Kansas City, Kansas, Mayor Tyrone Garner not seeking 2nd term, opening contest for 2025
Kansas City, Kansas, Mayor Tyrone Garner does not intend to seek a second term, clearing the way for an open contest to the top elected spot in city and county government next year.
Elected three years ago on a promise to deliver shakeups in the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, the mayor has hinted for months that four years in office may be all he’d serve. His chief of staff informed The Star on Tuesday that Garner would indeed leave office when his term expires in 2025.
Garner’s planned exit was first reported in an exclusive by The Community Voice, a Wichita-based Black community news publication.
An interview request from The Star was met Tuesday with a written statement from the mayor’s office that touted pride in his time in office and promising to “continue to put people over power, privilege, and politics.”
“The work of improving the quality of life for all those that love and call Wyandotte County home is a work that remains undone,” Garner said in the statement, adding that he “will continue to work towards that end” for the remainder of his time in office.
Garner, a longtime Kansas City, Kansas, police officer who ultimately reached the rank of deputy chief before retirement, entered politics as a newcomer in a challenge of Mayor David Alvey in 2021. Garner won that contest by a little less than 400 votes, becoming the first Black mayor and county chief executive since the formation of the Unified Government in 1997.
The mayor has forged a loyal following among many residents and interest groups concerned about inequities in Wyandotte County that span from east to west. The county is statistically the poorest in the Kansas City metro and also home to some of the state’s greatest racial diversity.
But the mayor’s style of governance has sometimes led to tense relationships with other elected officials, area service providers and high-level administrators.
In January 2021, shortly after Garner took office, County Administrator Doug Bach abruptly retired from his position as the city and county’s most powerful staffer. Bach started to make moves to leave the role days after the new mayor’s swearing-in ceremony, and took a hefty payout of nearly $814,000, according to a separation agreement obtained by The Star.
Garner’s selection at the time for a temporary top leader, Cheryl Harrison-Lee, attracted some controversy in City Hall as she continued to perform contract work outside her role with the Unified Government, a point that concerned some commissioners. The mayor once abruptly ended a public meeting about hiring a new administrator in a way that stunned other elected members.
Other areas of dispute concerned the mayor’s sway over economic development initiatives. Wyandotte County has witnessed major investments in greenfield projects to the west and more sluggish efforts to redevelop the urban core. In 2022, commissioners voted to curtail the mayor’s powers over setting the agenda for city business and limited his veto authority.
Another point of tension came after the mayor tipped off the Kansas Bureau of Investigation with concerns about employee spending with government credit cards. The investigation concluded as District Attorney Mark Dupree’s office declined to pursue charges, citing no finding of intentional wrongdoing.
A hallmark of Garner’s leadership is also large-scale proposals concerning the functions of government that the mayor says are aimed toward improving services to residents while finding ways to reduce cost.
For example, the mayor has frequently questioned in public hearings the effectiveness of combining city and county governments under one roof through consolidation, as some of his allies surfaced the idea of splitting the government in two.
He also has made promises about the removal of fees collected through the Board of Public Utilities, Wyandotte County’s century-old water and electric service provider. A move to remove the so-called Payment in Lieu of Taxes, or PILOT fee, announced by County Administrator David Johnston a few months ago failed to materialize by October as advertised, prompting a public apology from Garner.
Perhaps the most significant policy decision on the mayor’s wish list was this year’s adoption of a city budget that would not rely on increased property tax revenues. The mayor called upon commissioners this year to put “a pressure point” on tax increases, as elected officials took that route despite warnings from staff about potentially painful service cuts that would be necessary.
Commissioners froze the level of revenue collected through property taxes for Unified Government services, which account for about half the bill. The budget commissioners adopted in August cut roughly $17 million in proposed spending, scaling back programs to include overtime for police and fixed public transit routes.
Garner’s decision to bow out from a future mayoral contest comes about seven months before the June filing deadline to run for local office.
