About this time last year, 2025, I was beginning to think about city governance in Council Grove, where my wife and I moved after my retirement from university teaching in 2021.
With some departures from the City Council and the retirement of our previous mayor, 2025 was shaping up as a season of potential opportunities in our community.
In my mind, the campaign season began with the fun, informative, and successful 200th Birthday Party, organized by the Santa Fe Trail 200 Committee members, and providing a stimulating reminder of the historic significance of this special place where we all are privileged to live.
With the wind at our backs, three City Council candidates and two Mayoral aspirants soon were engaged in contests leading up to a November vote. On October 14th, I felt honored to be seated next to the other candidates at the Election Candidate Forum, in the Carnegie Building, which was attended by a standing-room only crowd of civic- minded Council Grove friends and neighbors.
After that event, everything went so fast in the final several weeks of the campaign, with newspaper ads and knocking on doors in our respective wards.
Election night the results were known for the City Council seats, with Taylor Adams, Stephen McKnight, and Denise Hartman winning the responsibility of serving twoyear terms. I lost to Denise Hartman and sent her a text conceding and congratulating her on her victory. I sincerely hope for her success and successful terms of office for all three of the winners in those City Council races.
It took a few more days to learn the results from what turned out to be a tightly contested Mayoral election, and, after Morris County Clerk Chelsey Schmidt finalized those tallies, declaring Ryan McDonald the new Mayor, nobody in Council Grove will ever be able to say that a single vote by an ordinary citizen does not count for much.
All of those things happened what seems a long time ago, and now we are about half a year or more into the terms of a new Mayor and a newly constituted City Council, and, although most of what I know about their progress is second hand, through reports in the newspaper, it really seems to me like there is a positive change, that is, improvement, in how our City Council and our Mayor Ryan McDonald are thoughtfully, considerately providing their service to the entire Council Grove community.
One thing I really like is that it seems that as each agenda item, concern, or proposal is brought forward, all six of our City Council members are being engaged in discussions on cost-benefit-risk analysis with Mayor Ryan McDonald, who is proving to be a wise leader with practical ideas and a “can do” spirit that is exactly what the town needs right now.
As I watch from the sidelines, I can say that the right people won all those election contests in November -- yes, even the one I lost, to a better candidate -- and I support wholeheartedly the rational decision-making process that is now being followed by the Council and the Mayor. They are serving all of our interests by doing the hard work of governance and I applaud them for it. Sincerely, Robb Scott Council Grove