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Bourbon County

County Clerk Susan Walker’s Resignation Statement

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Bourbon County Clerk Susan Walker announced her resignation at Monday night’s county commission meeting. Her last day will be Aug. 31, ending 24 years of service in Bourbon County.

Walker provided FortScott.biz with the text of the statement she read to commissioners. Her statement appears below.

For 24 years, I have had the honor — and the burden — of serving this community. It has been a journey of victories and valleys, of moments that tested my resolve and moments that renewed my hope.

Today, I stand before you with a heavy heart but a clear conscience, to announce that I will be stepping down from my position as County Clerk, effective 08/31/26. This decision has not been made lightly. It comes after deep reflection, prayer, and an unwavering commitment to act in the best interest of the county I have been honored to serve.

From the very beginning, my compass has been my faith. 1 Peter 4:10 states “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s grace” I have tried to live up to God’s guidance— imperfectly at times — and I have had the solemn responsibility of serving this community. The path has been marked by both achievement and adversity, by moments of unity and moments of division.

Public service, for me, has never been about titles or power. It has been about stewardship — caring for what God has entrusted me to do – helping the people he has placed in my path.

I know this past year has been difficult. There has been disagreement, disappointment, and even anger. I will not ignore that reality.

But I also believe that God’s plans are bigger for me. Leadership requires the discernment to know when one’s continued presence advances the mission — and when stepping aside will better serve the people. I believe this is such a moment.

Over these two and a half decades, I have been blessed to work alongside dedicated employees, citizens, visionary leaders, and many volunteers. Together – and I emphasize that word – , we have:

  • Led a visioning process that transformed our dreams into the Riverfront Park — a place where families gather, memories are made, and our community comes alive.
  • As a community we set world records that put our town on the map and reminded us of the joy of coming together.
  • Recognized the need for a new aquatic center, giving our children and families a safe, modern place to swim, play, and grow.
  • Understood the importance of passing a school bond referendum for USD 234, investing in the future of our students and teachers.
  • Invested and secured a new facility for City Hall, ensuring our local government can serve the public more effectively for years to come.

In 2021, I was hired to address the financial deficiencies that had plagued Bourbon County for years — deficiencies that had led to repeated failed audits. This also led to many uncomfortable conversations, poor financial controls and political figures refusing to cooperate due to pride. However, through diligence those deficiencies have been corrected. Our audits had been clean since 2022. However, in 2025 a violation occurred when the commission failed to pass an amended budget.

As a citizen, I must speak candid: the future of Bourbon County rests in the hands of the current commission. If better fiscal decisions are not made — if discipline and foresight are not applied — this county will face serious trouble in the near future. This is a statement I have stated for the past 2-3 years. Many decisions have been made from vindictiveness, and the citizens will be the ones to ultimately pay for those decisions.

Chairman, I’m addressing you directly because your behavior toward me has crossed every reasonable line. You ignore me, you speak to me with open disrespect, and you make sexist comments that demean my position and my work. On top of that, you make underhanded public statements designed to make people think I’m doing something criminal when I am not. I have left my office in order, in balance with the Treasurer and it is unfortunate I must state this because of the attempts for past and current elected officials who tried to “set me up” for a crime. One I did not commit – instead it reflects incompetent leadership and a misunderstanding of how processes work.

This is unacceptable. It’s harmful. And it violates the basic standards of professionalism and integrity that your position requires. I’ve served this community for 2 decades, and I will not sit quietly while you attempt to undermine my reputation and my work…so, I will be taking a deep dive tonight to talk about my feelings and reveal the truth.

Accountability goes both ways and I am not ashamed for standing up for the employees, uncovering questionable transactions, exposing incompetent elected officials, and addressing plain hate.

Misinformed citizens and two of you on this commission wanted to break me and ruin my reputation – My response is – thank you for freeing me.

These past few years the political climate has taken a toll not only on me but also my staff. They will also be transferring out of the clerk’s office to another elected officials office at the end of this week.

My decision to step down was decided a month ago when I took another job and that is to mark a definitive boundary to protect my personal well-being and prioritize God and my family over public office.

My staff and I stayed to see the election through, and I thank them for continuing to stick it out despite all the public scrutiny. When the public attacks me for errors or mistakes they are also attacking the workers at the election and my staff.

Blaming elected officials from behind a keyboard is easy. Doing nothing for the community and then complaining about its problems doesn’t help anyone. If someone isn’t willing to show up, volunteer, or contribute in any way, then they’re choosing to be part of the problem, not the solution.

And to those keyboard warriors—I challenge you to volunteer at the next general election in November. Step up and be part of the work, not just the noise.

No public office is worth the destruction of one’s peace and well-being.

My prayer for the employees of Bourbon County is that leadership will recognize the dedicated, hardworking people they have — and show them the gratitude, respect, and support they so richly deserve.

I pray for the people who quietly step up and serve this community, even when it’s tough. Many stay silent because they’ve seen the abuse and criticism that one can face. But your strength matters. Your courage matters. And your work is what keeps this community moving forward.

I pray you don’t lose heart. I pray you keep showing up. Because it’s the ones who continue to serve—despite the noise—who make this community better.

I want to thank the employees and citizens who have supported my family, me, and my staff through this rough journey – I will miss you and the career I deeply treasured.

Deputy Clerk, Michael Hoyt, will finish the meeting tonight and will fill the office until the republican party appoints a new County Clerk.

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Breaking News: Bourbon County Clerk Resigns

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Susan Walker announced her resignation at the  Bourbon County commission meeting at 6:33 pm on Monday August 10th, 2026. Her last day will be August 31st.

She specifically pointed to  incompetent leadership and lack of integrity on the part of Commissioner Tran as one of the reasons for resignation.

The staff from the clerks office will also be transferring elsewhere.

Susan said Deputy Clerk Michael Hoyt will finish the meeting and fill the office until another clerk is appointed by the Republican party.

Fort Scott

Fort Scott commission drops a closed-door session over a group it could not confirm exists

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FORT SCOTT — The Fort Scott City Commission abandoned a planned closed-door session on Aug. 4 after the city attorney and two commissioners said they could not confirm that the outside group named on the public agenda actually exists.

The published agenda listed an executive session with the “Bourbon County Development Group.” Commissioner Matthew Wells moved to recess into that session under the exception in KSA 75-4319 covering the financial affairs or trade secrets of corporations, partnerships, trusts and individual proprietorships.

City Attorney Bob Farmer stopped the motion with a question. “Is that the name of the group? Are they incorporated? Do we have that information?” he asked. Wells answered: “That I cannot answer.”

Commissioner Tracy Dancer then said he had checked. “There is no LLC registered with the Kansas Secretary of State called Bourbon County Development Group,” he said. He added that the statutory exception Wells had cited did not appear to fit, because there was “no corporation, partnership, trust, or individual proprietorship” to discuss.

Farmer pointed to the commission’s recent open-meetings training and to a past complaint. The commission had been “challenged by a citizen that, what we did and talked about was later considered to be inappropriate,” he said. “I’d rather not put us in that position again. I don’t know what we’re gonna talk about and I shouldn’t.” Later in the exchange he was blunter about the stakes: “that’s the problem is that we got in trouble with the Attorney General’s office for very similar stuff.”

