Tag: Election 2016

Three candidates running for district court judge, Division 13

Three Democratic candidates are running for an open position, Wyandotte County District Court judge, Division 13.

The primary election is Tuesday, Aug. 2.

The three candidates are Tony Martinez, Deryl Wynn and Renee Henry. They appeared at a candidate forum July 12 sponsored by Business West, other neighborhood business organizations and Kansas City Kansas Community College.

Martinez said he has 25 years of experience working for people in the community as an attorney in private practice. He has worked for individuals who need criminal defense. He said he represents the face of diversity in the community.

“My roots run deep in this community,” Martinez said, adding he had a lot of relatives in the community. “I’m not just in this community, I’m of this community.”

Growing up near 6th and Osage, Martinez said he paid for his own education by working in grain elevators here since he was 14 years old. He received his undergraduate and law school degrees from Washburn University.

He has mentored and coached young men through a sports ministry for about 20 years, he said.

Martinez said he wanted to give back to the community by serving as judge. He said there currently are no Hispanic judges and there are two black judges on the Wyandotte County District Court.

Deryl Wynn, who served many years as the attorney for the Kansas City, Kan., Public Schools and KCKCC, said his family is from a military tradition, as his father was in the Air Force, and they moved around to different cities when he was younger.

“I grew up thinking that when you live in a country such as ours, one thing you have to do is give back,” Wynn said.

Wynn also is a veteran, with Army service. He received the U.S. Army meritorious service medal as chief prosecutor for the U.S. Army Transportation headquarters in Newport News, Va.

Afterward, he brought his principles of service to his work in Kansas City, Kan., he said. He was the first African-American attorney hired by the McAnany, Van Cleave and Phillips law firm in 1990. He retired in 2015 from the law firm.

“I began serving this community, and even though I wasn’t born here, I made it my home,” he said.

He was involved with starting the summer reading program at the public libraries through the Friends of the Library. He also helped some residents start businesses here.

He said when he learned there were children in police protective custody sleeping on the floor of the jail, he helped Wyandot Inc. to raise money for Robert’s Place, a safe place for children.

He and his family have volunteered at Avenue of Life to purchase and prepare some snack packs for kids who didn’t have enough food on the weekend, he said.

“If you want to know what kind of judge I will be, look at what I have done already,” he said. “What you want is a citizen judge who cares about this community and who has demonstrated how they care by giving back.”

While he doesn’t have deep roots here, no one can match or exceed his passion for this community, he said. He chooses to live here.

He has worked for clients who serve the needy, Wyandot Center, the school district, KCKCC, United Way, Friends of Yates Battered Women’s Shelter, El Centro and other charitable concerns. He worked 15 to 20 years for the schools.

When he was a member of the Kansas Board of Regents (2001-2005), Wynn said he seconded the motion for in-state tuition for the children of undocumented workers. He said he is a problem-solver who cares about this community.

Wynn said he was appointed in 1995 by the Kansas Supreme Court to sit on the Kansas Board of Discipline for Attorneys, the panel that hears appeals of attorneys whose licenses are subject to discipline by the court.

Renee Henry, 41, said she is the most qualified candidate in this contest.

“In Wyandotte County, I have been on every single side of the bench,” Henry said. She has 14 years experience practicing law here, including as a prosecutor, defense attorney and pro-tem judge.

She has an undergraduate and a law degree from the University of Kansas.

Her first job out of law school was working in the Wyandotte County District Attorney’s office, where she prosecuted cases for seven years. She handled DUI, theft, rape and homicide cases, and other cases. She also specialized in sex crimes while at the prosecutor’s office. She wrote briefs and did oral arguments at the Kansas Court of Appeals and Kansas Supreme Court. She has done more than 50 jury trials, and hundreds of trials, as both prosecutor and defense attorney.

After seven years, she opened her own practice, and was appointed to represent indigent defendants in Wyandotte County on everything through rapes and homicides.

“I am uniquely positioned, have seen both sides, and I understand the unique challenges that come with both prosecution and criminal defense,” Henry said.

She is currently a permanent pro tem judge in Wyandotte County, in courtroom 15B, and has been there every Wednesday and Thursday each week for the past three years, she said. She handles juvenile offender cases, and they range from theft to homicide. She handles detention hearings, arraignment, trials, sentencing and violation hearings.

“The thing I love about being a judge, especially in juvenile court, is that we look at what programs are needed to help stop the criminal activity. I think that needs to translate to adult court, and that’s what I want to do from the bench in adult court,” Henry said.

