by Peggy Bair
Candidates for Leavenworth City Commission and USD 453 Present
By Peggy Bair
On Saturday September 20, the League of Women Voters hosted a forum for candidates running for Leavenworth City Commission and USD 453 school board seats. Election day is November 4, 2025.
Four of the six candidates running for Leavenworth City Commission were able to attend the public forum. Five of the six candidates running for USD 453 school board were in attendance. One absent candidate’s statement was read by LOWV present Kelly Butler.
An overflow crowd of about 50 people attended Saturday’s event.
Another candidate forum is to be held on Wednesday, Sept. 23, for USD 453 candidates only.
Each of the candidates at Saturday’s forum got two minutes to speak. The forum was then open to the public to converse with any of the candidates at the forum.
Here is a summary of what each candidate said during this forum:
City Commission Candidates:
Steven Clay:
“I’m a Christian, I’m a husband, I’m a father, and I was a soldier. And now I just say I’m a patriotic citizen. And that’s a big part of why I want to run this time around. I wasn’t born here, but I’ve lived here since 1997. And I chose to live here with my family. My daughters went to high school here, graduated from Leavenworth, and K-State. I think the property owner and of course like many of you if not all of you we’ve been paying some pretty high taxes. I’m looking for ways how do we take that that burden off of the taxpayer and shift it elsewhere, so the city gets the resources they need to do the things that we need to do? And that’s another word I would say, need to do, rather than wants.
Rebecca Hollister:
I first moved here in Leavenworth. My dad was in the Army, so I’ve lived here since 2008. I graduated from Leavenworth High in 2017, and then I went to college in Washington, DC at Georgetown. It was during COVID that I got sent home, because everybody did. And I realized that Leavenworth was going to become my forever home. So, I joined a lot of organizations, like LV Arts, CASA, the Humane Society. It was then that I decided I wanted to run for office because I want people my age and beyond to feel like Leavenworth is a prosperous, powerful choice for them to make to start businesses or raise families. But there’s a couple of things we need to do for that. First is economic development. That is a huge priority because the more we can widen our tax base, the less taxes will burden individual residents. So, we need to bring businesses into our business and technology park as well as our downtown. I’m also focused on affordable housing. Whether you’re a renter, first time homeowner, forever homeowner, or a senior, everybody deserves safe and affordable housing. Finally, public safety. This includes not only roads and sidewalks, but also things like the fentanyl crisis and crime in town. We need to be focused on that as well. As far as my campaign goes, I really like to practice what I call active transparency. There’s a lot of public documents available to the public and open like the budget, city meetings and everything, but that’s not always an accessible way for the public to get information. So, I really want to go to the public and be able to explain these documents so that everybody is well aware of what is going on in their city.
Sam Maxwell:
Been here for four generations with the Maxwell. If you go back even further, we’ve been here since the Fort was around, on my family side anyways. Grandfather was ex-chief police on my mother’s side. We need to bring Leavenworth back. We want to bring it back to the 80s, 90s, when we were really, really prosperous. When we had a mall, we had all kinds of fun things to do for our kids, our families. We didn’t have to go out of town to get what we needed, what we wanted. I will be your workhorse. I’ve been doing construction for 25 years, if not longer I will be your workhorse. I know infrastructure like nobody’s business. I do road projects all the time, 4th Street being one of them. I did 4th Street, and I’ve done K7 and Eisenhower. So I know our infrastructure. I know ways to help make the city better with that, find cheaper solutions, work on what’s failing, what’s going south real quick. We have kicked the can too long. So, I will be the guy for your blue-collar, let’s get it done attitude.
Joe Wilson:
I have also been here since 1985. My father was in the military. I’ve come to love this as my home. I graduated from Louisville High School from the ROTC program. I went to KU on an Army ROTC scholarship. I’ve served in the National Guard. I’ve served as a corrections officer. I have served as a deputy sheriff for our community. Everything I’ve done has been in a form of servant leadership. And I believe that I have been called to continue to try to find ways to serve. Everybody says, why are you running? It’s a headache, it’s a problem. And that’s true, it’s not an easy thing to do. But what I want to do is take my experience as a business owner and apply that to the city commission. Because what everybody says here is true. Our community is on the downslide. We haven’t grown very much the last few years. We need to be open for business. We need to make it easy for businesses to come in. We need to try and streamline things and remove as much red tape as possible. We need to take care of our first responders, because those are the people that take care of us. And ultimately, we need to grow our community. Each of us brings something different to the table. So what I would say is, I am about people over party. I would say, learn about each of us. And whoever fits your needs the best, that is the person you should vote for.