Commissioner Tim Van Hoecke said residents had already noticed that “on the agenda, the public agenda, it says with the Bourbon County Development Group of which it doesn’t exist anywhere.” “So I don’t know where that name came from, but that is absolutely a valid concern because I’ve already had a couple of people call me.” Commissioner Julie Buchta said she had fielded the same question.

Wells defended the request, arguing the identity question would have answered itself behind closed doors. “Had we gone into an executive session, you would have found out who they were and what they were offering to do,” he said, adding that he was not the authorized representative for the organization and could not speak for it.

No commissioner seconded the motion. “Mayor, the executive session failed for the lack of a second,” Van Hoecke said, noting that “the guest that was going to attend is left.” The commission moved on to unfinished business without discussing the proposal in open session.

Wells returned to the question later in the meeting to put a formal objection on the record. Citing the same statute, he said “a specific company name is not required for an executive session,” and told colleagues: “So what we did was wrong. The executive session was called the correct way according to the KSA.”

FortScott.biz reached out to Clifton Beth, who had asked for the session, to find out what he wanted to discuss. Beth said it would have covered two unrelated projects: a residential development and a larger commercial one.

The housing proposal involved land now outside the city that the owner was willing to have annexed, Beth said, with 40 or more units — most likely duplexes aimed at the rental market rather than single-family houses, which he said are hard to build in Fort Scott and sell for more than they cost to put up. The plan depended on connecting to the city sewer system, which would allow more units per acre than county lateral-field requirements permit, and on pursuing a Rural Housing Incentive District, a state program that puts the increase in property tax revenue toward infrastructure such as sewers. Annexation would also have brought the property and adjacent buildings onto the city tax rolls, he said.

Beth said he asked for a closed session because the investor did not want his name made public and because the discussion would have covered costs and the location of the site. He says he was using Bourbon County Development Group as a DBA, and would have set up a separate entity for the project if it advanced. He disagrees with the reading of the statute offered at the meeting, he said, because the exception also covers an individual proprietorship. He said he did not accept the commission’s stated reason for refusing, attributing the decision instead to friction between himself and members of the commission.

Beth said he couldn’t discuss the commercial project in detail, saying only that it involves an out-of-state partner and that Fort Scott is one of several communities being considered. The housing project is now on hold. He said his partner’s response was that they could build somewhere else.

Confusion on voting outcome

Later in the meeting the commission twice recorded 2-2 votes with one abstention, then could not agree whether either motion had passed.

Both concerned items where Dancer had stepped aside. When Dancer began to move a rewrite of the city’s alcohol ordinance, City Manager Brad Matkin interrupted to raise a conflict. Dancer said he does not own an establishment but is the owner’s husband, and confirmed the business was the Green Lantern. “I think that’s a conflict of interest,” Matkin said. Dancer replied: “Okay, I will abstain.”

That left four voting commissioners. Salsbury moved first, asking the city attorney to draft an ordinance matching state terminology so that businesses serving alcohol pay the licensing fee once, either to the state or to the city. Wells voted against it, Dancer abstained, and Salsbury and Buchta voted yes. It wasn’t clear what Van Hoecke’s vote was on that motion.

Wells then offered a competing motion, to amend section 5.08.040 to include drinking establishments and keep the city’s occupancy tax in place. That was the motion that split evenly. City Clerk Lisa Lewis recorded it as passing, saying the abstention “goes toward what the motion was in favor of.” Wells agreed: “the rules clearly state that in the case of a tie, an abstention is a yes vote.” Van Hoecke read the commission’s code of procedure the opposite way. “The way I read it, if it’s a 2-2 and an abstention, it dies,” he said.

The same split recurred on a motion by Buchta to require every contractor working inside the city limits to hold a city license and show proof of insurance, with homeowners still pulling their own permits. When the tally again came out 2-2 with one abstention, Van Hoecke said he had run an AI search on the question, which told him the motion failed. Wells objected that the answer carried no authority: “Right, but that’s the AI’s interpretation.”

Van Hoecke acknowledged the point and said the city’s own code of procedure runs long enough that he had not finished reading it. Both motions were left standing as passed for the time being, and he said he may bring motions to reconsider at the next meeting once he has read the rule in full.

Also at the meeting

The commission approved Ordinance No. 3800 renewing the electric franchise with Evergy Kansas South at a 6 percent franchise fee, on a 4-1 vote with Wells opposed. Matkin told commissioners that “6% is as high as they will go,” and confirmed the revenue goes into the general fund.

Commissioners approved a proposal from Fort Scott Police Lt. Jason Eastwood to convert the city-owned Gunn Park House into a child services center, so investigators no longer have to drive child victims out of the county for forensic interviews and so children taken into protective custody have somewhere other than the police station to wait. Eastwood, a 16-year veteran of the department, asked for approval and permission to chase outside money rather than for city funds. The motion authorized the department to pursue grant funding and other financial resources.

Commissioners also approved the July 7 consent agenda they had tabled at the previous meeting, after the finance office traced an inflated expense figure to a duplicated date range. Dancer said the total presented in July had been $1,112,893, roughly $670,000 too high; the corrected figure is about $442,000. The July 21 meeting had tabled the item over a duplicated rescue-truck expenditure appearing on two financial reports.

On investments, the commission approved placing $250,000 in a certificate of deposit with Union State Bank and authorized Matkin to place up to $2 million more with the other bidder at 3.85 percent, subject to confirmation from the city’s financial staff. The action closes out a question left open on July 21, when the commission rescinded its own motion accepting Union State’s bid and tabled the matter after learning the bank would take only $250,000 rather than the full $2 million.

Cory Bryars and Teresa Davenport of the cancer-support nonprofit Care2Share told commissioners the group has paid out more than $72,000 so far in 2026 across more than 1,500 separate payments, a figure Bryars said is up about 50 percent year over year. The group gave out $118,000 last year and is tracking toward almost $150,000 in 2026. Bryars said the organization needs volunteers, particularly drivers.

The commission also settled a dispute over $15,000 for economic development. Commissioners concluded the city could not simply withdraw the money from the land bank, which operates as an independent agency. Wells compared the idea to telling the public library the city was taking $15,000 without asking. Matkin proposed an alternative and no commissioner objected: rather than a formal vote, he said he would have the finance manager “take $15,000 out of general fund reserves” and move it into the land bank, adding, “I’ll take care of that tomorrow.”

In closing comments, commissioners returned to a tension between two of the city’s biggest ambitions. The commission backed a $4 million rodeo arena project in July. Dancer said the Bourbon County Commission’s vote not to spend money reclaiming the hospital building worried him, and argued the rodeo arena should not be the top priority while the hospital’s future is unsettled, because “nobody will book in a venue where there isn’t ready access to a an emergency room.” He suggested the city consider building a facility it could lease or sell to Freeman to keep an emergency room and a 10-bed hospital in town.

