Sheriff will face Republican primary opponent

By: Katrina Segers, staff writer

The race is on … for Johnson County sheriff.

Sheriff Frank Denning has an opponent in Ken Smith, a lieutenant with the Mission Police Department.

Smith said he plans to file for the office the first week of June. Both are Republicans and would face off in the Aug. 5 primary election.

Smith said his largest issue is the fiscal policy of the current administration.

“(Denning’s) budget in the last three years has gone from $56 to $72 million. During that time he has essentially stripped away some of the services that the Sheriff’s Office has always provided,” Smith said. “He’s basically doing less with more money. He’s also the first sheriff in history to ask for sales tax increases; he’s asked for two of them.”

Smith said to help with the climbing budget he would put a freeze on hiring and look at restructuring the office.

“To say we are fiscally irresponsible is an irresponsible statement just based on the fact that he has no understanding of the financial picture and when you can’t see something like that then you can’t beat it,” Denning said.

With the growth and needs of the county, Denning said, increases became necessary, including the expansion of the jail, something Smith disagrees with.

Smith said many people say the expansion is unnecessary while Denning has pushed it onto ballots.

“When he talks about the two-mill property tax increase for jail expansion that’s not true,” Denning said. “We are working on building that jail on the last eighth of a mill property tax increase that the BOCC had the authority to do, not the sheriff.”

Denning said plans for another jail expansion have been on the table for more than 10 years. He said he worked to increase bed space in the same square footage to benefit the county.

“Will phase three become a reality? Well, at the current trend that reality is somewhere out in a decade or two,” Denning said. “When I first came into office I said it costs money to do justice and it does. So, when he says we’re going to add an additional three mills, it’s inaccurate.”

Smith, who began his career in Kansas City, Mo., said he is “not overly fond of Johnson County law enforcement.”

“I think they take too soft of an approach,” Smith said. “All they do is throw money at the problem rather than just doing good old-fashioned police work.”

Smith said the escalating crime problem is a concern for him as well as Denning’s inability to establish good working relationships with other departments in the county.

“The Sheriff’s Office historically has always had a tremendous working relationship with the various municipalities in this county,” Denning said.

He said the county’s growth rate of 10,000 to 13,000 residents per year could add about 300 new inmates to the justice system per year, but the county’s violent crime rate remains low at 2.1 per 1,000 people.

Smith said he would like to resurrect the department’s transportation unit.

“We have to take inmates out to Gardner now and that’s a 45-minute run from northeast Johnson County each way, plus the 30 minutes or so that you spend there depending on how busy they are,” Smith said.

A transportation unit is a great idea, Denning said, but there is no funding for such a unit, so cities have to take the responsibility to transport inmates to jail.

“We are working diligently with them … to make the dropoff points as much a convenience as we possibly can,” Denning said. “In the prior administration it was being totally funded on overtime and I can’t justify it. I can’t justify the expense.”

Smith said he hopes to use his training and leadership skills to push the office in the right direction and said through networking and contacts he feels he has the “support of probably 95 to 99 percent of all the local law enforcement including the Sheriff’s Office.”

Denning has been sheriff since 2005, beating former sheriff Currie Myers in the 2004 primary election and winning the general election.

Smith said Myers supports his decision to run for sheriff.

“I’m sure he’s going to vote for me, but he is not part of my campaign,” Smith said.

Denning said having an opponent in the race is an opportunity.

“We shall and we should be held accountable for what we have done and what we are going to do in the future. An opponent does have a way of bringing that out.

“This is a very challenging office. I look forward to serving another term because there is so much at stake here and it will take somebody with vision and with a mission.”

Contact Katrina Segers at 385-6011 or katrinasegers@sunpublications.com.