute got softened so he wouldn’t have to. Those four did their job. He didn’t.

The U.S. Supreme Court just reminded everybody that when the law says shall , it means shall . Not “when we feel like it.” Not “after we rewrite the statute.” Shall. Kansas law used to say the same thing. K.S.A. 19-2670 was crystal clear: in a county between 170,000 and 200,000 people, there shall be a Citizens Commission on Local Government. Shawnee County is the only county that fit. That commission was supposed to put regular citizens at the table — not just the usual huddle of officials — and look at how local government actually works. Kevin Cook and the rest of the Commission sat on that “shall” for years. They never created it. They never appointed the 18 citizen members the law required. They never wanted the public in the room. Then some of us started talking about it. Suddenly Senate Bill 104 appeared. One word change: shall became may . Shawnee County’s own counselor went to the Legislature and asked for it. The Senate rubber-stamped it 40–0. The House passed it 119–4...

Commissioner Cook: You are a lawyer. You are an officer of the court. You sit on JEDO with a vote. That is not a hobby. That is a higher duty than the rest of the room, and you have spent years reminding people that you know the rules better than they do. So let’s talk about the rule you applied to me. You came at me personally over a hot dog. Electioneering, you said. A frank in a bun. Mustard. Onions. You treated that like I had stuffed the ballot box. Fine. You set the temperature. Live at that temperature. Now apply it. On May 6, 2024, Molly Howey sent me GO Topeka’s own list of “grants/contributions/sponsorships/scholarships” for 2022 and 2023. I published it. The line includes church dinners, ministry retreats, Juneteenth festivals, an NAACP Freedom Fund banquet, YWCA awards tables, Peace and Justice sponsorships, and a $10,000 night called For the Culture KS. The civic/banquet/church/festival slice that no honest person can c...