Matkin pushed back, saying that delaying the arena to build a hospital would mean the arena never gets built, and that people are already stepping up to fund it. He said he meets with Freeman next week and wants to hear the company’s plans directly rather than secondhand. Dancer answered that the city “didn’t hear it from Mercy either until it was too late to do anything about it.”

Consideration of the blighted property at 118 E. Wall was pulled from the agenda, with commissioners citing personal circumstances involving the owner. Farmer discussed receivership and land-bank routes for addressing such properties.

Earlier the same evening the commission held a work session on building a written performance evaluation for the city manager, comparing forms used by other Kansas municipalities and discussing how to weight categories and whether to include a self-assessment.

Bourbon County

Court Told Agreement Coming In Shane Walker’s Lawsuit

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The two sides in former Bourbon County chief information officer Shane Walker’s federal lawsuit have told the court they reached an agreement to settle it. On August 3, the court closed the case with a one-page order that begins: “The parties have advised the Court that they have reached an agreement settling this case in its entirety.”

That report is the basis for the closure. The order gives no other information about the agreement: no dollar amount, no terms. A settlement is not an admission of liability, and the court did not rule on the merits of any of Walker’s ten claims. The complaint’s disputed allegations were never decided in court.

Closed, but not dismissed

An administrative closing is not a dismissal, and an agreement reported to the court is not the same as a final dismissal. The order directs the clerk to “administratively terminate this action without prejudice” and gives the parties until September 3, 2026 to file a stipulation of dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a). Until then, the parties may ask to reopen the case for good cause. If September 3 passes with no stipulation and no request to reopen, the order says it “shall constitute the Court’s entry of final judgment of dismissal with prejudice” under Rule 41(a)(2); a dismissal with prejudice generally bars refiling the claims.

By September 3, one of three things happens: the parties file dismissal papers and the case ends; someone asks to reopen it; or neither happens and the closure becomes a final dismissal automatically.

How far the case got

The county and the individual defendants answered the complaint on June 23 and never filed a motion to dismiss. On July 8, Magistrate Judge Angel D. Mitchell put the case on a scheduling track: the two sides were to confer by July 24 about, among other things, “the possibilities of settling or resolving the case,” submit a proposed scheduling order by August 3, and appear for a scheduling conference on August 13. No scheduling order was ever entered. On August 3, the court closed the case instead. No discovery filings appear on the docket (initial disclosures are exchanged between the parties rather than filed).

What the suit alleged

Walker worked for the county from December 2005 until July 9, 2025, when the commission voted unanimously to eliminate his position. His complaint alleged he was on approved FMLA leave when it happened, and that the real reason was retaliation for discrimination complaints that he and his wife, County Clerk Susan Walker, had filed against the county. The elected Register of Deeds rehired him that November, at $16 an hour, down from a salary of $88,616.84, according to the complaint. His ten counts spanned breach of contract, the Kansas Wage Payment Act, four Title VII retaliation counts, First Amendment free-speech and association claims, Fourteenth Amendment due process, and FMLA retaliation and interference; he sued the Board of County Commissioners, Commissioners Sam Tran, Mika Milburn-Kee and David Beerbower, and HR contractor Dr. Steve Cohen. The defendants denied the retaliation claims, describing the job elimination as a lawful layoff, and raised defenses including qualified immunity. Our earlier coverage: the complaint, and the county’s answer.

The case is Walker v. Bourbon County, Kansas, Board of Commissioners et al., No. 6:26-cv-01057, U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas. The closure order is posted here; the scheduling order is here.

Bourbon County, Elections

Unofficial Results: Three Votes Separate Hueston and Owenby

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Three votes separate Mike Hueston and Lyle K. (Pete) Owenby in the Republican primary for Bourbon County Commissioner District 1, according to the unofficial results the Bourbon County Clerk’s office posted after Tuesday’s primary election. Countywide, 2,908 ballots were cast.

The race is too close to call, and none of these numbers are final. Provisional ballots are not included in the unofficial totals; the county Board of Canvassers decides which of them count and makes the results official at the canvass, which the Bourbon County Monitor reports is scheduled for Aug. 17. The Monitor also reported that County Clerk Susan Walker said the number of outstanding provisional ballots would be released Wednesday. Under a recent change in Kansas law, mailed advance ballots had to be in by 7 p.m. on Election Day to count. FortScott.biz published a step-by-step walkthrough of how the county counts, reconciles and canvasses ballots in June.

County Commissioner: unofficial totals

District 1, Republican

Candidate Votes Vote %
Mike Hueston 163 42.67%
Lyle K. (Pete) Owenby 160 41.88%
Lisa Dillon 59 15.45%

The nominee will appear on the November general election ballot with Clinton L. Walker of Mapleton, unopposed in the Democratic primary.

District 1, Democratic

Candidate Votes Vote %
Clinton L. Walker 88 100.00%

District 3, Republican

Candidate Votes Vote %
Joe Allen 307 65.60%
Josh Jones 161 34.40%

The results report lists Jones as Joshua Jones; he filed as Josh Jones. No Democrat filed for District 3; the Democratic primary line recorded six write-in votes.

District 4, Republican

Candidate Votes Vote %
Gregg Motley 427 100.00%

No Democrat filed for District 4; the Democratic line recorded 12 write-in votes.

Township clerk: unofficial totals

All township clerk candidates ran as Republicans; no Democrat filed for any township clerk office. Marion Township was the only contested race. In the county’s other townships no candidate filed, and those races recorded only scattered write-in votes.

Township Candidate Votes
Drywood Laura Krom 67
Marion Michael Ramsey 100
Marion Brent M. Smith 61
Scott Donald Banwart 438
Timberhill Jennifer Epting Williams 32

Contested precinct committee races: unofficial totals

Five Republican precinct committee races drew more than one candidate.

Race Candidate Votes
7th Ward Committeeman Robert S. Love 79
7th Ward Committeeman Michael Hoyt 73
Drywood Committeewoman Vickie Shead 67
Drywood Committeewoman Laura Krom 18
Marmaton D2 Committeeman Jeffrey L. Reed 68
Marmaton D2 Committeeman Micheal Bryant 23
Osage Committeeman Marvin Creager 47
Osage Committeeman Joshua Kee 22
Timberhill Committeeman Timothy H. Emerson Sr. 20
Timberhill Committeeman Brandon Whisenhunt 18

What happens next

The Board of Canvassers will review provisional ballots before certifying the official results. In a race as close as the District 1 Republican primary, those ballots could matter. FortScott.biz will report the official totals after the canvass.

The full unofficial report, “Statement of Votes Cast by Geography,” is posted on the Bourbon County website. It also includes Bourbon County’s votes in the federal, state and statewide-ballot-question primaries; those contests are decided by voters beyond Bourbon County, and the county’s numbers alone do not determine their outcomes.

Bourbon County

Bourbon County Appraiser Matt Quick Resigns

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Bourbon County Appraiser Matt Quick has resigned, with his last working day set for August 18. In a letter emailed to all five county commissioners Monday evening, Quick said he and his wife “have been presented with an exciting opportunity to embark on a new life adventure,” and called leaving the office “bittersweet.”

