Johnson County’s Ed Peterson wants to unseat Ed Eilert

On the morning of March 26, Ed Peterson — accompanied by his wife, Laura Scott, and Kathy Cook, former director of Kansas Families for Education — appeared at the Johnson County Election Office in Olathe and filed papers to run for chairman of the Board of County Commissioners.

The day before, Peterson’s campaign issued a media advisory, alerting local reporters that the longtime Johnson County politician would file for office, make a statement to the press and answer questions. The Pitch was the only media outlet that showed up.

A few hours after launching his campaign, Peterson and 650 other people interested in Johnson County government watched incumbent chairman Ed Eilert deliver the annual State of the County address at the Ritz Charles Ballroom in south Overland Park.

The first half of Eilert’s speech sounded like something from a chamber of commerce luncheon. Eilert lauded new businesses, economic-development projects and new housing permits coming into the mostly affluent county — growth not directly affected by county government.

Only after showing a video lauding more projects that county government doesn’t really touch — a new IKEA in Merriam, industrial buildings in Olathe — did Eilert discuss the work that the county commission had actually done.

Speeches on the state of the city, county or state tend to be upbeat, bombastic affairs — almost like stump speeches. They’re opportunities for mayors and county commissioners to get in front of television cameras and local power brokers to deliver the good news going on around them. But even Kansas City Mayor Sly James touched on some dour notes in his State of the City address — crime and struggling inner-city schools (even though he delivered the speech at Park Hill High School, far from either of those issues).

For Eilert, who is coming up for election later this year, it was all positive.

“County government has evolved over the past few years,” Eilert said, reading largely from prepared remarks. “It is leaner, more nimble, more responsive and more focused.”

His first example: Keeping the county’s property-tax rate — the lowest in Kansas — level for another year.

That tax issue will probably underscore the contrast between Eilert and Peterson in the county election.

Peterson, former Fairway mayor and longtime county commissioner representing northeast Johnson County, is risking his political career by chasing Eilert’s seat and insisting that the county is headed in the wrong direction — resting on its laurels and not investing in its future.

“There are a lot of things that we need to be looking at for the future that we’re not,” Peterson says. “The driving force and direction of the county at this point for the last few years is doing as much as we can without raising the mill levy.”

Eilert, who seemed annoyed that Peterson tried to make a media splash on the same day as his annual speech, rejected Peterson’s position.

“I disagree with him completely that the county is standing pat,” Eilert told The Pitch shortly after his speech.

Eilert added that Peterson wants to increase the mill levy, and he painted his challenger as a taxer and a spender in a mostly Republican county whose residents recoil at the prospect of higher tax bills.

“The biggest difference between Ed Peterson and myself is his first choice has always been to raise taxes,” Eilert says.

Taxes don’t concern only GOP-minded Johnson Countians, many of whom live in the comfort of sculpted suburban subdivisions, but also a growing percentage of those who are struggling. The county is approaching 40,000 residents who live below the federal poverty line, bucking the stereotype of Johnson County’s universal affluence.

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Peterson disputes Eilert’s characterization that he’s jumping at the opportunity to increase the mill levy. But Peterson, a progressive (Eilert is a more traditional Republican), says discussing changes to the mill levy has to be part of the conversation if county government wants to keep delivering services to its residents.

During budget discussions, Peterson says, the county won’t even entertain the possibility of increasing taxes because a majority of commissioners won’t hear of the possibility of a mill levy increase.

“We’ve basically got a fixed amount of reve­nue year after year as costs go up,” Peterson says. “There’s no evaluation of things like, do we need to be investing in our arterials in the rural areas. There’s no discussion like that.”

In his county speech, Eilert said the county has avoided a reduction of services, although that’s not entirely true. County finances have remained relatively stable in part from holding the line on such budget expenditures as libraries, transit and parks.

“In the parks budget, all of their capital goes strictly for repair and maintenance,” Peterson says. “There’s no capital money for any kind of enhancement to a park facility.”

