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New Jackson County legislator who sued to retain school board seat gives up fight

Manny Abarca has given up his fight to simultaneously serve on the Kansas City Public Schools board and the Jackson County Legislature.

Abarca and two other newly elected legislators had hoped to retain their seats on area school boards, despite a provision in the county charter that forbids legislators from holding another “federal, state, county, or municipal elective office.”

Abarca had argued that school board members didn’t fit that definition and wanted to have a court decide whether he was right.

But he abandoned that effort on New Year’s Eve, resigning his school board post, after Judge Louis Angles denied his request for a temporary restraining order. That order would have put things on hold until the legal arguments could be sorted out.

“To the KCPS Team, know this was not my choice, but due to the inaction of the courts this is what I am left with,” he wrote in announcing his resignation on Twitter. Elected in 2021, Abarca had one year left of his school board term.

On Sunday, he was one of six new members of the legislature sworn in via video conference to serve four-year terms alongside three returning members of the county’s main governing body. A ceremonial swearing in is by invitation only on Wednesday.

Abarca, who represents Jackson County’s 1st District, did not respond to requests for comment.

New legislators Meghan Marshall (3rd District At-Large) and DaRon McGee (4th District) also resigned their seats on the Lee’s Summit and Hickman Mills school boards, respectively, after the judge’s ruling. Marshall had hoped to serve out the rest of her term, which ends in April. McGee’s term on Hickman Mills board, where he served as president, ends in April. He had filed for re-election after he won his spot on the legislature.

A fourth new legislator, Donna Peyton, was a member of the Raytown school board. She resigned that position a couple of weeks ago, after being elected to represent the 2nd District At-Large.

All four are Democrats. The legislature’s first meeting will be on Monday.