She said she wasn’t here to be soft on crime, and agreed that some people needed to be locked up. However, low-level and mid-level offenders are coming back to the community after being sent to prison, she said, and are learning worse things in prison.

“I want to make our community a safer and better place for all of us,” Henry said.

She would like to look at getting a veterans’ court in Wyandotte County, and she also thinks there is a need for more mental health resources in court here.

Henry is currently president of the Wyandotte County Bar Association, and also has volunteered as secretary of her homeowners’ association. Additionally, she volunteered for Project Grad for seniors so they have something to do on graduation night. She said she started a special ed prom at Harmon because she had worked with a victim in one of her cases who was in the special ed community.

While her focus is on criminal law currently, Henry said she interned in law school at a personal injury law firm, and has done civil litigation there, and she also has handled divorce, custody and family law cases.

Wynn said he had handled all kinds of civil litigation cases, from discrimination based upon race and disability, as well as wage and hour class actions he defended on behalf of nonprofits that had been challenged. He has done divorces, adoptions, bankruptcy, and contract work.

Martinez said he had handled custody, divorce, contract disputes with landlords and other cases. He said there isn’t anything he could think of that he hadn’t done on the civil litigation side.

With criminal litigation, Martinez said he has defended murder and rape cases, as well as other types of cases. “I have a wide background doing many things for the people,” he said.

Wynn tried two jury trials while still in law school, then was a federal prosecutor for the Army and a special assistant U.S. attorney in Virginia. He prosecuted a foreign national for impersonating an Army intelligence officer in one case. He has prosecuted, and also defended criminal cases.

Henry said she has handled everything in criminal law from charging a case through appealing a case, both on the prosecutor side and the defense side. She has handled rape and homicide cases in Wyandotte County District Court as a pro tem judge. She also has been a pro tem judge in Kansas City, Kan., Municipal Court, where she handled minor offenses.

Henry has been endorsed by the Friends of the Fraternal Order of Police No. 4 and No. 40, the International Association of Firefighters and the Tri-County Labor Council.

Compassion, fairness, parity and transparency are important qualities, Martinez said.

The judge’s authority comes from the character and integrity of the person who is the judge, Wynn said.

Everyone should have access to justice, Henry said. People should feel they can come into a courtroom and talk to a judge, she added. She said she has experience, fairness and dedication to justice.

For more information about Martinez, visit www.tonymartinez.xyz.

For more information about Wynn, visit http://derylwynnforjudge.com/.

For more information about Henry, visit www.henryforjudge.com.

To view the candidate forum online, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2MhEB1XHw8&index=6&list=PLMfeRPiOepX3iQS-Y5OCca80njs3sop8W.

Two Democrats running for open district court judge position in Division 7

Two attorneys are running for an open judge position in Division 7 of the Wyandotte County District Court.

They are Vicki Meyer and Courtney Mikesic, both Democrats. They appeared at a candidate forum on July 12 at Kansas City Kansas Community College. It was sponsored by Business West, neighborhood business organizations and KCKCC.

The primary election is Tuesday, Aug. 2.

Meyer worked from 1990 to 2009 in the Wyandotte County District attorney’s office. She became the head of the juvenile division, where she supervised five attorneys. Then she moved to the city where she prosecuted domestic violence cases.

“My job as a prosecutor is to hold people accountable for their decisions, their criminal actions,” she said. “My passion as a prosecutor, is once we get that accountability, that we make sure they become productive, by putting them in programs, by getting them help, by not necessarily always putting them in jail.”

She said most of those who she has dealt with are good people who are just making very bad decisions, and her goal is to make sure they get help so they don’t come back through the system.

Meyer was a teacher in the Kansas City, Kan., Public Schools, and served on the school board for 18 years. After teaching 10 years at elementary schools, she went to law school, then started working in the district attorney’s office in 1989. She said she did a lot of civil lawsuits while an intern and also when she was in the juvenile division of the district attorney’s office.

She has done hundreds of bench trials, jury trials and has made arguments to the appellate court. “I believe my experience over those 25.5 years leaves me qualified to be the next district court judge of Division 7,” she said.

Meyer also has served on the Alcohol Advisory Board and the State of Kansas Domestic Violence Facility Review Board.

Mikesic is a fourth-generation Wyandotte County resident, and graduated from Bishop Ward High School, Kansas City Kansas Community College, and went to Long Island University, where she graduated magna cum laude. She played volleyball there, also. She went to Washburn Law School, and worked at the law clinic there to help represent the indigent. She was a law clerk at the Kansas Supreme Court, and then worked as an intern at the Wyandotte County District Attorney’s office.