Eilert says the county had to streamline as a consequence of the recession. But the county still gives residents the services they expect, he says, adding that Peterson seems to strain in order to find critical campaign issues.

“He had to go a long ways to dig up that information,” Eilert tells The Pitch.

Their differing tax positions may have more to do with political experience than talking points.

Peterson was the Fairway mayor from 1993 to 2002, having previously served as a city councilman. While Fairway today is an appealing suburban hamlet very near the Country Club Plaza, it is a city that dealt with growing commercial blight in the late 1980s and early ’90s.

While Peterson was mayor, the city issued bonds to fix declining areas, particularly the small but visible Fairway Shops corridor along Shawnee Mission Parkway, from Belinder Avenue to Mission Road. A temporary sales-tax increase, which Fairway voters passed, was designed to repay the bonds. The original bonds were supposed to be paid off within three and five years. Instead, they were retired in 18 months, and the sales tax went away.

“My belief is, we need to do the government services well, and I think our residents expect to do them well,” Peterson says. “Where Ed and I probably differ is, he thinks the approach needs to be on how much you’re spending. My focus is on, are you doing it as well as it needs to be done.”

Eilert, on the other hand, was mayor of Overland Park for almost a quarter century, from 1981 to 2005. He presided over the city’s transition from a sleepy suburb to the state’s second-largest city. All the while, the city’s property taxes remained low. Today, Overland Park has the lowest mill levy in Johnson County.

But Eilert has acknowledged that the county could find itself in enough of a financial hole that even he would advocate for a tax increase.

The Kansas Senate passed a bill that would eliminate the mortgage registration fee, which assesses 26 cents from every $1,000 a Johnson Countian borrows to buy a house and sends it to the county’s general fund. Without it, Johnson County loses about $17 million a year. Eilert has gone on record saying that eliminating the fee could mean a tax hike or drastic cuts in services.

“This bill would shift the cost of a business transaction that benefits the mortgage industry on to the general taxpayer,” Eilert says.

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Senate Bill 298 cleared the Senate on March 19 with support from Johnson County senators Mary Pilcher-Cook, Julia Lynn, Rob Olson and Jeff Melcher. It has since been referred to the House Committee on Taxation.

The State of the County address would have been a good place for Eilert to take a public stand against the bill, but he didn’t bring it up.

If Eilert is concerned, he’s keeping a poker face. That’s despite Peterson’s raising more money during the last campaign-finance reporting cycle.

Eilert does carry a big brand name in Johnson County.

“Eilert has been on the ballot since the beginning of time, running for something or the other,” says Larry Winn, a lawyer and prominent civic figure in Johnson County. “He would be difficult to beat, I think.”

Eilert was elected to the Board of County Commissioners in 2006 for one of the three commission districts that include Overland Park. With that lofty Overland Park voting bloc, Eilert ousted Annabeth Surbaugh from the commission chairmanship in 2010. Surbaugh was a popular commissioner but couldn’t compete with Eilert’s name recognition.

The 2014 race for chairperson will feature a primary with former state Rep. Patricia Lightner joining the race. Lightner is expected to court conservative votes from Olathe and western Shawnee.

Peterson will attract progressive voters, but the primary election August 5 coincides with state representative primaries, meaning that Republicans will go to the polls en masse, making it difficult for the county-chairman race to rise above the noise of Statehouse contests.

“It’s amazing to me that you have an elected position that hardly anyone knows anything about that controls a lot of money,” says John Segale, a former commissioner and Shawnee councilman who came in last in the 2010 chairman’s primary election.

Still, Peterson says he’s upbeat about his chances.

“I believe the response so far has been very positive,” Peterson says. “We out-fundraised Ed Eilert in the first funding session. In terms of getting the message out in these local campaigns, people don’t focus on those until you get closer to the election.”

The general election is set for November 4.