Legislator chides commission members for attendance
- Charlene Sims, Journal staff
- 20 hours ago
- 3 min read
By Charlene Sims, Journal staff
MOUND CITY – State Rep. Rick James, the Republican representative from District 4, spoke with Linn County Commissioners Alison Hamilton and Jim Johnson on Monday, July 20. Commissioner Jason Hightower was not present.
James said one of the topics he wanted to address was the failure of not only the failure of commissioners to attend meetings, but also a high rate of absenteeism on the county’s committees.
“I would hope that when you take a job like you – and I’ve set in the seat just like you have for two terms – that you take it serious enough to attend the meetings continuously as many as you can make,” James said. “And I don’t say that because I missed a bunch of meetings, because I didn’t. And I think that’s very important. You represent over 9,500 people in our county and we’re dependent on you to make good decisions for us.
“Whether we like what your decisions are or not, it’s important that you, all three, get to sit there and debate that. Bourbon County has five (commissioners) and they have their issues as well with different things. It’s not only just that. It’s our volunteers that we pick to be precinct people or we pick to sit on different meetings.
“We’re failing our people here because if you think about the SEK, Southeast Kansas, we can’t even put together a meeting because we don’t have enough people. They won’t show up. So, it’s not just about turning in names. It’s about the names you turn in have to really represent our county as well. So, I would hope that we could do a good job.
“We only have one one representative or one commissioner that’s running this time. Commissioner Hightower is not. It would be good if he’s not going to show up to go ahead and resign and let’s get the new guy appointed.
“He has no competition at all and see what he can do. I just wanted to emphasize it bothers me when we cancel meetings or we only have two people trying to decide on what’s right and what’s wrong in our county and how we can make it better. And you have new people coming in and old people going out. So I hope we could get that changed and fixed.”
According to the minutes* of the county commission meetings:
In 2025 out of 52 meetings, Hamilton missed seven meetings (two of those meetings were canceled due to lack of quorum**) and she attended one meeting by teleconference. So far in 2026, Hamilton has missed four out of 29 meetings (one was a cancelled meeting due to lack of a quorum**) and has attended one meeting by phone and one by teleconference.
In 2025, Johnson missed six meetings, ( two of those were cancelled due to lack of a quorum**). So far in 2026, Johnson has missed only one meeting (due to lack of quorum**) and attended one by telephone.
In 2025, Hightower missed 12 meetings (two of those due to lack of quorum**). So far in 2026, Hightower has missed nine meetings (one was cancelled due to lack of quorum**).
*Minutes attendance does not always designate if a commissioner is attending by telephone or teleconference.
** Minutes do not say if one person showed up and there was no quorum.
The salary for a comissioner on the Linn County board is $31,390 annually, or just over $600 a week.
During James tenure as Linn County Commissioner, he was instrumental in setting term limits on committees. Those term limits in several cases removed longtime members of committees who attended regularly, and in some cases their replacements have attended meeting irregularly.
James also reminded the commissioners that it is election time and early voting has started. James, who is running unopposed for Republican nomination for his seat in the Legislature, pointed out that there was a constitutional amendment about how state Supreme Court justices are selected on the ballot.
He said that was very important and whether you are a Democrat or Republican or unaffiliated everyone can vote on this amendment. James said that because he is from the conservative side he will vote for it.