Proposal to rename Meadowlake Park after former mayor draws scrutiny from Ward 6 resident

Seven of Prairie Village’s 14 parks are named after former mayors — so a proposal to rechristen Meadowlake Park in honor of former mayor Monroe “Roe” Taliaferro may not seem controversial on its face.

But its timing in the lead up to a contested election has at least one resident crying foul.

Parks and Recreation Chair Diana Ewy Sharp, a City Councilmember representing Ward 6, put the proposal before the committee at its Feb. 8 meeting. Taliaferro, who served from 1989-1999, is the city’s longest tenured mayor after current Mayor Ron Shaffer. The motion passed unanimously — and no one seems to dispute that Taliaferro deserves the honor — but the timing prompted scrutiny from Kathy Thompsen, a Ward 6 resident who is a frequent observer at City Council, Planning Commission and Parks and Recreation Committee meetings.

Thompsen sent a letter late last week to Mayor Shaffer and the council questioning whether the timing was politically expedient. Ewy Sharp is facing a challenge from Ward 6 resident Ted Odell, who ran for Council Member David Belz’s Ward 6 seat two years ago.

“Mrs. Sharp has had 5+ years as Chair of the Parks and Recreation Committee to rename a park for our well-respected former Mayor Roe Taliaferro,” Thompsen wrote. “Mrs. Sharp chooses now to rename Meadowlake Park (which is in her Ward), for Mayor Taliaferro a member of her ward, during a contested election?…This has all the earmarks of a classic something-for-something.”

Specifically, Thompsen suggests Ewy Sharp may have expected special campaign access at Claridge Court, where Taliaferro and his wife Helen now live, or the endorsement of the former mayor.

But Ewy Sharp says the timing is purely coincidental, and that she’s prepared to hold off on bringing the issue before the City Council for approval until after the April City Council Election to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

Ewy Sharp said the idea to bring the renaming proposal before the parks committee came in January, when Helen Taliaferro let her know that she and Monroe would no longer be able to maintain the section of landscaping near the Delmar Street entrance to the Prairie Village Pool Complex that they’d kept up for years.

The time, Ewy Sharp said, seemed to have come to do something to recognize the Taliaferros’ service to the city. Ewy Sharp says, and Shaffer confirms, that the idea to bring the renaming proposal before the Parks Committee came at Shaffer’s direction.

“Frankly, we didn’t anticipate that anything like this would come of it,” Shaffer said.

Ewy Sharp said that while she has contacted Claridge Court about holding a candidate forum there, she has done the same with other homeowners associations. She also said that Odell, her opponent, would be invited to participate in any forum events.

But such explanations may not offer much satisfaction to Thompsen.

“Mayor Taliaferro is an honored former Mayor. He deserves a Park named in his honor,” she wrote. “But Mrs. Sharp’s blatant, politically-motivated timing tarnishes Mayor Taliaferro’s good name. Mayor Taliaferro deserves better.”