For the past 10 years she has been a civil litigation attorney, and is now the managing attorney of a civil litigation law firm. She manages a staff of attorneys and support staff. She also has served as a part-time judge pro tem in Wyandotte County, and has experience handling cases and trials.

She also has done a lot of pro bono work in the past 10 years in criminal and civil cases.

Mikesic has been endorsed by the Tri-County Labor Council, International Association of Firefighters and the Greater Kansas City Women’s Political Caucus.

In the area of civil litigation, Meyer said she had experience through her legal aid work with divorces, landlord-tenant cases and through the juvenile division, with child in need of care cases.

Through her work, Mikesic has experience with medical malpractice, breach of contract work, mechanics’ liens, contract work, collection work, from large companies to smaller cases involving individuals. She has handled more than 1,000 civil cases.

In the area of criminal litigation, while at the district attorney’s office Mikesic had experience with adult criminal cases, DUI trials, and traffic cases. With her pro bono work for those who can’t afford legal representation, she does child in need of care cases, juvenile cases, battered women cases, family cases, and occasionally she represents her civil clients if they are involved in a criminal case.

Meyer said for over 25 years, she has done everything from the lowest disorderly conduct case to homicide, and everything in between. Now she does primarily domestic violence cases and works with victims.

To better educate the public about the judicial process, Meyer said she had gone to classrooms in Wyandotte County to speak to students about it.

Mikesic said she is in several organizations in the community, and she gives presentations about court processes, such as what to expect when they have to go to court.

Meyer said learning how to listen to people is important. “In order to be a good judge, you have to be able to listen,” Meyer said. “You have to be able to then determine how to be fair and honest with those people.”

Also, a judge needs to be able to tell a defendant honestly what the situation is, what will happen and this is how to get there.

Mikesic said she has gone to her dad, retired Judge David Mikesic, for advice on what she needs to do to be a judge. “He’s told me, ‘Courtney, when you’re on the bench, you’re going to have good days, some of the best days of your life when you bring people together, where you help people out. You’re going to build families, you’re going to make marriages, you’re going to do adoptions. You’re going to have the worst days. You’re going to tear families apart, you’re going to have to make the worst decisions.’ But he said ‘as long as you follow the Golden Rule, you will do all right.’”

“’Everyone who comes in that courtroom, treat fairly and with respect. Treat how you would want to be treated. That is the Golden Rule.’ So I can promise you, as your next judge, everyone who comes into my courtroom, I will treat fairly and with respect.”

To view the candidate forum online, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSwLeoNrdkU&index=8&list=PLMfeRPiOepX3iQS-Y5OCca80njs3sop8W.

The forum is being shown on KCKCC’s cable television station. To see a schedule, visit https://wyandotteonline.com/candidate-forum-to-be-shown-on-kckcc-cable-channel-2/.

For more information about Meyer, visit https://www.facebook.com/vickimeyerforjudge/.

For more information about Mikesic, visit http://www.votemikesicjudge.com/.

Two candidates vie for Democratic nomination for 5th District, state Senate

In the primary election Tuesday, Aug. 2, Bill Hutton and Donald G. Terrien are running for the Kansas Senate, 5th District Democratic nomination.

Both candidates agree that education is a top issue, but they have different methods of increasing state revenues to fund schools.

The candidates appeared at a forum July 12 sponsored by Business West, neighborhood business organizations and Kansas City Kansas Community College.

The 5th District includes parts of western Wyandotte County and Leavenworth County. The incumbent is Republican State Sen. Steve Fitzgerald. About 60 percent of the district is in Leavenworth County and 40 percent in Wyandotte County.

Hutton, of Basehor, Kan., has been an attorney for 36 years in Kansas City, Kan., and a part-time municipal judge in Bonner Springs for 14 years. He also was a municipal judge in Kansas City, Kan., for three years.

“I’m running for the state Senate because of the failed policies of Gov. Brownback, and the votes and the actions of his ardent supporter, the current one-term incumbent in Senate District 5,” Hutton said.

He said he favors local control over issues ranging from property taxes to gun control, and he opposes unfunded mandates from the state. He supports equitable funding of the public schools, and he does not support a constitutional amendment that would limit the powers of the Kansas Supreme Court, he said.