The letter, sent shortly after 5 p.m. on Monday, August 3, was addressed to the commission and copied to the County Clerk’s office, Treasurer Jennifer Hawkins, and the Register of Deeds.

The office he leaves. The county appraiser values all taxable real and personal property in Bourbon County each year, houses, farmland, commercial buildings, vehicles, and business equipment. Those valuations are the base on which the county, cities, school districts, and other taxing entities levy property taxes. Under Kansas law (K.S.A. 19-430), the appraiser is appointed by resolution of the county commission for a four-year term, and an appointee must have at least three years of mass appraisal experience and hold a state credential, either the Registered Mass Appraiser (RMA) designation Quick mentions in his letter, or a certified general real property appraiser’s license.

Quick’s letter counts eight years of service to the community. Commission records show he has led the office since July 2021, when commissioners named him interim county appraiser by Resolution 22-21; a Kansas Department of Revenue compliance reviewer praised his work before the commission that December, and his reappointment to a new four-year term came before the commission in the summer of 2025.

His departure is one of two from the office this month: Quick writes that his personal property manager is also leaving, with a last day of August 14. He notes that no state reports or analysis are due until October, which he says gives the commission time to find a replacement who can do their own analysis for the 2027 tax year, and that Matthew Booker, the county’s district representative with the state Property Valuation Division, will guide commissioners through candidates.

His letter follows in full.

Dear Commissioners,

After much thought and consideration, I am formally submitting my resignation as County Appraiser for Bourbon County, with my last working day being August 18, 2026.

Serving this community for the past eight years has been both an honor and a privilege. I am deeply grateful for the trust placed in me, the collaboration with dedicated colleagues, and the opportunity to contribute to the county’s growth and success.

My wife and I have been presented with an exciting opportunity to embark on a new life adventure, and while I am eager for what lies ahead, leaving this role and the people I’ve worked alongside is bittersweet.

I will be informing Matthew Booker who is our District Rep with Property Valuation Division with the state to let them know. They will be your guides for candidates to replace me as they must be an RMA with the state to qualify. My office will be self-sustainable for the next few months. There are no reports or analysis for the state that needs to be done until October. This will allow you to find a replacement and they will be able to do their own analysis for the 2027 tax year. My Personal Property manager is also leaving and last day will be on the 14th so they can find the right person for them in that position as well. My field appraisers Mike and Herb have been faithful hard-working employees that brave the elements and the people of Bourbon County and will continue to do their jobs at the highest level after I am gone. Janet my office manager has been with the county since 2008. She is a wealth of knowledge about running all aspects of the department and is a loyal and trustworthy employee. She will keep things running smoothly in my absence. I hope that the employees in my office will be treated with respect and dignity that long term dedicated assets that they deserve.

Thank you for the support, guidance, and friendship I have experienced during my tenure. Bourbon County will always hold a special place in my heart.

With sincere appreciation,

Matt Quick

The appraiser’s office is in the county courthouse at 210 S. National Ave. FortScott.biz will follow the commission’s search for a successor as it develops.

Bourbon County

No Hearing and No New Case: State Has Yet to Refile Charges Against Commissioner Milburn-Kee

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When the State dismissed its misdemeanor case against Bourbon County Commissioner Mika Milburn-Kee in late June, Senior Judge Merlin G. Wheeler’s order set Monday at 1 p.m. in Fort Scott for a first appearance and preliminary examination in the case the Kansas Attorney General’s office told the court it would refile. Five weeks later, no new case has been filed, and the Monday hearing, with no case to attach it to, never made it onto the court’s schedule.

Asked whether the hearing was going forward, the Bourbon County District Court clerk’s office replied by email Monday: “There is no hearing today. The case was dismissed.” Court staff confirmed by phone that nothing has been refiled and “there was nothing scheduled for today.”

At a June 26 pretrial conference, Senior Judge Merlin G. Wheeler denied the State’s eve-of-trial motion to add a felony Intimidation of Voters count to the two misdemeanors Milburn-Kee had faced since March. The State then dismissed the case without prejudice, telling the court it intended to refile all three charges together under a new case number. The judge’s written order, filed June 27, set the Aug. 3 date for the anticipated new case.

That case has not appeared. In Kansas district court records pulled Monday morning, a party search — run both for Bourbon County and statewide — shows no new case against Milburn-Kee. Nothing has been docketed in the dismissed case since the June 27 order. The Attorney General’s office, where Assistant Attorney General Olivia R. Higdon is prosecuting the case, has not publicly explained the delay. When FortScott.biz called the office July 27, a staff member said the only thing the office could share was that the matter was under “prosecutorial review.”

Whether and when the State will refile are open questions. One constraint is the calendar: Wheeler ordered that dismissing and refiling does not restart the speedy-trial clock, which he dated to April 15. Under Kansas’s speedy-trial law, K.S.A. 22-3402, a defendant who is out on bond must be brought to trial within 180 days of arraignment, not counting delays the defense causes — by that measure, roughly mid-October.

All of the charges stem from an Oct. 25, 2025 incident at the county commission room while it was being used as an early-voting polling place. The dismissed case charged interference with the conduct of public business, a Class A misdemeanor, and disorderly election conduct, a Class B misdemeanor that on conviction would mean forfeiture of office under K.S.A. 25-2432. The proposed third count, Intimidation of Voters, is a severity level 7 nonperson felony.

A charge is an accusation, not a finding of guilt, and Milburn-Kee, who has pleaded not guilty, is presumed innocent unless and until a jury decides otherwise. FortScott.biz will report when a new case is filed or a new hearing is set.

Bourbon County

The Virus Named for Bourbon County

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Late in the spring of 2014, a Bourbon County man was working outdoors on his property. He picked up several tick bites and found one tick on his shoulder swollen with blood.

Within a few days he felt sick to his stomach and weak, with diarrhea. A fever came the next day. On the third day he saw his primary care doctor, who prescribed doxycycline, the standard antibiotic for a suspected tick-borne illness.

The next morning his wife found him barely conscious. An ambulance took him to a local hospital, where doctors started intravenous fluids and intravenous doxycycline and kept testing him. Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Lyme disease, ehrlichiosis: they were all negative. He kept getting worse, and on the eighth day they moved him again, this time to the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City (Mitchell et al., Case Reports in Infectious Diseases, 2026), for what the 2015 report calls further evaluation and management. Two days after that he was in intensive care.

Nobody ignored his symptoms. As he failed to improve, his doctors escalated at every step: from a clinic to a local hospital to a tertiary care center in five days. They ruled out the treatable causes before transferring him.

Every test for the tick-borne illnesses anyone knew about came back negative. Two days before he died, doctors sent a sample of his blood to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lab in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Eleven days after his first symptom, he died of septic shock. His blood pressure had fallen past what three separate drugs could hold up, and his organs were shutting down (Kosoy et al., Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2015). Scientists at that CDC lab went on to find a virus never before seen in a sick person in this country.

They named it for the county the man came from. Bourbon virus.

