Residential streets around Prairie Village are peppered with lawn signs with vague political slogans about the issues facing city hall.
Some blue signs with a yellow stripe plead with neighbors, “Stop the drama. Vote no.”
Across the street, there might be a house with a red sign that says, “Less division, more consensus. Vote yes! A better way for PV.”
The signs refer to the single question that will appear on Prairie Village ballots this year, and it’s seemingly a big one.
“Shall the City of Prairie Village, Kansas abandon the mayor-council form of government?”
The question itself is short, but the tension around it has been brewing for years. The question was placed on November’s ballot following a drawn-out legal battle between city hall and a resident-led group called PV United. That dispute originated in the city’s fractious debate over housing and zoning in 2023.
A “yes” vote wouldn’t immediately jettison the city’s form of government — headed up by an elected mayor and City Council — that has been in place since the city’s founding in 1951. But it could open the way for a different governance model to be instituted.
A “no” vote would keep the current form of government in place.
For such an existential-sounding measure, it’s played a much smaller role in this November’s City Council races than the higher-profile issue of a new city hall (covered in our last story).
“A yes vote and a no vote get us the same result, which is nothing,” Councilmember Ian Graves, who represents Ward 6, posted on Facebook. “Passage of the question is not an ‘important step’ to anywhere. The question is pointless and the narratives around it are hot air.”
Lori Sharp, who currently represents Ward 3 on the council but is not up for reelection this year, has expressed support for a “yes” vote.
In her newsletter, she said that a “yes” vote is an “important step” for updating the form of government to make Prairie Village a “professionally run city.”
What does it mean to ‘abandon’ the government?
When PV United put forward the “abandon” question in petition form two years ago, it was originally paired with an entirely separate petition asking residents to also “adopt” a new form of government.
Together, those questions would have dumped the city’s current mayor-council form of government (the “abandon” part) and created a new “council-mayor-manager” form of government (the “adopt” part).
In addition, PV United’s “adopt” petition aimed to eliminate six out of Prairie Village’s 12 councilmembers. The petition language made it clear the six most recently elected councilmembers would have been the ones whose positions were axed, in the middle of their terms.
But the “adopt” petition, along with a third completely separate petition about rezoning, was struck down in court.
Now, the “abandon” question is appearing on the ballot by itself. But without the accompanying “adopt” petition, the “abandon” question will change little about city government if it passes.
The city puts it this way in an FAQ page on the city’s website:
“If the ballot measure passes, the City would continue to operate in its current form unless a separate, subsequent action is taken to adopt a different form of government. Adoption of a new form of government would require additional actions as set forth under Kansas statutes.”
What those additional actions would be is not totally clear, and the original supporters of the petitions have largely gone silent on what exactly they want to see as a result of a “yes” vote in the lead-up to November.
Still, the goal of the “abandon” question is to get rid of what its supporters see as a “strong-mayor” government in Prairie Village.
Prairie Village’s mayor, currently Eric Mikkelson, has the power to oversee City Council meetings and veto ordinances. The mayor can also appoint the city administrator but needs the approval of the City Council.
Other Johnson County cities, including Fairway, Leawood, Mission, Merriam and all other northeastern Johnson County cities around Prairie Village, have a similar mayor-council form of government.
Supporters of “yes” on the “abandon” question have also pointed to another powerful position at city hall, the city administrator, a job currently held by former Police Chief Wes Jordan.
In her Sept. 22 newsletter, Sharp said she would like to see Prairie Village hire a “professionally trained and experienced city manager” like the other 24 Kansas cities classified as first class under Kansas statutes.
But detractors of the “abandon” measure, like Graves, who posted about it earlier this month on Facebook, say that there is functionally no difference between Sharp’s proposed professional city manager and Prairie Village’s current city administrator role.
The lone surviving petition from 2023
The “abandon” question, along with the two other legally nullified petition questions, was authored by PV United two years ago.
So why are Prairie Village voters just now voting on it?
The “abandon” petition first appeared two summers ago, at the height of Prairie Village’s housing and zoning debate.
One of three resident-led petitions to circulate Prairie Village that summer, the “abandon” petition, sought to get rid of the city’s mayor-council form of government — which is seen as having a strong mayor by the circulators.
