By LESLIE EIKLEBERRY
Salina Post
The Salina City Commission is scheduled to reconsider the 2017 sanction of a former commissioner during its Monday meeting.
The commissioners are scheduled to first meet in a study session at 2:30 p.m. Monday in room 107B of the City-County Building, 300 W. Ash. The topic of the study session is Fire Station No. 4 needs assessment. Fire Station No. 4 is located at 669 Briarcliff.
A time for citizens to comment about the study session is scheduled for 3:45 p.m.
The city commission’s regular meeting is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. in room 107 of the City-County Building. A time for public comment is scheduled near the beginning of the meeting.
Commissioners are scheduled to consider bids for construction of a parking lot across Fifth Street from the Salina Fieldhouse. The city plans to use New Market Tax Credit funding remaining from the fieldhouse project to pay for the parking lot. According to information in the city commission meeting packet, approximately $450,000 of New Market Tax Credit funds is available for the project.
Bids for the project were opened on Wednesday and are as follows.
- Vogts-Parga Construction, LLC of Newton: $444,070.07
- Smoky Hill, LLC of Salina: $609,494.80
City staff is recommending accepting the bid from Vogts-Parga, according to the packet information.
City commissioners also are scheduled to reconsider the 2017 sanction of former commissioner Jon Blanchard. According to meeting packet information, at the commission’s September 17, 2018, meeting, city staff was directed “to assemble a factual record of the ethics sanction given to former Commissioner Blanchard in 2017 and schedule a reconsideration of the sanction” for Monday’s meeting.
On November 20, 2017, the city commission, by a 3-2 vote, approved reprimanding “Blanchard based on a violation to the City of Salina Ethics Section 4(e)(2),” according to the minutes from the November 20, 2017, meeting.
The city’s ethics policy, specifically Section 4(e)(2) is as follows.
Section 4. General Ethical Principles. City officers and employees shall abide by the following general ethical principles:
(e)Do not disclose or use information received in the course of performing one’s duties that is to be maintained in confidence (2) by the intent of the governing body in the case of a governing body member.
At the time, Blanchard was accused of violating the city’s ethics policy because following a candidate forum on October 17, 2017, he released unredacted correspondence between city officials and Salina Area Chamber of Commerce that detailed the city’s concerns about the way former Chamber CEO Dennis Lauver handled economic development initiatives. At the time, the city had only released redacted copies of some of the correspondence.
At issue now is whether Blanchard deserved the reprimand given that the Kansas Attorney General’s office has determined that the City of Salina violated the Kansas Open Records Act (KORA) by not releasing full documents of the correspondence between the city and the chamber when such were requested.
On September 14, 2018, the city received notification from the Kansas Attorney General’s office that indicated the KORA violation and ordered the city to release to Blanchard an unredacted copy of the November 18, 2014, correspondence from the city to the chamber that he had requested.
It is Blanchard’s contention that he should not have been reprimanded as the information he released is considered open to the public under KORA, per the attorney general office’s ruling.
Commissioners also are scheduled to consider an October 2, 2018, KORA request by Blanchard to release all correspondence between counsel Anna Krstulic of Stinson Leonard Street and the city from January 8, 2018, to February 12, 2018, with the exception of the final legal memorandum.
To see the entire city commission meeting packet, including the chronological compilation of documents related to the Blanchard reprimand and the correspondence between the city and the chamber, please click here. Because of its size, the document may take a bit to load.