Why the antibiotic did not work

Here is the part worth remembering. Doxycycline is an antibiotic, and antibiotics kill bacteria. They do nothing at all to a virus.

Kansas has numerous bacterial tick diseases, including Rocky Mountain spotted fever, ehrlichiosis, and tularemia. Doxycycline is the standard first-line treatment for a suspected bacterial tick illness. Bourbon virus is not bacterial, and that one difference explains most of what makes this disease dangerous.

When the CDC announced the discovery in February 2015, it said this was the first virus of its kind ever shown to make a person sick in the United States.

It comes from the lone star tick

Bourbon virus is believed to spread through the bite of an infected tick, and every known case has followed one. The only species ever confirmed to carry it is the lone star tick, identifiable by the small white dot on the female’s back. A 2023 review of the research notes that in the five cases known at that point, the species of the tick that bit each patient was never identified.

This is not a rare or exotic tick. In a 2024 advisory, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment called the lone star tick the most common tick in Kansas, living across at least the eastern two-thirds of the state and biting people aggressively.

Scientists have also found the virus in ticks collected in the wild. A CDC team tested more than 39,000 ticks collected in northwestern Missouri in 2013 and found live Bourbon virus in three batches, all of them lone star ticks (Savage et al., 2017).

The second death, also in Bourbon County

In the spring of 2024, a 63-year-old man with well-controlled diabetes was preparing hunting ground in the woods of Bourbon County. He pulled two small ticks off himself that day and found a third on his lower back two days later. None of them were swollen with blood.

A week later he nearly fainted while standing, and went to an urgent care clinic with a headache, sore muscles, no appetite, and swollen legs. His blood pressure was 67 over 54.

He reached intensive care already in multi-organ failure. Within four hours he was on maximum doses of four separate drugs to hold his blood pressure up. His kidneys gave out and he went on continuous dialysis, then onto a machine that takes over the work of the heart and lungs. They gave him doxycycline early, in case this was bacterial. It was not. CDC testing came back positive for Bourbon virus.

Late in his stay he developed a fungal pneumonia, which his doctors linked to the steroids used to fight the shock. He died on his 21st day in the hospital. The report lists that infection alongside the virus as what killed him.

His case was written up by KU Medical Center doctors and published in January 2026 (Mitchell et al., Case Reports in Infectious Diseases). The same report notes that the 2014 patient died at that hospital too. In a June 2024 advisory, state health officials wrote: “This year alone, KDHE has investigated several tickborne disease cases with severe health outcomes, including hospitalizations due to Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Tularemia, and a fatal case of Bourbon virus.”

A search of the FortScott.Biz archive found no local news coverage of this death at the time.

Two men have died of this virus after picking up ticks in Bourbon County. Their deaths were ten years apart, both at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City.

The virus is in ticks here

After his diagnosis, the state health department surveyed the man’s land.

They collected 1,253 ticks, and every single one was a lone star tick. Tested in batches, one batch came back positive for Bourbon virus, and eleven came back positive for Heartland virus, an unrelated tick-borne virus spread by the same tick, which causes a similar illness and also has no cure.

That is a finding from 2024, not a footnote from 2014. The virus remains uncommon, though. Earlier CDC surveys near Bourbon County estimated roughly 0.25 to 0.32 infections per 1,000 adult ticks, and a 2016 survey found none at all.

Map of states where Bourbon virus has been found.
Where Bourbon virus has turned up. Map: FortScott.Biz. Case data as of August 1, 2026.

How rare is it, really

Six human cases have been reported in the medical literature since 2014, in four states: Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and New York. That count comes from the January 2026 case report. The CDC’s own page, updated in June 2026, gives no running total at all.

One of the Missouri cases was a state park official whose death was linked to Bourbon virus in a March 2018 report by The Missourian, a Franklin County newspaper. That case is documented in news coverage rather than in the medical journals, and the 2023 scientific review of the virus cites the newspaper account rather than a case report.

The researchers who study it say the real number is higher. There is no commercial test for Bourbon virus, so a doctor who suspects it has to send samples through the state and then to the CDC. The Stony Brook team notes that many clinicians are unfamiliar with the virus, which raises the chance of a missed diagnosis.

When researchers went looking in stored blood samples in North Carolina, they found four people out of 518 carrying antibodies showing they had been infected at some point (Zychowski et al., 2024). That state has never had a confirmed case.

That does not mean those people got seriously ill, and some infections are probably mild. It does mean the virus reaches more people than the case count shows.

Long Island doctors reported the same kind of finding this summer. They rechecked blood from 107 patients who had a fever after a tick bite between 2019 and 2024, and two carried Bourbon virus antibodies (Bateman et al., American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 2026). One of them was New York’s first confirmed case, identified in April, a patient who had been hospitalized and assumed to have Lyme disease (Stony Brook Medicine, July 2026). Fox Weather reported that the patient recovered.

What to do about it

There is no vaccine and no drug that treats Bourbon virus. Hospitals can give fluids and treat the pain and fever, but they cannot kill the virus.

Since there is no treatment, not getting bitten is the only defense. The advice is the same as for every other tick illness. Treat clothes and boots with permethrin. Use a repellent with DEET, picaridin, oil of lemon eucalyptus, or IR3535. Tuck your pants into your socks. Shower soon after you come in. Then do a real tick check: waistband, armpits, around the ears, belly button, behind the knees, and in your hair. Check the dog too. Pull an attached tick straight out with fine-tipped tweezers, gripping close to the skin.

If you are being treated for a tick bite and not improving, tell your healthcare provider. That failure to improve is the specific clue Kansas health officials tell doctors to watch for.

Kansas health officials tell doctors to consider testing for Bourbon and Heartland viruses when a patient has a fever, a possible tick bite in the last three weeks, certain abnormal blood counts, and an illness that is not responding to doxycycline. Both Bourbon County men were given it. So was the New York patient, who was first thought to have Lyme disease.

The state also says to watch for symptoms for 30 days after a tick bite, and to tell your doctor about the bite. Kansas doctors who want testing help can call the state Epi Hotline at 877-427-7317, option 5.

Sources

Top photo: Sam Droege, USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab (public domain). Map by FortScott.Biz.

Fort Scott

The city bought the golf course with donated money. Is it self sufficient?

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Fort Scott’s budget consultant told commissioners at last week’s work session that the city’s golf course does not cover its own costs, and questioned whether the way the city runs it now is sustainable.

“The revenues that we’re generating is not going to cover the expenses,” Baker Tilly financial advisor Ben Hart told commissioners on July 27, suggesting Woodland Hills might belong back inside the general fund. (watch)

The city’s own monthly reports put numbers to it. Twice last year the general fund transferred money into the golf fund to cover its losses: $142,135.64 in September 2025 and $59,630.23 in December, $201,765.87 together. Strip those transfers out and Woodland Hills ran roughly $77,400 in the red over the eight months from May through December 2025. Through June 2026, the latest month the city has reported, the fund is down about another $44,100, with no transfer so far this year. June was its best month in a year, a $16,299 surplus.

