Raided Kansas newspaper is known for aggressively covering small town’s many disputes

Sharon Kelsey had come to the Marion County Record on Monday afternoon to place resurrection lilies next to a red newspaper box outside the weekly paper in the small central-Kansas town.

Kelsey, a subscriber whose paper gets passed between her sons, was “very upset” about a Friday police search of the Record’s newsroom, which was quickly criticized as the story spread across the U.S.

Police also searched the home of the paper’s co-owners, Eric Meyer and his 98-year-old mother, Joan Meyer. She died the next day.

“I feel like things in this country aren’t going right,” said Kelsey, a longtime Marion resident who considers the paper’s staff friends.

Others in the town of fewer than 2,000 people have different opinions about the paper and its self-described aggressive coverage.

About a block away on Monday, lifelong resident Jared Smith, 39, applauded the police raid as he closed down his wife’s spa on Main Street — a decision he tied to the Record’s “negative” coverage of her business.

“It blows my mind how negative our paper is to our community,” Smith said as he stood in front of the shuttered Dawn’s Day Spa, where a homemade “Support Marion PD” sign was displayed on the window.

Settled among the prairie of Kansas’ rolling hills, the city that calls itself “the town between two lakes” has become a focal point of a national controversy over First Amendment rights and what many see as frightening law enforcement overreach.

Police Chief Gideon Cody, appointed in May to lead the town’s force after 24 years with Kansas City police, has defended sending his five officers to seize journalists’ cellphones, computers and materials. Officers appeared to be looking for evidence about how the paper obtained information that a local restaurateur, who applied for a liquor license, lost her driver’s license over a DUI in 2008.

The family-owned newspaper, which prides itself on being a watchdog in the community about an hour north of Wichita, said it did nothing wrong. Comparing the raid to tactics carried out by the secret police in Nazi Germany, editor Eric Meyer said there is “ill will” between the town’s top cop and the paper, which previously looked into tips about Cody’s background but did not publish a story about them.

In a town where rumors spread within 15 minutes, though only a fraction are true, as one former city official put it, residents are waiting to see what comes of the police investigation.

Chris Hernandez, a financial adviser who works around the corner from the newsroom, said community members who love their town just want “what’s right,” though they don’t know for sure yet why the raid took place.

Standing next to him Monday within eyesight of the police department, Gene Winkler, who has lived in town since 1962, also hoped investigators “get it right,” whether that’s good or bad for the Record.

Winkler, 81, who once served on the City Council, has had his differences with the Record, like others in town. He said the paper’s “negative” coverage can be a sore spot with residents and businesses.

That could be because the Record — which is led by Meyer, who worked for 16 years at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and whose staff includes a former Wichita Eagle reporter — covers a small community that has had its share of controversy even before the raid.

Last year, for example, the town’s two top cops and a city clerk, who was married to the then-police chief, all resigned, apparently over the lack of discipline against a city administrator accused of misconduct.

The administrator allegedly showed a “provocative” photograph of the owner of Dawn’s Day Spa — who had worked as a model — to the city treasurer, Meyer said. The official was also accused of using a racial slur, among other things.

Another issue involving the spa was also covered in the Record. The owner was “embroiled in a dispute” with officials over its sign, which was in violation of city code because it stuck out of its building. Meyer said he did not know how that coverage would drive her out of business.

As detailed in the Record, the city administrator was ultimately fired in December after less than six months on the job. The paper dutifully reminded taxpayers what the search for his job had cost them: at least $7,500.

“If found to be without formal cause, his firing could end up costing the city considerably more than $50,000 in salary and benefits,” Meyer added in the story, apparently considering a possibility that council members had not thought to discuss.

Meyer’s story noted that at one point at the end of the meeting where the administrator was fired, he remained the only member of the public there.

Resident Darvin Markley said the Record is simply reporting on the town’s issues. Meyer taught journalism at the University of Illinois for 25 years, he noted, and said the editor “knows what he’s doing.”

“The problem is, with the public saying that (Meyer is negative), is that they are trying to cover up their own mistakes,” Markley told reporters outside the Record’s office Monday. “This newspaper is very good at investigative reporting. That’s what he does.”

Questions remain

As readers brought flowers to the newsroom Monday, Meyer was back in the office, mad that he couldn’t get more information about the “outrageously stupid” raid that was captured on the office’s inside surveillance cameras.

A copy of the search warrant lists identity theft and “unlawful acts concerning computers” as the crimes the police chief told Magistrate Judge Laura Viar he had probable cause to believe had been committed.

The warrant allowed officers and sheriff’s deputies to take correspondence pertaining to business owner Kari Newell, the local restaurateur, along with digital information or items that would establish the use of computers and networks “to participate in the identity theft” of Newell.

Chief Cody told The Associated Press that the affidavits for the warrants, which would provide the probable cause for the searches, would be available “once charges are filed.”

But on Monday evening, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation took over the case and said it would “review all prior steps taken” during the probe. Cody did not respond to a request for comment about the shift Monday night.

City officials have largely remained silent about the raid that the paper’s attorney said violated state and federal laws.

Mayor David Mayfield said the situation will be handled by lawyers, while Vice Mayor Ruth Herbel — whose cellphone and laptop were also seized Friday at her home — called the newsroom raid “an invasion.”

The city’s three other council members have not responded to requests for comment.

Before the raid, many of Mayfield’s posts on Facebook were about the Record and what he described as inaccurate coverage.

“After reading the Marion county record today again I need to set the record straight,” the mayor wrote in January on his official page, where he also previously called one of the paper’s stories “fake news.”

Subscriptions surge

Meyer is a wealth of knowledge about local elected officials. His newspaper has kept residents up to date on their agendas and conflicts, including earlier this year when Mayfield led an unsuccessful effort to recall Herbel, in part, over an alleged Kansas Open Meetings Act violation because she wrote “Thanks” in an accidental reply all email.

As the newspaper considers a lawsuit, Meyer described holding elected officials accountable as not only important for the town but as good for business. The paper’s circulation and advertisements were up.

Since the raid, the paper has seen a significant spike in online subscribers — more than 1,000 since Friday — which was evident as its phones rang nearly nonstop Monday.

Still, the raid has already scared at least one person from sharing information with the Record.

That tipster called Meyer the other day and told him he should see a post on Facebook, but said he did not want to send it to Meyer out of fear that his computer would be confiscated by local law enforcement.

“This town has a history that if you speak up against the people in power, they will get you somehow,” Meyer said. “Which is kind of what has happened to us.”

The Star’s Jonathan Shorman contributed to this report.