Two political novices are running to be Jackson County’s next County Executive, both promising to help residents move on from Frank White Jr.’s tenure that ended when he was removed from office on October 8, 2025.
After beating out five other Democratic candidates in the August Primary, Stacy Lake will face off against Republican Alan Rohlfing (who ran uncontested). Both candidates are speaking in a similar tone and tenor about the situation in front of them, with a desire to move on from White’s reign of nearly a decade.
Alan Rohlfing (R)
“It’s the number one issue when I talk with people,” Rohlfing said. ”I’ve heard so many sad and tragic stories from residents who couldn’t afford to stay in their homes.”
He points to the property tax overcharges as “illegal,” he calls the courthouse a state of “chaos,” and says the county has failed to deliver basic services.
“We have to strengthen the delivery of our core services, such as improvements to roads and bridges,” Rohlfing said. “We have to provide better ‘customer service’ to Jackson County residents – we have to ‘do government’ better.”
Rohlfing often invokes a concept of “world-class customer service” in describing how he wants staff held accountable to high standards in service of the taxpayers. He stops short of getting into the weeds on what those metrics are but says he has a general timeline for implementing his vision for the county in 2027.
“I’m not at the point of ground level details with these benchmarks yet,” Rohlfing said. “I’m not coming into clean house, but in the first 60 days the public will see benchmarks in place and staff being held accountable.”
Rohlfing points to greater transparency within his office and aims to boost the County’s web presence in order to achieve this. He also says a new, qualified Director of Assessment is needed after LeVota fired Gail McCann Beatty in November 2025.
He also supports LeVota’s proposal to issue tax credits to homeowners to compensate them for being overcharged during their 2023 assessments. He would commit the county to a financial audit, as well as a charter review. He says he will publish the findings of the forensic audit of all county spending, and he’d be open to assigning the County Legislature some of the duties that currently belong to the County Executive.
Stacy Lake (D)
Attempts to reach her over the past week were unsuccessful. (Editor’s note: she responded with an offer to speak beyond the deadline.) On her website, she has outlined her plan for the position through a strong online presence. She aims to modernize and reform Jackson County under her “JACKSON” plan, which breaks down as:
- Justice system reform;
- Auditing the County Government;
- Countywide infrastructure improvements;
- Keeping taxes affordable;
- Small business support;
- Ownership initiative for single-family home; and a
- Neighbor-to-neighbor transportation plan.
The “Ownership Initiative” focuses on promoting policies to make single family home ownership attainable for future generations. The “Neighbor-to-Neighbor” transportation plan would connect cities together through a rapid bus transit line. Her plan includes four main bus lines connecting downtown Kansas City to three locations: Buckner, Lone Jack, and Martin City. A fourth line would connect Grandview to Independence. (It should be noted that the county is currently not in the business of public transportation.)
Beyond public transportation, she points to multiple county buildings being in need of updating, and says some are falling apart – with water pipes over 150 years old – and others hardly ADA-compliant. Additionally, Lake has pointed to technology systems within county government as being severely outdated.
Like her opponent, Lake has said Jackson County government has lost trust among its residents, and a full-scale audit is necessary to begin the reform she envisions. Her plan includes hiring an independent auditor to go department by department, ensuring that all public funds are accounted for, and being spent in accordance with the approved county budget.
She says she will bring the county’s assessment process for property taxes back in house and sever the relationship with the company the county outsourced much of the assessment work to. Lake also supports an annual cap on assessment increases at the state level, calling it an ethical necessity.