In April, Hart told commissioners the general fund ran a deficit of roughly $987,000 in 2025, driven largely by about $476,000 in transfers out to the golf course, economic development, and parks and recreation. Of those three, the golf course took the most. Over the same eight months the city’s reports show $201,766 going to golf, $147,179 to economic development and $35,566 to recreation.

Grouped bar chart comparing what Fort Scott's Woodland Hills golf course earned against what it cost to run, by month, May 2025 through June 2026. Cost exceeds earnings in 11 of the 14 months. Earnings peak near 82,000 dollars in May 2025 and fall to about 4,700 dollars in January 2026. Annotations mark two general fund transfers, 142,000 dollars in September 2025 and 60,000 dollars in December 2025.
The gap between the bars is the loss. Cost ran ahead of income in 11 of these 14 months. Source: City of Fort Scott Monthly Activity Reports, Fund 219, filed with the May 19 and July 21, 2026 agendas.

How Fort Scott ended up owning a golf course

The city didn’t set out to be in the golf business.

When Dave Martin became city manager in 2010, people started telling him the city should buy the course before it fell apart. Others told him to stay well clear of it. The owners could no longer keep it up, and nobody else stepped forward.

Martin’s answer was to put it to the town: if residents thought the city should own it, residents should help pay for it. They did. The community raised about $350,000 toward buying and fixing up the course.

“This is what a community can do when they set their sights to work together to make something nice and better in Fort Scott,” Martin said in 2016.

The years that followed brought steady investment. The city hired PGA professional Shannon O’Neil as clubhouse manager and a superintendent, Jon Kindlesparger, to rebuild grounds Martin admitted were “in disrepair.” A new clubhouse opened in February 2016. A $65,000 cart barn went up in 2018, again paid for largely by donations. In 2019 the city’s community development director, Robert Uhler, told a chamber coffee that a bestthingsks.com list had put Woodland Hills among the top ten public golf courses in Kansas.

The course became more than a place to golf. Fort Scott High School, Uniontown High School and Fort Scott Community College teams all played there, and in FSCC’s first year with a golf program two players qualified for nationals. By 2018 the course carried 127 memberships, hosted 25 tournaments a year and logged 9,100 rounds. In 2024 the clubhouse was renamed “The Clubhouse” by public vote, got new carts and furniture, and the city floated a Fort Scott-themed miniature golf course to pull families in.

So does it make money?

Two of the city’s own officials say they had heard for years that it did. That assumption is exactly what the city set out to test, by pulling the course out of the general fund and into a fund of its own, so its revenue and costs could be seen on their own.

Mayor Kathryn Salsbury told the July 27 work session she wants it kept that way. She said she had always heard the “golf course is the only place where we make money. And then we pulled out and found out that’s not true. So I’d kind of like to keep watching it.” (watch)

City Manager Brad Matkin backed her up, saying the old claim never had evidence behind it: “when I first started, it was like we made money. And that was a statement. You didn’t have any, there’s no proof to that.” (watch) Breaking it out, he said, was the only way to find out: “because other than that, you’re just saying things.”

Commissioner Julie Buchta raised a complication worth remembering: when the course did appear to turn a profit, it may have been because maintenance was being deferred. “Didn’t we show a profit, but it’s because basically they were cutting all the fertilizer and everything out?” (watch) A golf course that stops buying fertilizer looks cheaper for a season and worse for years, which is roughly the condition the city bought it in.

The shape of the problem

The chart above shows why this is hard to fix. Woodland Hills earns real money, about $351,000 from May to December 2025, but it earns almost all of it in five months: May alone brought in $82,000 and January brought in $4,748. The cost of running the course does not follow that curve. It ran between $34,000 and $82,000 every single month, summer and winter alike, and over those same eight months the city’s own reports put the cost of running the course at $428,804 against $351,385 of income. The fund’s expense lines run from salaries, health insurance and KPERS through electricity, equipment and irrigation maintenance to fertilizer, chemicals, sand and gravel. The 2026 budget had to add money for fertilizer and chemicals as prices rose.

The city has kept putting money in, and has looked for more out. In February commissioners raised what tournaments pay. Groups booking an event are charged per player, and the city caps what any single event pays for the day: the per-player fee went from $30 to $35, and the cap on one day’s tournament from $4,500 to $7,000. Those terms sit on the city’s golf event application rather than the published green-fee rates, so most golfers never see them; the change falls on the large charity and fundraiser tournaments the course hosts; as of 2018 it held about 25 a year. On July 21 they took $31,000 out of general fund reserves for a used 2021 Ventrac mower, after the 2012 machine failed and its parts were discontinued.

And the 2027 budget now in front of the commission sets aside nothing to cover golf course losses — only the annual golf cart lease. “There’s nothing budgeted here to transfer over for any kind of losses in the golf course,” Hart said. (watch)

Which leaves an unanswered question on the table as budget hearings approach: if the course again spends more than it takes in during 2027, where does that money come from? Hart said he and a Baker Tilly colleague would start producing a running profit-and-loss statement for the course so commissioners can follow it line by line.

The next budget work session is August 18. The public hearing and adoption are set for September 15.

Reporting from the city’s published recordings of its July 21 and July 27, 2026 commission meetings, the 2027 budget presentation filed with the July 27 agenda, the city’s Monthly Activity Reports for Fund 219 filed with the May 19 and July 21, 2026 agendas, and fortscott.biz coverage from 2016 to 2024.

Fort Scott

Fort Scott’s 2027 budget: flat tax rate, but a one-time land sale props up the balance

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Fort Scott’s city commission spent about 35 minutes on Monday, July 27, on a proposed 2027 budget that closes a projected shortfall: on paper, it balances. How it balances is what commissioners kept circling back to.

According to the budget presentation filed with the meeting agenda, the plan holds the general fund levy flat at 35.023 mills — the largest piece of a city property tax rate that totalled 43.382 mills in the 2026 budget and moves the general fund from a projected $231,000 deficit to a $40,000 surplus. It gets there partly through belt-tightening — holding two police positions and one fire position vacant, and limiting capital purchases — and partly by applying $500,000 it hopes to raise from selling lake lots to debt — which the city scores as $134,733 of recurring relief a year, not as $500,000 of operating money. It also funds a 3% wage increase and absorbs a 15% jump in health insurance.

City of Fort Scott Budget Highlights slide listing 2027 budget development highlights: maintain 35.023 mill levy; improve General Fund from a 231 thousand dollar deficit to a 40 thousand dollar surplus; apply 500 thousand dollars of lake lot sale proceeds to debt reduction; hold 2 police and 1 fire position vacant; limit capital purchases and focus on core services; fund a 3 percent wage adjustment and absorb a 15 percent health insurance increase.
The plan in the city’s own words. Source: City of Fort Scott 2027 budget presentation, filed with the July 27 agenda.

That $500,000 is money the city only gets once, and Baker Tilly financial advisor Ben Hart, who presented the budget, was direct about why he wants it spent on debt rather than daily operations.