An accompanying “adoption” petition sought to establish a mayor-council-manager form of government and also slash the existing City Council in half. If this petition had passed legal muster and appeared on a ballot in November 2023, then it would have ousted six sitting councilmembers in the middle of their terms.
“Only the 2023 elected City Council member from each ward shall continue to serve in the new City Council along with the currently elected at large (sic) Mayor,” the “adoption” petition read.
A third petition aimed to significantly limit all rezoning in Prairie Village.
The set of three petitions began circulating in the summer of 2023. The city challenged the validity of those petitions, questioning their legal viability for a ballot.
Later that year, the petitions landed in Johnson County District Court and eventually the Kansas Court of Appeals.
“With a barrage of costly, taxpayer-funded lawsuits and legal maneuvers, the Prairie Village City Council appears to be succeeding in delaying a vote of the people on the citizen petition issues that mean so much to thousands in our community,” Daniel Schoepf, PV United’s spokesperson and current vice president, told the Post in a statement in 2023.
Ultimately, the legal battle — with Councilmember Sharp’s husband, Rex Sharp, representing PV United in court — cost the city roughly $221,000 in city attorney fees, according to figures obtained through a records request.
Of those three resident-led petitions, only the “abandon” one was found to have met the legal muster. That’s why it will finally appear on the ballot two years later this November.
The appellate panel, for the most part, backed up the district judge in 2025.
“We are, frankly, amazed that the district judge was able to render a decision and outline the reasons for that decision in the very short time the statute required,” the appellate panel’s 2025 ruling read, referring specifically to the turnaround on a decision from 2023.
Again, the “abandon” petition will pose the following question to Prairie Village voters at the ballot box this November:
“Shall the City of Prairie Village, Kansas abandon the mayor-council form of government?”
What do supporters say?
The seeds for those three resident-led petitions were planted in June 2022 in resounding opposition to the City Council’s approval of a set of three housing recommendations.
Those recommendations sought to make life in Prairie Village more attainable by bringing in more workforce housing.
A few weeks later, small yellow flyers appeared on cars parked at Village Fest 2022, the city’s annual Fourth of July celebration. A message on the flyers said the city wanted to bring apartments next door to single-family homes in all wards. (At the time, the city’s recommendations only mentioned multifamily housing in multifamily districts where they are already allowed.)
“Council wants to amend (change) the City’s zoning regulations to allow for multi-family housing next door to you in all Wards including: apartments 3- and 4-plex ‘multi-unit’ houses, and row houses,” the yellow flyers read.
Those anonymous flyers marked a new era of tension in Prairie Village politics, as, only two months later, a resident-led activist group known as PV United formed to oppose city business about housing and zoning. This group is also known as Stop Rezoning Prairie Village.
PV United was responsible for circulating the three petitions at the time, hosting signature-gathering events at the park. Rex Sharp drafted those three petitions before spending the end of 2023, all of 2024 and some of 2025 defending those petitions — and PV United — in district and appellate courts.
Now that the “abandon” petition is finally appearing on the ballot, PV United has not endorsed a “yes” vote on its website. Councilmember Lori Sharp, however, has written in her newsletter that she intends to vote “yes” and encourages her constituents to do the same.
PV United supporter Pam Justus told KSHB 41 that she plans to vote yes.
“Obviously (the government) isn’t working because our taxes have raised,” Justus told KSHB. “Our spending has gone up. … Such vitriol in our city the last five years pitting neighbor against neighbor. That didn’t happen overnight.”
A post on the Facebook group Save Prairie Village encouraged residents to vote yes on the measure to start the process of improving city government.
“Prairie Village residents, when you see this yard sign,” the post said, with an accompanying photo of a “Vote no” lawn sign, “know that the individuals behind it … are the extremists, not ‘us’ or the nearly one in five registered voters in our city who signed a petition requesting a public vote for beginning the discussons (sic) on how we can improve the way our local government operates – not for our politicians SELFISH PERSONAL AGENDAS, but functioning in a way that is in the BEST INTEREST for the majority of RESIDENTS.”
