— Commissioner Todd Stanton, on the telephone during the February 17, 2026 wildfire response
This is Todd Stanton showing zero respect for the employees of Seward County, on the worst fire day the county has seen in years. Forty seconds of audio. Listen to it yourself.
February 17, 2026. Seward County was on fire, Englewood was being evacuated, and homes were burning to the ground.
One commissioner was out fighting it himself, on a tractor.
Another spent days making sure the crews had water.
Todd Stanton was on the phone, giggling.
Rural Fire is his own assignment. He is the commissioner responsible for that department, and that is its chief on the other end of the line.
Here he is. Twenty seconds each. Press play.
“April’s pissed off because I haven’t given her a radio to be able to talk and listen to my shit.”
— the Fire Chief
“Good man. Good man.”
— Commissioner Stanton
Homes were burning to the ground. That is Todd Stanton laughing about keeping the county’s own administration in the dark. What is the joke?
What was good about anything the Fire Chief was doing on that phone? He said it twice.
“So they can all kiss my ass.”
— the Fire Chief
“I understand that 100%… make sure you send them a picture so they can kiss it.”
— Commissioner Stanton
Neither question is rhetorical. Commissioner Stanton can answer both at any meeting he likes, and we would publish his answer here.
The clips above are cut from two longer recordings, published by the Leader & Times from the camera in the Fire Chief’s county truck. Both are here whole, start to finish, so you can hear that nothing was taken out of context.
The radio. County Administrator April Warden had asked for a radio — not to talk on, to listen. In her own words: “It was to be able to hear where the command sites were, where we need to send the water tankers.” She did not have one. Two weeks later the Commission reviewed the fire response, identified the lack of a command center for communication as a key problem, and committed to reprogramming radios. (KWCH, March 3, 2026.)
That day. Three fires were burning in and around the county and multiple homes were lost. Phone records for the fire department truck show the Chief on the line with Commissioner Stanton eight times that day, fifty minutes in all. (News reports of February 18, 2026; Verizon Business call detail.)
The transcript was made by ear by the recall committee. The recording governs — if you hear it differently, tell us and we will correct it.
None of this is in the recall petition. That is 197 words about the retirement, and you can read every one of them on the petition page.
The same year, the same commissioner, the same county employees — the zoning file, the retirement, and the December meeting are all on this site.