Prairie Village voters on Tuesday sent a decisive message of support for a new $30 million municipal complex project, giving six candidates who supported the project a clean sweep on Election Night.
This year’s Prairie Village City Council races, an unusually contested affair with competitions in every council ward, hinged on the much-discussed city hall project.
Half of the candidates supported moving forward with the plan already approved by the current council, while the other six called for it to be taken to a public vote or opposed it outright.
Following unofficial vote totals published on Election Night by the Johnson County Election Office, the six candidates who supported the city hall project all won, each of them commanding double-digit percentage vote margins.
The results from Tuesday will remain unofficial until Nov. 13 when the the county canvassing board certifies the election and vote totals may change slightly with the addition of mail-in and provisional ballots.
Prairie Village voters also on Tuesday overwhelmingly voted against throwing out their current form of government, defeating a ballot question asking whether to “abandon” the city’s current mayor-council form of government by a margin of 65% to 35%.
(Read more about how this election centered around the city hall project and the “abandon” question.)
Incumbent Ward 1 Councilmember Cole Robinson, who led Daniel Garrett by a margin of 62% to 37% after Election Night, called Tuesday night’s results “indescribably rewarding.”
He took the results as clear marching orders from voters.
Robinson said Prairie Village is one of “the most toxic political environments” in the region, with “years of litigation, years of recalls” and continued division — but “that was all soundly rejected tonight.”
“As somebody from the city, who cares deeply about the city, who is in the trenches this year, that is so rewarding and so validating to feel like you know your city … you feel like you take a lot of heat and you have a lot of sleepless nights,” Robinson said. “And then finally people go to the polls and vote and to have it come out this way is an unbelievable feeling.”
The Post on Election Night was attempting to contact as many candidates as possible for comment, including both projected winners and losers.
A race-by-race look at the results
All six Prairie Village races were contested in this year’s general election, with two incumbents seeking re-election.
In Ward 1, Robinson leads Garrett by a wide margin, 62% to 37%, after Tuesday night’s unofficial final results.
In Ward 2, incumbent Councilmember Ron Nelson leads Edward Boersma by a margin of nearly 65% to 35%.
In Ward 3, Shelby Bartelt received 56% of the vote and is on track to beat Amy Aldrich who received nearly 44% of the vote.
“I really want to focus on bringing a community atmosphere back in Ward 3 in particular,” Bartelt said on Election Night. “I think we’ve been a product of a lot of the divisiveness and so I’m hopeful to get back to town hall meetings and hearing from residents and really digging in to establish that trust from residents.”
In Ward 4, the ward with the largest turnout after Election Night vote totals were tallied, Nathan Vallette appears poised to win against Kelly Sullivan Angles with 58% of the vote compared to Sullivan Angle’s 41% of the vote.
“I think our city kinds of showed tonight that we want to stop some of this drama and we want to get some people in office that are ready to do some work,” Vallette said.
In Ward 5, Betsy Lawrence leads John Beeder by a margin of nearly 60% to almost 44%.
Finally in Ward 6, Jim Sellers received 63% of the vote, giving him the upper hand against Dan Prussing with 36% of the vote.
Years of rancor, calls to “Stop the Drama”
The disagreement over a new city hall was just the latest flashpoint in Prairie Village.
In 2023, city council elections were defined by a rancorous debate over the city’s housing policies, with a resident group, Prairie Village United, rallying opponents who vowed to fight any possible changes to the city’s residential zoning codes.
In that election, four candidates backed by PV United won city council seats.
Some of the same organizers centered their focus on the city hall project for this year’s election, insisting at city council meetings and in bright blue yard signs to let residents vote on the project, which opponents argued could mire the city in debt and ultimately lead to higher property taxes.
But supporters countered those arguments by saying a new city hall was needed, citing overcrowding and infrastructure issues inside the existing building.
The proposed $30 million project will build a brand-new city hall just south of the current municipal complex on a site currently occupied by a church, and the city’s police headquarters and municipal court will be expanded into the current city hall space
Six candidates backed by PV United all called to take the city hall project to a public vote if elected, while their opponents supported the project moving forward.
The six PV United-backed candidates also supported the “abandon” ballot question.
This story was originally published in the Johnson County Post.