The thinking behind the lake lots, he told commissioners, is that the money has to go to retiring debt — it cannot pay for day-to-day operations. “It’s also a one-time revenue source. And that’s it. You only get it once. You match that up with a one-time expense that would benefit the general fund, what that does is eliminate $134,000 in debt service payments out of the general fund.” (watch)

City Manager Brad Matkin said the lots are already surveyed: “The lake lots that he’s talking about are the five that have already been staked out. … It’s on the east side at the very end, be the north end.” (watch)

City of Fort Scott slide titled One-Time Financial Actions showing a four-step flow: 500 thousand dollars from lake lot sales, used to retire fire pumper and ladder truck debt, producing 134,733 dollars of estimated annual debt service reduction, described as recurring relief that turns one-time revenue into ongoing budget capacity.
The city’s own diagram of the plan: a one-time $500,000 land sale retires fire truck debt, which the city says cuts debt service by $134,733 every year. Source: City of Fort Scott 2027 budget presentation.

What if the lots don’t sell

Mayor Kathryn Salsbury asked the obvious question: “What if we don’t sell any lots like that?” (watch)

Hart said the city would fall back on money coming from Bourbon County for dispatch services — using part of that payment to cover the shortfall. Earlier he had said that would have to “take place for the next three or four years” (watch) (watch), for as long as the debt is outstanding.

That county payment isn’t in the budget at all. “Keep in mind, what we try to do is keep the dispatch payment from the county out of the general fund entirely,” Hart said. “Right now it’s not accounted for anywhere in the 27 budget.” (watch)

It also isn’t spare change. Hart described it as “reserved for future, well, really economic development,” pointing to the rodeo initiative the commission had announced as the sort of thing that might offset falling sales tax. (watch) So if the lake lots don’t sell, the trade-off isn’t free: money the city has been holding for possible future economic-development priorities would go to old debt instead.

Commissioner Julie Buchta pushed on whether early payoff actually saves anything. “What are we paying in interest? I mean, if we pay off those debts, are we trying to remember what our interest rate is?” she asked. (watch) Hart said the two trucks involved — a fire pumper and a ladder truck, according to the presentation — are near the end of their payment schedules, so the interest avoided would be roughly $75,000 in total over the remaining term. That is a separate figure from the recurring saving: the city puts the annual debt service reduction at $134,733 a year.

The other flashpoint was the municipal golf course, which the city pulled into its own fund to see whether it makes money. It doesn’t, and the 2027 budget sets aside nothing to cover its losses — only the annual golf cart lease (watch). We will look at the golf course, and how Fort Scott came to own it, in a separate story.

City of Fort Scott General Fund Snapshot slide with two pie charts. Revenues: property taxes 33 percent, sales taxes 30 percent, franchise taxes 14 percent, all other 23 percent. Expenses: personnel services 69 percent, contractual services 17 percent, debt service 7 percent, commodities 6 percent, capital outlay 1 percent, miscellaneous 0 percent.
Where general fund money comes from, and where it goes. Source: City of Fort Scott 2027 budget presentation.

Where the money comes from

Per the presentation, about 33% of general fund revenue is property tax and about 30% is sales tax, with franchise taxes at 14%. Personnel is roughly 69% of general fund spending — Fort Scott is, as Hart described it, a “service driven industry.” The plan assumes sales tax falls about $118,930 and franchise taxes about $134,944, including roughly $75,000 less in electric franchise tax.

The general fund should end the year with about $1.2 million in reserve — around 17.7% of spending, or about 65 days of operating money. “That’s if all revenue stopped and ceased to exist,” Hart said, “you’d have 65 days operating reserve to continue to maintain services.” (watch)

What’s next

Commissioners asked for a 2026 year-end forecast, a list of contractual services above about $10,000, and a clearer comparison of paying cash versus borrowing. Hart reminded them the choices are theirs. “This is the city administrator’s budget. You come up with what priorities look like. Our job is to set them up for you and give you the data necessary to make that decision.” (watch)

The budget calendar filed with the agenda sets the next work session for August 18, with the public hearing and adoption on September 15.

Based on the city’s published recording of the July 27, 2026 budget work session and the budget presentation filed with that meeting’s agenda. 

Bourbon County, Elections

Clerk Drops Recall Lawsuit, Waives Any Future Challenge to the Petition

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Bourbon County Clerk Susan Walker has dropped the lawsuit she filed in May to invalidate the petition seeking her recall, ending the case hours before a hearing that had been scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.

A Stipulation of Dismissal was electronically filed at 9:48 a.m. on July 28 in Bourbon County District Court, and District Judge Richard M. Fisher Jr. signed it the same morning. The case, Walker v. Crux (BB-2026-CV-000048), is dismissed with prejudice, meaning Walker cannot bring it again.

A motion hearing had been set for 1:30 p.m. that same day. Court records now show it canceled.

Walker sued on May 22, arguing the recall petition circulated against her was invalid because County Attorney James Crux never issued the written legal-sufficiency determination that K.S.A. 25-4322(b) requires. Her position was that Crux reviewed and rejected an earlier draft but never independently reviewed the amended version that was actually circulated for signatures. She asked the court to declare the petition invalid and to block any recall election based on it.

She originally named Crux along with three recall committee members, Kyle R. Parks, Kevin Wagner and Lyle K. Owenby, then narrowed the case to Crux alone. The three members were dismissed on May 29 and spent June asking the court to let them rejoin.

By July the case had three fully briefed motions waiting on the judge: the committee members’ motion to intervene, Wagner’s motion to set aside the order dismissing the committee, and Crux’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, which asked the court to rule the petition legally sufficient and let it go to the voters. Walker had filed her response to that motion on July 8.

The stipulation was filed under K.S.A. 60-241 by all parties who had appeared in the case. It sets out four terms:

  • Walker agrees to pay the proposed intervenors eight hundred dollars.
  • Walker waives all future legal claims challenging the Petition to Recall Susan E. Walker or process related to it.
  • The proposed intervenors agree to withdraw their motion to intervene.
  • The proposed intervenors waive all claims against Walker for attorney’s fees.

The document is signed by Jonathan L. Ehrlich for Walker, Jacob D. Bielenberg for Crux, and Patrick B. Hughes for the three committee members, who are represented by both Patrick B. Hughes and Quinn M. Hughes.

None of the three contested motions was ever decided.

That distinction matters. Crux’s motion for judgment on the pleadings asked the court to hold that the recall petition was legally sufficient, which was the central legal question in the case. The court never reached it. A judge did not uphold the petition; the challenge to it was withdrawn and waived by the person who brought it.

The motion to intervene was likewise never granted or denied. The committee members withdrew it themselves as part of the agreement. Wagner’s motion to set aside was never decided either.

One note for readers who look the case up themselves: the state’s public case-search portal lists the July 28 disposition as “Dismissed for Lack of Prosecution.” That label does not match the signed order, which is a stipulated dismissal agreed to by every party and entered while the case was actively briefed and set for hearing. The filed document is the authoritative record.

Timeline and documents

For readers who want the fuller history, here are the key filings and our prior coverage, in order:

Background: the recall petition and the clerk’s public statement on the recall.

