Commission votes to put liquor-by-the-drink question on ballot
- Roger Sims
- Apr 26
- 6 min read
By Charlene Sims, Journal staff
MOUND CITY – The primary election ballot on Aug. 4 will include a question for Linn County voters about a change to serving liquor by the drink. Currently, the law requires establishments in Linn County that serve liquor must have a minimum 30% in food sales.
If the question passes, there will no longer be a food requirement.
The subject had been brought up at a previous meeting and County Counselor Jacklyn Paletta had prepared, at the commission’s direction, a proposal for a resolution to add a ballot question.
“Now, your direction to have me draft that is not the same thing as your approval of that,” Paletta said in clarifying issue. “So the fact that I drafted it for your review, you can still not pass it. The previous time that it was on the ballot, it was a special election. This time, we’re at least 90 days ahead of a regular election, so we will not need to have a special election.”
“This question, if you approved it today, would simply be added to the ballot. If you all did not approve it today, the citizens who wanted a ballot question could otherwise generate a petition to add a question to the ballot,” she said.
Commission Chair Alison Hamilton read the ballot proposition question, “Shall the sale of alcoholic liquor by the individual drink in Linn County be allowed in public places without a requirement that any portion of their gross receipts be from the sales food?”
“That is the question,” said Hamilton
Commissioner Jason Hightower asked, “So it doesn’t state what percent, I mean, currently it states the percent. This is just saying that there’ll be no percent”
Paletta explained, “So this is actually governed by statute, so you can see that it references the statute there. There are three options that the statute allows, and as far as the ballot question goes the current one is 30%, that one is 0%.”
Hamilton added that the third one is just no liquor sales.
After a long period of silence, Hamilton asked if the other commissioners had any issues with it or wanted to discuss it.
Hightower said he did not have any issues with it, however Commissioner Jim Johnson appeared to be reluctant to vote on the resolution.
Paletta continued her explanation of the question, “I think it is an important distinction that by allowing this to be put on the ballot, you all are deciding that the voting populace of the county of Linn has the opportunity to determine whether they want this to be the situation in Linn County or not. For example you could vote to allow this resolution, allow this to be a ballot question, and still personally vote ‘no’ on the election day.
“Or you can decide that you don’t want this to be a resolution and you all are deciding that to the extent that the population of Linn County wanted this to be a ballot question, they also have the opportunity to create a petition to add it to the ballot question. But simply by passing this resolution, you’re not indicating a preference either way for how you feel because you can still make your voice known at the ballot box.”
Hamilton said, “I feel more comfortable with this scenario just because a lot of the people that have reached out own businesses here, but they’re not voting residents. So I feel good about putting it on the ballot.”
Commissioner Jim Johnson asked, “So it takes a thousand votes if they get a petition, a thousand signatures?”
Paletta said it was 10% of the voters from the last election.
In the general election last November for city and school board positions, 1,068 votes were cast in Linn County.
Hightower said he thought it would take less than 1,000 votes and made the motion to approve the resolution to add liquor by the drink as a ballot question. It passed unanimously.
In other business, Public Works Administrator Jesse Walton announced that the dust control payments are due April 24. Walton said he had several people calling in on the culverts being delivered on the 1095 Road project that’s coming up. The department will be putting out a public notice when it is going to be closing that road.
Just so everybody knows, Walton said, it’s going to be a month to six weeks before the county gets the permits back from the state so it can start on that project. But there will be a public notice that goes out and the county will have that on the website so everybody will know then when the work will begin. Walton expects the project to be shut down about three to four weeks depending on the weather. So it should go fairly quickly.
Walton also told the commission that he was meeting about the military bridge on the north side of Mound City on April 23 with the state and the engineer. After that he will have another meeting with the Kansas State Historical Society.
Walton also said that the road crew was still working on the potholes at the La Cygne Industrial Park. Several of those have been fixed, but there’s a great big one by where all the semis park to tarp their loads.
He said his crews have a hard time getting to it because every time they get up there, there are trucks out there tarping their loads. So the crew is planning to get that early one morning or late one afternoon so it can be fixed.
Walton also told the commission that following the April 13 storm, road crews have been out fixing roads and cleaning up trees. The county has had several rolloff dumpsters stationed throughout the community following the tornado’s path.
“So, just so you’re aware of that, we’re still moving dumpsters back and forth helping out with the cleanup there,” he said.
A storm damage assessment was also included in a monthly report from Information Technology (IT) Director Chris Martin. He discussed the roof of the Justice Center, the Mound City tower, the Kansas Highway 7 tower north of Mound City and the Blue Mound tower.
“Blue Mound was fine,” Martin said. “Mound City, we had a little bit of water encroachment into the enclosure, but it didn’t damage any equipment or anything, and we resealed around
where that is. There was just so much rain. I think the wind and the rain just pushes it past the
seal. We didn’t find any issues on the roof of the Justice Center and K-7 got a bunch of rain,
but that was it.”
On another topic, County Clerk Chasity Ware gave on the implementation of new payroll software that her office is using.
“We had our first payout this past Friday. We knew there would be some kinks with that. We are diligently working on those. Everyone was paid except for two employees, but we got them checks Friday. So everybody did get paid.
“Everybody else’s was direct deposit. So we just asked our employees to double check all their deductions from the previous payroll system to the current payroll system and to let us know of any changes or discrepancies that might be going and we have had several that have stated that theirs was perfect.
“So we knew, like I said, going in that we would have some kinks this first pay period, possible even the second but we are working through all of those and I feel like those adjustments are being made.”
In other business, the commissioners:
Approved MFA for the fuel bid for 55,000 gallons of clear diesel at $3.79944, 15,000 gallons dyed diesel at $3.54294, and 3,500 gallons at E10 gasoline at $3.03348. MFA was the only bidder.
Approved giving the Linn County Conservation district the first half of their funds for 2026.
Approved adding Dave’s Towing and Recovery back to Linn County’s towing rotation. Paletta had told the commissioners that the towing service was now in compliance with all of the Linn County regulations for being on the rotation.
Discussed the effective date of the handbook. Paletta said that since the handbook had April 1, 2026, in it, and that was the effective date.
Have received one application for the part-time economic development position and decided to set up an interview for next week.
Approved the overage on the bill for the south shop track loader. On March 15, the
commission had approved the amount of $30,111 but the final bill turned out to be $31,861.
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