What do opponents say?
Six of the 12 City Council candidates on the ballot this year have publicly opposed the “abandon” question. Those are the same six candidates who support the plan for a new municipal complex.
Mikkelson also expressed strong opposition in a column for the Prairie Village newsletter, the Village Voice.
“A vote to completely abandon our time-tested form and process of local government,” he wrote, “would be reckless and divisive. Such scorched-earth, destructive behavior in response to good-faith policy decisions by democratically-elected, non-partisan public servants is damaging and costly. We are far from perfect, but there are far more perfect ways to express differences of opinion.”
Here’s what each candidate has said about their stance on the “abandon” petition. You can read their fuller responses to the Post’s candidate questionnaire on this issue here.
Ward 1
- Daniel Garrett: Hasn’t spoken publicly about it, makes no mention of it in campaign materials and did not respond to reporters’ request for comment for this story. Supported by PV United.
- Cole Robinson (incumbent): “Prairie Village United, by putting the question on the ballot, there is no guarantee of any outcome after residents would vote no,” Robinson said at the Oct. 9 forum during his closing statements. “Anyone telling you, ‘Oh. this is what’s going to happen’ and ‘This is what it would look like,’ is false.”
Ward 2
- Edward Boersma: “The word ‘abandon’ unfortunately carries a negative connotation. Prairie Village residents are being asked to consider whether to transition from the current strong-mayor system to a different, potentially more effective form of governance. Many cities across the country have modernized their structures to adopt more professional management systems that minimize political influence, and this vote gives Prairie Village an opportunity to consider the same.”
- Ron Nelson (incumbent): “I am absolutely and unequivocally against the adoption of the abandon petition and urge everyone to vote NO on the issue,” Nelson told the Post via email.
Ward 3
- Amy Aldrich: Hasn’t spoken publicly about it, makes no mention of it in campaign materials and did not respond to reporters’ request for comment for this story. Supported by PV United.
- Shelby Bartelt: “As a mom, I usually say this is the equivalent of asking my 7-year-old to give up ice cream in favor of another dessert but not telling her what it is,” Bartelt told the Post via email. “No thank you!” Bartelt added that she does not support the “abandon” petition.
Ward 4
- Kelly Sullivan Angles: “Our current strong-mayor form of government is outdated and has been abandoned by most other cities of our size across Kansas. I fully support modernizing our city government with an approach that respects the councilmembers voted in by the residents and the residents’ priorities. This is representative democracy in action, whereas the current strong mayor form of government favors the mayor’s agenda at the expense of residents’ representative votes.”
- Nathan Vallette: “My question back to the people who got it on the ballot is why?” Vallette said at the Post’s Sept. 30 forum, further stating his support for a “no” vote on the question.
Ward 5
- John Beeder: “Yes, I support replacing the current ‘strong mayor’ form of government. Prairie Village is one of only two large cities in Kansas that still uses this structure, which concentrates too much power in a single office. The result is that our cost to run the city on a square-mile basis is the highest in Kansas … 42% higher than Overland Park and nearly double Olathe, both of which are at least ten times larger in size than Prairie Village. The other ‘strong mayor’ city, Leawood, is the second most expensive. Most peer cities use a council–manager model, where a professional city manager runs daily operations under the direction of the full council. This structure brings more checks and balances, professional oversight, and greater efficiency. If voters approve the change, I would work to ensure any new system delivers accountability, spending discipline, and lower taxes.”
- Betsy Lawrence: “I do not support abandoning Prairie Village,” Lawrence said at the Post’s Sept. 30 forum. “I encourage every voter to vote no on PV United’s effort to dismantle our local government.”
Ward 6
- Dan Prussing: Hasn’t spoken publicly about it, makes no mention of it in campaign materials and did not respond to reporters’ request for comment for this story. Supported by PV United.
- Jim Sellers: “I say if you think that Prairie Village is a broken city, vote to break it, vote yes,” Sellers said at the Post’s Sept. 30 forum. “If you don’t think Prairie Village is a broken city and that we can get better than we are right now, then vote no.”
The Johnson County Post and The Beacon collaborated on coverage of the upcoming Prairie Village City Council election.