Terrien, 41, of Lansing, Kan., said he has been a member of the working class for 20 years. He pays taxes every year, and he thinks it’s ridiculous some of the things he’s seen that happen in the state. He said education is an important issue.

“I’ve had enough so I figured I would try to do something about it,” Terrien said.

He said that legalizing marijuana could produce more tax revenues that could be used for education. Terrien also is a supporter of gun rights, and believes the sale of cigarettes should be illegal.

Hutton said projects that received sales tax revenue bonds here paid significantly more in property taxes than had been paid previously. With the payoff of the STAR bonds on Village West, more sales tax revenues are coming into the community.

“What we’re seeing is a major increase in the funds from sales tax that will go directly to Wyandotte County, and to the community college and to the school district to reduce property taxes,” he said.

Terrien said he thinks the property tax is outrageous currently the way it is now.

“There’s some states that have legalized marijuana, with all kinds of tax revenue,” Terrien said. He said he thinks Kansas should legalize marijuana.

“In order to increase funding for schools, we’ve got to do something drastic,” Terrien said.

On the issue of the property tax lid, Hutton said the state Legislature always says the federal government shouldn’t tell the state government what to do, and by the same token, the state shouldn’t tell local governments what to do. The local elected officials in Wyandotte County should be able to determine what appropriate taxes are, he said. Voters can vote them out of office if they don’t agree with the decision, but Hutton doesn’t believe the state should impose a property tax lid on local governments.

“They raised the sales tax and didn’t ask the local population about that,” Hutton said. “We now have the highest overall sales tax rate in the country.”

Hutton said he is not in favor of legalizing marijuana. If there are medical exceptions under medical supervision, that’s possible, but it is not a quick fix for the budget, and he doesn’t think that’s how Kansas should support its schools.

On the question of the Dream Act, Hutton said he supports it. The students who are affected are those who have been here since they were small children and have graduated from high schools. He said they need to have the same opportunities as other residents to get a higher education. He said he would support their ability to get student loans the same as any other resident of Kansas, as they should be on the same basis as other citizens.

Kansas needs to revisit its corporate tax structure, as well as revisit the issue when the state reduced its major sources of revenue from three to two, he said.

Terrien said if there isn’t money to support the Dream Act students, there’s nothing they can do. “We can’t just give out money to everybody and expect the budget to be perfect, because it’s just not going to happen,” he said. Since the students have lived here so long, they should qualify for the same grants that everyone else receives, he said.

On the question of increasing the amount of the slots revenue that The Woodlands would be able to keep, which was in a bill proposed by Sen. Fitzgerald, Hutton said any change to the 2008 law would require close scrutiny. He said with this bill Sen. Fitzgerald was not looking out for the best interests of the citizens of Wyandotte County, of the three cities in Wyandotte County, nor of all the school districts in Wyandotte County.

Hutton said he is in favor of The Woodlands reopening as long as it is a fair and level playing field with other casinos that are already in Kansas City, Kan.

Terrien said his top issue is education. He said some of the school districts are falling behind and some school programs have been cut.

“If you do something like legalize marijuana, it’s going to bring in so much tax revenue that some of these programs can open up right away, and some of these falling behind schools can actually get more funding to bring them up to par,” Terrien said.

Hutton said school funding going forward was the top issue. “The Legislature, because the Kansas Supreme Court forced them to, came up with a stop-gap solution for the year 2016,” Hutton said. “That does not deal with inequities we face in 2017, where our poorer districts do not receive the same funds as our richer districts because there are other funds quite frankly available in some of the richer districts in Kansas.”

More than 50 percent of the Kansas budget goes toward education, he said. “Going forward, it must be fair and equitable for all students,” he said, “K-12, and by the same token, we have to look at the cost for higher education, especially the community college level.”

Hutton has been endorsed by the political action committee of the KNEA, Mainstream Coalition, Tri-County Labor Council and Kansas Families for Education.

“My job is to listen to my constituents and do everything I can to make sure their needs and wants are addressed,” he said.

To view the candidate forum online, visit https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMfeRPiOepX3iQS-Y5OCca80njs3sop8W.

The forum is being shown on KCKCC’s cable television station. To see a schedule, visit https://wyandotteonline.com/candidate-forum-to-be-shown-on-kckcc-cable-channel-2/.

To see Terrien’s responses to the Women for Kansas questionnaire, visit http://womenforkansas.org/donald-terrien/.

To see Hutton’s responses to the Women for Kansas questionnaire, visit http://womenforkansas.org/bill-hutton/.