1

No. 123,277

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS

PRETTY PRAIRIE WIND LLC, et al.,

Appellants,

v.

RENO COUNTY and BOARD OF RENO COUNTY 

COMMISSIONERS,

Appellees.

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT

1.

Kansas law requires an appellee to cross-appeal a district court's adverse decisions 

before those rulings may be challenged on appeal. The failure to cross-appeal a district 

court's adverse decision creates a jurisdictional bar preventing appellate review.

2.

While a cross-appeal is necessary to bring other adverse rulings before the 

appellate courts, it is not generally required when a party is merely challenging the 

district court's reasoning underlying a decision already subject to appeal.

3.

The requirements of K.S.A. 25-3601 through K.S.A. 25-3608 do not apply to 

zoning protest petitions. Those petitions are governed by K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-

757(f)(1).

Appeal from Reno District Court; TIMOTHY J. CHAMBERS, judge. Opinion filed August 26, 2022. 

Affirmed.
2

Timothy J. Sear, of Polsinelli PC, of Kansas City, Missouri, Alan Claus Anderson, of Kansas 

City, Missouri, and Gerald L. Green, of Gilliland Green LLC, of Hutchinson, for appellants.

S. Eric Steinle, of Martindell Swearer Shaffer Ridenour LLP, of Hutchinson, and Joseph P. 

O'Sullivan, Reno County Counselor, for appellees.

Patrick B. Hughes and Susan M. Locke, of Adams Jones Law Firm, P.A., of Wichita, for 

intervenors Lynn Thalmann, et al.

Before SCHROEDER, P.J., WARNER and ISHERWOOD, JJ.

WARNER, J.: This appeal concerns the statutory requirements for petitions 

protesting proposed zoning changes. The current dispute began when Pretty Prairie Wind 

LLC sought a conditional-use permit from the Board of Reno County Commissioners to 

operate a wind farm. Several local property owners challenged Pretty Prairie's permit 

application by filing zoning protest petitions, triggering a heightened voting requirement

to approve the permit. The Board of County Commissioners' vote failed to meet this 

requirement, resulting in the denial of Pretty Prairie's application. 

Pretty Prairie filed suit, challenging the form of the protest petitions. The district 

court concluded that the protest petitions were valid under Kansas law and entered 

judgment for the County. After carefully reviewing the record before us and the parties' 

arguments, we agree with the district court's decision to grant judgment in favor of the 

County, albeit for different reasons. We therefore affirm the judgment.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

In February 2019, Pretty Prairie applied for a conditional-use permit to build a 

wind farm near Haven in Reno County. After receiving a report from county staff, the 

Reno County Planning and Zoning Commission held several public hearings and 

received public comments concerning the proposed permit. That April, the Commission
3

recommended to the three-member Board of County Commissioners that the application 

be denied. 

Under Kansas law, the vote needed to overcome a planning commission's 

recommendation depends on the community's reaction to the recommended outcome. In 

most instances, a board of county commissioners can overrule a planning commission's 

recommendation by a two-thirds majority vote. See K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-757(d). But 

when the owners of at least 20% of the land within 1,000 feet of the property at issue sign 

and file protest petitions within 14 days after the end of the public hearings, a threefourths majority is needed to overrule the recommendation. K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-

757(b), (f)(1); Reno County Zoning Regulations § 20-102 (2016).

The Board of Reno County Commissioners has three members. Practically 

speaking, this means that a vote of two of the three members is necessary to overcome 

the Reno County Planning and Zoning Commission's recommendations in most 

circumstances. But when a sufficient proportion of landowners file petitions protesting a 

proposed zoning action, a decision rejecting a recommendation requires the vote of all 

three Board members. 

Reno County residents began organizing to submit protest petitions against the 

wind farm, holding several community events to mobilize neighboring landowners. The 

protest petitions provided at these events included the date, the protesting landowner's 

name, a description or address of the landowner's property, and the landowner's signature. 

The petitions also included a section for the signature and address of a "circulator," along 

with a declaration stating, "I declare under penalty of perjury I am a circulator of this 

petition, duly qualified, and personally witnessed each signature on this page." 

Shortly before its June 2019 meeting, the Board determined that 114 valid 

petitions—from owners representing 46% of the property within the 1,000-foot 
4

boundary—had been filed, triggering the three-fourths majority requirement. Of these 

petitions, approximately 110 included a circulator's signature. The Board voted 2-1 to 

approve the permit, falling short of the required vote to override the planning 

commission's recommendation. As a result, the permit was denied. 

Pretty Prairie filed a petition in district court challenging this outcome, raising 

procedural and substantive claims. From a procedural standpoint, Pretty Prairie asserted 

that the protest petitions were invalid because the circulators failed to comply with 

K.S.A. 25-3602(b)(4), a statute governing petitions submitted for elections; this statute 

requires a circulator to verify before a notarial officer that the circulator witnessed each 

person sign a petition. Pretty Prairie argued that the protest petitions were void because 

the circulator signatures were not notarized, so the Board's 2-1 vote was sufficient to 

overrule the Commission's recommendation. Turning to the substance of the Board's 

decision, Pretty Prairie asserted that the decision to deny the permit was unreasonable. 

