KSHB 41 reporter Rachel Henderson covers neighborhoods in Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties. Share your story idea with Rachel.
—
A Washburn University professor broke down the details in the lawsuit the city of Leavenworth filed against CoreCivic after the company withdrew its application for a special use permit in March.
“I think the city is asking CoreCivic to play by the rules of the city of Leavenworth, and that strikes me as a very reasonable request,” said Burke Griggs, a property law professor at Washburn University.
His first impression of the CoreCivic lawsuit began on the first page.
“I think it’s revealing that the city led its first complaint with a quote from Judge Robinson,” Griggs said.
In that complaint, a judge described a CoreCivic facility as a "hell hole."
Griggs said city leaders are in a tough position.
"You have to evaluate what the rules are versus the political or public attractiveness of the facility," Griggs said.
There's been no shortage of public opinion on this issue, something Griggs said has historically played a role in previous cases.
"We've seen this in another case that happened several years ago when Tyson Foods announced that it was going to build a massive chicken slaughterhouse in Tonganoxie," Griggs said. "But across the board, people in Jefferson County, suburban commuters, rural residents, others, banded together and said, 'You can't just build something in our community that we don't want.' And that alliance convinced Tyson not to build a plant there."
Despite previous cases establishing precedents Griggs has seen, CoreCivic's approach is still jarring.
“I’m a little baffled behind the reason why CoreCivic would be acting like a bull in a China shop here,” Griggs said.
When CoreCivic initially showed interest in opening an ICE detention center in Leavenworth, the city said it needed a special use permit in order to operate.
In February, CoreCivic applied for a special use permit.
Weeks later, CoreCivic withdrew its application on the basis of not needing a permit because it argued the facility never closed and the company kept 24-hour maintenance on staff.
“That strikes me as a real frontal assault on Leavenworth’s ability to set its own zoning rules,” Griggs said. “[They’re] essentially asking for forgiveness rather than permission. That’s not how zoning works.”
That aggressiveness is striking but not unfamiliar to Griggs.
"We see this in certain areas of the law," Griggs said. "If you’re familiar with how Uber has run its business across the world, they tend to come in, break laws, and then use their political and economic power to reform those laws after the fact. What CoreCivic is doing here is pretty brazen."
The city withdrew its temporary restraining order Monday in exchange for CoreCivic postponing housing detainees until June 1.
Griggs said the general idea of blocking the facility from operating is something CoreCivic, which still owns the building, would not be in favor of.
"That would probably be quite economically costly to CoreCivic," Griggs said.
The stipulation ends with the following note:
"Nothing in this Stipulation should be construed to mean that Plaintiff agrees the Property may be used as a 'jail' or 'prison' (as those terms are defined in the City’s Development Regulations) on or after June 1, 2025, without the issuance by Plaintiff’s City Commission of a Special Use Permit."
Griggs said he thinks the city and CoreCivic sensibly agreed "to cool it down a little bit [and] extend the wiring deadline six weeks, to see if they can’t work through the zoning process by then."
In that time, Griggs said CoreCivic could choose to re-apply for a permit, but there’s also a scenario where he could see CoreCivic suing the city if the city denies the permit application.
“If I were representing CoreCivic, that would be my first response is, under this aspect of the immigration laws, we have the federal legal authority to displace state law,” Griggs said. “And we haven’t seen that.”
Griggs said federal authority typically trumps the local or state level, but it’s too early to say if that’s a tactic CoreCivic will use.
“This is a microcosm of a larger international fight about immigration,” Griggs said. "Local authorities generally have the authority on zoning, and that goes all the way back to the 1920s with the city of Euclid case where the Supreme Court of the United States said, ‘Yeah, this town in Ohio can have zoning rules, and that’s an enforceable regulation.’"
There are multiple ways the next steps could play out, Griggs said, including a declamatory judgment, a court order requirement or a settlement negotiation.
"The courts have very strong powers to stop the offensive conduct that violates the zoning code," Griggs said.
On April 23, the city and CoreCivic will meet for the first time in court for a status hearing in Topeka.
