Last Monday, the commission voted to put together a resolution to create a planning committee with the idea that it could eventually become the zoning committee when they implement zoning. It sounds like they want to try to vote to approve it today on August 11th.

After listening to all the zoning discussions in the community meetings, I am convinced that there is a potential future where zoning could be implemented in the county that would not be harmful and might even provide some benefits. Even with perfect execution, I’m not sure it is worth it. But either way, just because something is possible does not necessarily mean it is probable. So the real question is, how likely is Bourbon County to end up with zoning that is not harmful if implemented today? The answer for today is very near 0%. It might be different in the future, but right now, every piece of evidence we have indicates that implementing zoning would be a fiasco.

Does that sound like a bold statement? Not really. All we have to do is look at a few recent situations that are much less complex than zoning and use the outcome of those situations to project what would happen if zoning is implemented today.

First, let’s consider the recent lawsuit where the county lost by default. When a lawsuit comes to the county, it is supposed to make its way to the county counselor, and they will show up for the hearing date and defend the county.  Despite receiving a summons, despite knowing that the lawsuit was in process, and despite the hearing date being clearly posted to kscourts.gov, no one showed up to represent the county. It isn’t exactly clear why, and for the purposes of my argument here, it doesn’t matter. The point is that the county is struggling to function in what should be a very trivial matter of showing up to defend against a lawsuit when the judge schedules a hearing.

But maybe that was just a fluke. Do we have any other similar situations?

Let’s consider a second example: the issue of the Southeast Kansas Regional Juvenile Detention Center.  In June, the Sheriff’s department suggested that the county could save money by switching to a different provider. Later in June, the county learned that it owns 1/10th of the detention center—ownership that would be forfeited if they pull out of the contract. Not only does the county own part of the detention center, but one of the commissioners is on the board that sets the prices. Unfortunately, he has never attended any of the board meetings.

Later in July, the commissioners voted to cancel the contract, but they missed the July 1st deadline by about 20 days, so the county is stuck in the contract until 2027.  Was it a good idea to cancel the contract? I have no idea. But I do know that if you are on the board that sets the price and you don’t like the price, the first thing to do is to show up for the board meetings. And, if for some reason you actually do have enough information to know it is a good idea to cancel, it seems like it would have been a good idea to not miss the date by 20 days so you are committed for another year. And if you do miss the date by 20 days, it might make sense to attend at least one board meeting before you vote to cancel the contract.

The list goes on. Now when I look at these types of situations, I don’t see a commission that is necessarily doing a bad job. I see a commission that is new. There is a huge body of knowledge they are trying to acquire quickly. Based on their past work history, it is unlikely they are going to have much prior experience to draw from. That isn’t criticism, it is just pointing out that there is a lot to do and learn, and it is reasonable to expect some missteps along the way as they find their footing.

However, we can also look at these types of situations and get a pretty good idea of what type of results the county will have to live with if they move forward with creating a planning committee as a step toward implementing zoning. The county commission is struggling with basic functions like showing up for a lawsuit, showing up for board meetings of county-owned entities, and deciding on issues before contracts lock you in for another year. These are things that have a high probability of being handled correctly once the commissioners acquire the experience and knowledge they need to effectively do their jobs. Implementing zoning has a very high probability of doing injury to the county and a small chance of being done in a way that is beneficial—even once they have experience. Without experience, we can easily extrapolate the expected results.

Imagine you are Houdini’s manager and he wants to do a stunt where he is fastened in chains, put in a box, and dumped in the ocean. If many of his attempts to do the stunt on land result in failure, you would be wise to caution him against doing the far more risky version underwater. Once he has a solid track record of escaping his bonds on land, then the underwater version starts having a chance of being successful.

Until the commissioners have a track record of handling the basic functions, they shouldn’t launch a planning committee taking steps toward something that has a high degree of risk. The two examples I listed above give the expected, most probable outcome if they decide to do it before.

Mark Shead

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