As the case progressed before the district court, Pretty Prairie sought partial 

summary judgment on its procedural claim. The County, as well as various adjacent 

landowners (the Intervenors) who were permitted to intervene as defendants, opposed this 

request. The district court denied Pretty Prairie's motion. Most relevant to this discussion, 

the court found that the notarial-affirmation requirement under K.S.A. 25-3602(b)(4)

applied to zoning protest petitions, but the circulators' declaration on the protest petitions 

substantially complied with that statute. 

Following the ruling, Pretty Prairie sought to file an interlocutory appeal, which 

the court denied. Pretty Prairie then dismissed its outstanding substantive claim and asked 

that final judgment be entered on its procedural claim. The court granted this request, and 

Pretty Prairie appealed. Neither the Intervenors nor the County filed a cross-appeal.
5

DISCUSSION

The primary point of contention in this appeal is the standard that governs 

petitions protesting potential zoning changes. Pretty Prairie asserts—and the district court 

found—that protest petitions must comply with Kansas statutes governing election 

petitions, K.S.A. 25-3601 through K.S.A. 25-3608. The County argues that the protest 

petitions are governed solely by K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-757. 

Unraveling these issues turns on the language and interplay of these various 

statutory provisions. Statutory interpretation is a legal question over which appellate 

courts' review is unlimited. Nauheim v. City of Topeka, 309 Kan. 145, 149, 432 P.3d 647 

(2019). Our primary aim when interpreting statutes is to give effect to the legislature's 

intent, expressed through the statutory language it adopted. State v. Spencer Gifts, 304 

Kan. 755, Syl. ¶ 2, 374 P.3d 680 (2016). We thus follow the statutes' plain language—we 

do not add or ignore statutory requirements, and we give ordinary words their ordinary 

meanings. 304 Kan. 755, Syl. ¶ 3.

When legislative intent is unclear from the statute's text, courts employ canons of 

construction to ascertain the legislature's aim. Primary among these is the presumption 

that the legislature does not intend to enact meaningless legislation, and that statutory 

language should be construed to avoid unreasonable or absurd results. See In re Marriage 

of Traster, 301 Kan. 88, 98, 339 P.3d 778 (2014). In a similar vein, courts attempt to 

reconcile conflicting statutes and bring them into workable harmony, if possible. See 

Miller v. Board of Wabaunsee County Comm'rs, 305 Kan. 1056, 1066, 390 P.3d 504 

(2017). Statutes that specifically address a matter tend to control over a more general 

statutory provision. State ex rel. Schmidt v. Governor Kelly, 309 Kan. 887, 898, 441 P.3d 

67 (2019). 
6

Applying these principles here, we agree with the County that zoning protest 

petitions are governed by K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-757, not by K.S.A. 25-3601 et seq.

While most of the protest petitions filed in this case contained a signature and declaration 

for the petition circulator, those sections were not required by Kansas law. Because these 

petitions comply with K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-757, the district court correctly granted 

judgment to the County, even though it employed different reasoning to reach that result. 

Accord Gannon v. State, 302 Kan. 739, 744, 357 P.3d 873 (2015) ("'If a trial court 

reaches the right result, its decision will be upheld even though the trial court relied upon 

the wrong ground or assigned erroneous reasons for its decision.'"). 

1. The absence of a cross-appeal does not constrain our review of the district court's 

summary-judgment ruling.

Before explaining our analysis of these relevant statutes, we must consider a 

threshold jurisdictional question. Pretty Prairie asserts that we do not have jurisdiction to 

consider this statutory question—which Kansas statute governs the protest petitions—at 

all because the County and Intervenors did not cross-appeal that finding. According to 

Pretty Prairie, in the absence of a cross-appeal, this court is constrained by the district 

court's conclusion as to which statute applies. Thus, the only issues in this appeal are 

whether protest petitions must strictly or substantially comply with K.S.A. 25-3602 and 

whether the petitions here satisfied that level of compliance. We disagree. 

In denying Pretty Prairie's summary-judgment motion, the district court found that 

the zoning protest petitions were valid. To arrive at that ruling, the court made several 

intermediate determinations. Most notably, the court concluded:

• that K.S.A. 25-3602, not K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-757, established the requirements 

for zoning protest petitions;
7

• that only substantial compliance (not strict compliance) with K.S.A. 25-3602 was 

required for the protest petitions to be valid; and

• that the protest petitions substantially complied with that statute. 

The County and the Intervenors present two alternative bases for why the district 

court's ultimate ruling—the zoning protest petitions were valid—was correct. They claim 

that K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-757, not K.S.A. 25-3602, governs the protest petitions. And 

they assert that if the district court's statutory analysis of K.S.A. 25-3602 was correct, 

then it correctly determined that the protest petitions complied with that statute. 

