The battle between the possibility of a wind farm and the citizens of Labette County leads to the recall of a county commissioner. The possibility of a wind farm in Labette County has been going on for more than just 2021 but this year it got tense.
Going back to April, Commissioner Cole Proehl put a resolution in place to get discussions started with RWE that was seconded by Commissioner Brian Kinzie and passed on a 2-1 vote with Commissioner Lonie Addis voting against it. This resolution would lead to questions about a possible open meetings violation, which did lead to a KOMA violation against both Commissioner Proehl and Commissioner Kinzie. This KOMA violation would open the door to a possible recall of Commissioner Kinzie.
Commissioner Kinzie said they just wanted to get him out of office to get someone in who would vote no alongside Commissioner Addis.
In order to recall the commissioner the citizens of district two had to gather signatures and the county had to hold a recall election. More than enough signatures were gathered and a recall election date was set for December 7th.
As we got closer to the recall election date things got more and more tense at county commission meetings.
District two did vote to recall Commissioner Kinzie with a vote of 844 for and 591 against. It was the first time in the county a commissioner had been recalled and the first in Kansas in five years. The Labette County republican committee voted in Terry Weidert to fill the vacant seat. He looks to take office sometime in January after governor approval.
