City commissioners also are scheduled to reconsider the 2017 sanction of former commissioner Jon Blanchard. According to meeting packet information, at the commission’s September 17, 2018, meeting, city staff was directed “to assemble a factual record of the ethics sanction given to former Commissioner Blanchard in 2017 and schedule a reconsideration of the sanction” for Monday’s meeting.
On November 20, 2017, the city commission, by a 3-2 vote, approved reprimanding “Blanchard based on a violation to the City of Salina Ethics Section 4(e)(2),” according to the minutes from the November 20, 2017, meeting. At the time, Blanchard was accused of violating the city’s ethics policy because following a candidate forum on October 17, 2017, he released unredacted correspondence between city officials and Salina Area Chamber of Commerce that detailed the city’s concerns about the way former Chamber CEO Dennis Lauver handled economic development initiatives. At the time, the city had only released redacted copies of some of the correspondence.
At issue now is whether Blanchard deserved the reprimand given that the Kansas Attorney General’s office has determined that the City of Salina violated the Kansas Open Records Act (KORA) by not releasing full documents of the correspondence between the city and the chamber when such were requested.
(Read more: The Salina Post)