Read the newest filing: Stipulation of Dismissal (PDF), filed and signed July 28, 2026 in Bourbon County District Court, Case No. BB-2026-CV-000048.

Being named in a lawsuit is not a finding of wrongdoing, and the filings described here reflect each party’s arguments, not the court’s conclusions. FortScott.biz will continue to follow the recall.

Fort Scott

Fort Scott backs a $4 million rodeo arena — what was approved

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FORT SCOTT, Kan. — City commissioners voted 5-0 Tuesday to authorize City Manager Brad Matkin to begin developing plans for a covered, 2,000-seat rodeo and event arena at the Bourbon County Fairgrounds, a project his own estimate puts at $3,999,000.

What the commission did not do is approve the arena. The motion directs Matkin to bring back firm cost numbers, work with the city’s bond counsel on financing, assemble a task force and seek sponsorships. No bond has been authorized, no lease has been signed, and no construction contract exists.

Rendering of the proposed covered Fort Scott rodeo arena showing grandstand seating, party and VIP decks, and a full roof over the arena.
A rendering of the proposed covered rodeo and event arena at the Bourbon County Fairgrounds, from City Manager Brad Matkin’s July 21 presentation to the Fort Scott City Commission. (City of Fort Scott)

“I would make a motion that we direct Brad to get real numbers, get with Garth on what he needs, set up the task force, set up the sponsorships, and whatever else he feels is needed to make the Fort Scott Rodeo Arena a reality,” Commissioner Matthew Wells said. The motion was seconded, and all five commissioners voted yes.

The “Garth” in the motion is Garth Herrmann of Gilmore & Bell, the city’s bond counsel. The arena was a new-business action item on Tuesday’s agenda.

Matkin’s plan builds on the fairgrounds’ existing 180-by-350-foot dirt arena rather than starting from bare ground. The existing bleachers would come down, replaced with 2,000 stadium seats. The design adds six professional bull chutes, three on each side; roping chutes; a party deck and a VIP deck; a food court for local restaurants; and an announcer stand equipped for electronic scoring.

A roof would cover the arena and both decks. The ends would stay open.

“It would not be totally enclosed because heating and AC would be a big expense for that,” Matkin told commissioners. He said Coach Cross from Fort Scott Community College and other rodeo experts told him the roof alone is what they care about.

Speaking Thursday on the weekly “What’s Up Fort Scott” radio program, Matkin added more: livestock holding facilities, concession areas, 250 outdoor stalls for rent, vendor and trade-show space, extra parking and RV hookups, and a sound system. A removable floor over the arena dirt would let the building host concerts, trade shows and conferences. The city would hire a coordinator to book events.

“We’re not just going to use it once a week. We’re not going to use it twice a week,” he said on the air. “We’re planning on using this thing a lot.”

The land would be leased from the Bourbon County Fair Board, which Matkin said has voted to give the city the opportunity. No lease has been drawn up or executed; he told commissioners he had not yet worked it through with the city attorney and would bring an agreement back before signing.

Matkin framed the arena as a revenue problem, not a rodeo one. City sales tax collections are on pace to fall $155,000 from 2025 to 2026, he said, and $302,000 since 2024. Sales tax, he argued, is what keeps property taxes down and pays for police, fire, parks and streets.

His proof of concept is a rodeo the city does not own. Fort Scott Community College’s three-day spring rodeo drew more than 3,900 spectators this year into Arnold Arena, which seats just over 500. Using Placer AI, a foot-traffic service the city subscribes to, Matkin tracked where they went afterward: 772 to Sharky’s Pub and Grub, 770 to McDonald’s, 673 to Casey’s, and several hundred more across Pete’s, the retail center and three local hotels.

He also pointed to a much smaller Kansas town.

“Population of Pretty Prairie, Kansas, 650 people. They put on a four-day rodeo event. Their attendance, 26,500 people,” Matkin said. “I’ve said this for four years. Why not us? Why not Fort Scott?”

The crowding costs the city visitors outright, he argued, describing a barrel racer whose own family skipped her college rodeos here because they could not get seats.

“You are literally just squeezed in there like sardines,” Buchta said, adding that she is grateful the college hosts the events at all.

Matkin’s presentation totals the project at $3,999,000, led by the roof at $1.8 million, lights and electrical at $981,000, and seating at $800,000. Smaller pieces include $85,000 for bathrooms, $68,000 for large fans and $60,000 for bull chutes. Speaking to commissioners he rounded it off: “I’m just going to say, $4 million.”

He said state officials pointed him first at STAR bonds, which use sales tax revenue generated inside a project district to repay the debt. He does not want that.

“To do what this is supposed to do, we don’t want to stop our sales tax from growing,” Matkin said. “So a star bond to me is an option, but not the best when you’re wanting to increase sales tax.”

Buchta asked him to clarify that for the public: he meant sales tax revenues, not the rate. “We will not increase sales tax,” Matkin said.

His preferred mix is a conventional bond paid from the city budget, plus grants, property sales, sponsorships and an annual rodeo gala. He said he has a verbal commitment of $20,000 for the party deck, which he described as a three-year commitment that would then need renewing.

Commissioner Tim Van Hoecke asked whether the city would take a cut of ticket sales or concessions, since it would be paying for the building. Matkin said a portion would come back, though part of any gate goes to prize money. Commissioner Tracy Dancer asked whether the site could handle livestock waste; Matkin said it could, noting a 12-inch water line serves the grounds.

Wells said an earlier feasibility study showed a Fort Scott arena would draw from Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri, and warned that at least five communities within 40 minutes are eyeing similar projects.

“If we’re going to strike, we should strike while the iron’s hot,” he said.

Buchta tied it to the budget. “I feel like we really have to focus on revenue creators,” she said. “I don’t want us to have to cut services.”

Earlier in the meeting, resident Michael Hoyt used public comment to flag a new state law that could bear on how a project like this gets financed. House Bill 2622, which took effect July 1, tightens protest-petition requirements on municipal lease-purchase agreements.

“Anything over $100,000 is subject now to a protest petition by the voters if they do not agree with the lease purchase agreement,” Hoyt said. By his count it would take 186 signatures to force the question onto a special election ballot, and he told commissioners past special elections had cost the city roughly $5,000 apiece.

Hoyt raised the law about city budgeting generally, not the arena, and the arena’s preferred financing is a traditional bond rather than a lease-purchase. But the city has not settled on a structure.

Approved July 21: authority for the city manager to pursue the project: firm cost estimates, bond-counsel work on financing options, a task force, and sponsorships.

Not approved, and not yet done: firm costs. A financing or bond decision. An executed lease with the Bourbon County Fair Board. Sponsorships or the proposed annual gala. Hiring an events coordinator. And a decision to build.

Matkin wants the project moving in 2027. “Work just begun, I have a feeling,” he told commissioners after the vote.

Read the full proposal: City Manager Brad Matkin’s 15-slide rodeo arena presentation to the Fort Scott City Commission, July 21, 2026 (PDF).

Official minutes from the July 21 meeting have not been posted. This account is drawn from the meeting and the agenda packet.