JoCo's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Coalition lacks political diversity

At least 85% of the recently-appointed coalition members are Democrats

Oct 31, 2023

A JoCo quango quagmire?

County Chair Mike Kelly steered votes in the JoCo Board of Commissioners to give him sole authority to appoint DEI Coalition members.

Most county committees are appointed by the six county commissioners.

At the Oct. 19 JoCo Board Meeting Mike Kelly’s initial 13 appointments to the DEI Commission were announced and approved on a 5 to 2 vote.

Commissioners Charlotte O’Hara and Michael Ashcraft dissented.

JoCo Commissioner Charlotte O’Hara warned the DEI Coalition could “increase the divisiveness in this country.”

In the discussion before the vote Commissioner Charlotte O’Hara made this statement:

This coalition of diversity, equity and inclusion is nothing but division, exclusion, and inequality. … for us to be appointing this committee is going to do nothing but increase the divisiveness in this county and it is unconscionable.

Commissioner Ashcraft commented about his objection to the chair’s selection process before he voted.

Political Profile of DEI Coalition Members

Connecting information from Secretary of State’s voting registration records shows how partisan the initial DEI coalition is.

Only one DEI member is a Republican, while 11 of the 12 other members are Democrats. The party affiliation of a 13th member is not known.

Here are brief biographies of the DEI members based on their applications and online information:

Jae Moyer: Mainstream Coalition Civic Engagement Coordinator; Equality Kansas; Biden delegate to 2020 Democratic National Convention. The Pitch article.
Jim Torrones: Latino Leadership Network; retired corrections administrator; Kansas Correctional Association Treasurer.
Sandy Geduldig: Kansas United for Civil Liberties PAC (ACLU Kansas); former Mainstream Coalition Board, former Planned Parenthood Great Plains Board.
Dr. Victoria Haynes: Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner; Coordinator for Diversity and Cultural Competency for Mid America Nazarene University; Executive member of Johnson County NAACP. Psychology Today article.
Charles W. McCallister, Jr: Committee on Aging; Johnson County Library Board.

Samantha von Ende: Member of Jewish and LGBTQ+ community; Jewish Community Relations Bureau; Ad Hoc Group Against Crime. KSHB 41 news story.
Kathleen Smith: No known information. Smith’s application was missing in the three emails sent to County Commissioners.
Jeffrey Mendoza: Johnson County Library Board; US Department of Labor Trial Attorney.
Saaliha Khan: Phone banking, canvassing, campaigning since 2008, including working as JoCo Election worker in 2020; Islamic Center of Johnson County Teacher; Recent assistant director of Kansas Interfaith Action (KIFA).

Thamara Subramanian: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kansas City, Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion board member; Equity and Strategy Manger.
Graciela Couchonnal: El Centro Board; former Health Forward Foundation VP of Strategy and Impact.
Michael Poppa: Interim Mayor of Roeland Park (replacing Mike Kelly, who is now County Chair); executive director of Mainstream Coalition; MARC Active Transportation Program; Mid America LGBT Chamber of Commerce; Climate Action KC.
Pauline Tabares: Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City; mortgage loan officer.

A reliable source says the coalition members have not yet received official notification of appointments from the county, nor any information about planned meetings.

Political Party

Forty-two applications for the DEI coalition were made available to County Commissioners in several emails. These were studied to compare the applicant population to the final DEI coalition that was appointed.

About two-thirds of the applicants were registered Democratic voters, but the final DEI coalition consists of at least 85% Democrats.

How do these percentage compare to Johnson County overall voter registrations?

Voter registration counts on Sept. 30, 2023 from the Johnson County Election Office.

The 85% DEI Democratic voter registration rate is over 50% higher than the county Democratic party registration rate.

Unaffiliated voters and Libertarians have zero representation on the DEI coalition.

Geography

City

How do the DEI members represent the cities in Johnson County?

Lenexa, Merriam and Prairie Village have zero representation on the DEI coalition.

County Commission District

Most county committees are appointed by county commissioners for equal representation by all county commission districts.

What happens to equal representation when the county chair orchestrates making all the appointments himself?

Commission district JO4 seems to be overrepresented, while districts JO3, JO5 and JO6 are underrepresented.

Perhaps County Chair Kelly should reconsider how unfair his appointment practice is?

Age

The median age of DEI appointees is about 44.5 years old. A few older applicants, especially one that is 96, made the applicants’ age stats a bit higher.

Gender

The gender breakdown was nearly exactly the same between the applicants and those appointed to the DEI coalition.

Based on voter registrations in JoCo, females have a slight population edge, 52.5% to 47.3%.

So, more females than males might be expected on the DEI coalition, but a 62% to 38% margin shows a slight bias of females over males in DEI appointments.

Unanswered Questions

I sent an email to Chairman Mike Kelly on Oct. 23 with questions about the DEI appointment process.

His answers will be posted here when received:

Dear Chairman Kelly:
I saw in the online video of the recent board meeting that one of the commissioners voted "no" on the DEI coalition vote primarily because of the selection process.
Can you give me any idea how usual or unusual it is for the county chair to appoint all members of a committee like this?
Did you give a reason for excluding the other commissioners in making recommendations for these appointments?

Political Donations to Mike Kelly by DEI Members

Three of the 13 DEI members contributed to Mike Kelly’s County Chair election last year:

Sandra Geduldig, $250 on 10/10/2022 [Geduldig also gave $250 to Sharice Davids in 2022 and $1000 to Mark Holland for US Senate in 2022.]
Saaliha Khan, $250 on 10/29/2022 [Khan also gave $250 to Barbara Bollier for US Senate in 2020, and $100 to Rashida Tlaib for Congress (MI-12) in 2020, with smaller contributions to Joe Biden and Sharice Davids.]
Michael Poppa, at least two $100 contributions and two $50 contributions to County Chair contest (examples: $50 on 7/29/2022 and $100 on 10/27/2022); $105 contribution to Kelly’s Roeland Park mayor race in 2017. [Poppa also gave $100 to Sharice Davids in 2021 and $150 to Mark Holland for US Senate in 2021.]