December 15, 2025. A regular meeting of the Seward County Commission, in the courthouse, on the public record.
Commissioners disagree. That is the job.
At 8:04 that evening a deputy was sent to the meeting.
He was sent because of Todd Stanton.
He admitted what he did. Not to us — to the Sheriff, that night, in a report you can read.
In his own account of it
Commissioner Stanton admitted to telling Presephoni “watch your mouth,” while holding his finger up to the level her face would be. Sheriff Ward in short words tells Stanton he could not speak that way.
— Seward County Sheriff’s Office, incident report 25SO06392
The Sheriff of Seward County had to tell a sitting county commissioner how he may speak to a colleague.
Not a member of the public. Not an employee. Another elected commissioner, at the bench, at a public meeting.
He was not the only one who saw it. The County’s own IT Director wrote to the Sheriff the next day. Nobody asked him to.
The email nobody requested
At the December 15th 2025 regular BOCC meeting for Seward County, I did witness Todd Stanton point his finger in the face of Persephoni Fuller upon exiting the commission executive session room and entering into the meeting room to return to their seats at the commission bench.
— Clayton Hoover, Information Technology Director, Seward County, to Sheriff Gene Ward, December 16, 2025
He pointed the Sheriff to the County’s own video of the meeting: sewardcountyks.new.swagit.com/videos/364518
Commissioner Fuller told the deputy she wanted to press charges for assault. After the meeting she changed her mind. What she asked for instead is the part worth sitting with.
What she asked the deputy to do
Presephoni changed her mind and asked me to speak with Stanton about speaking to women the way he did.
— Seward County Sheriff’s Office, incident report 25SO06392
She did not want him punished. She wanted somebody to tell him how to speak to a woman.
That is what a fellow commissioner thought was needed. She has since resigned from the Commission and left Kansas.
Commissioner Stanton was not charged with anything, and we are not suggesting he should have been. The question a voter has to answer is a different one: is this how a county commissioner behaves?