It is true—as Pretty Prairie indicates—that Kansas law requires an appellee to 

cross-appeal a district court's adverse decisions before those rulings may be challenged

on appeal. Cooke v. Gillespie, 285 Kan. 748, 755, 176 P.3d 144 (2008); see K.S.A. 2021

Supp. 60-2103(h) (cross-appeal required when "the appellee desires to have a review of 

rulings and decisions of which such appellee complains"). The failure to cross-appeal a 

district court's adverse decision creates a jurisdictional bar preventing appellate review. 

Lumry v. State, 305 Kan. 545, 555, 385 P.3d 479 (2016).

But while a cross-appeal is necessary to bring other adverse rulings before the 

appellate courts, it is not generally required when a party is merely challenging the 

district court's reasoning underlying a decision already subject to appeal. See Lacy v. 

Kansas Dental Board, 274 Kan. 1031, 1044, 58 P.3d 668 (2002); Williams v. Amoco 

Production Co., 241 Kan. 102, 116, 734 P.2d 1113 (1987). In Lacy, for example, the 

Kansas Supreme Court upheld a district court's decision under a different statutory 

provision than the one the district court relied on. 274 Kan. at 1044. While the district 

court's conclusion was correct, its reasoning was not—the provision that it thought 

resolved the question did not apply, but another provision did and led to the same result. 

274 Kan. at 1044. 
8

In its brief, Pretty Prairie cites Reinecker v. Board of Trustees, 198 Kan. 715, 722, 

426 P.2d 44 (1967), for its assertion that the County and Intervenors were required to 

cross-appeal the district court's conclusion that K.S.A. 25-3602—not K.S.A. 12-757—

applies to protest petitions. But Reinecker is readily distinguishable. In that case, various 

landowners appealed the denial of an injunction in an eminent-domain action. In its 

response brief, the appellee argued that although the district court had ultimately ruled in 

its favor at trial, the court erred in admitting certain trial testimony. The Kansas Supreme 

Court found that the evidentiary challenge was not properly before the court since no 

cross-appeal had been filed. 198 Kan. at 722. Thus, the issue barred by the absence of a 

cross-appeal in Reinecker was separate and distinct from the questions on appeal. That is 

not the case here.

The Kansas Supreme Court revisited the nature of cross-appeals in Cooke. That 

case had yo-yoed between the district and appellate courts several times. In the most 

recent appeal, the appellant, Cooke, challenged the district court's distribution of 

settlement proceeds. Cooke argued that the statute of limitations barred the district court's 

action; the opposing party, Gillespie, asserted that this question was not properly before 

the court because Cooke had not cross-appealed the district court's adverse ruling on that 

question during a previous appeal. Our Supreme Court agreed with Gillespie. The court 

explained that "Cooke failed to cross-appeal an earlier, and clearly adverse, ruling: Judge 

Kennedy's denial of her summary judgment motion that was based upon the statute of 

limitations." 285 Kan. at 755.

In reaching this conclusion, the Cooke court reviewed several earlier decisions 

discussing the necessity of a cross-appeal. In each instance, the Supreme Court had held 

that an issue must be presented through a cross-appeal when it arises from a district 

court's interim, adverse ruling. See, e.g., Scammahorn v. Gibraltar Savings & Loan 

Ass'n., 197 Kan. 410, 416 P.2d 771 (1966) (party must file cross-appeal to challenge 
9

district court's denial of a motion to dismiss); James v. City of Pittsburg, 195 Kan. 462, 

407 P.2d 503 (1965) (same); Chavez v. Markham, 19 Kan. App. 2d 702, 875 P.2d 997 

(1994), aff'd 256 Kan. 859, 889 P.2d 122 (1995) (party must cross-appeal denial of a 

motion for summary judgment).

As these cases illustrate, cross-appeals are always necessary when an appellee is 

challenging some adverse "ruling" or "judgment" against that party. Cooke, 285 Kan. 

748, Syl. ¶ 2; Williams, 241 Kan. at 116. The law is admittedly less clear as to when a 

party must cross-appeal some other determination, however. 

In many cases, courts have considered alternative reasons supporting the district 

court's ultimate decision when no cross-appeal was filed. See Gannon, 302 Kan. at 744 

(denial of motion to intervene was correct for a different reason than that given by the

district court because the motion was untimely filed); see also Atkins v. Webcon, 308 

Kan. 92, 97, 419 P.3d 1 (2018) ("'[W]hen an agency tribunal reaches the right result, its 

decision will be upheld even though the tribunal relied upon the wrong ground or 

assigned erroneous reasons for its decision.'"). But in a few cases, appellate courts have 

found that the absence of a cross-appeal precludes review of a district court's adverse 

factual finding or of the court's rejection of an alternative basis for its decision. See 

Lumry, 305 Kan. at 554 (because appellee had not cross-appealed district court's factual 

finding that appellee was an employer, appellate court did not have to consider that 

question); State v. Novotny, 297 Kan. 1174, 1181, 307 P.3d 1278 (2013) (State did not 

cross-appeal district court's finding that the photo lineup was unnecessarily suggestive). 

But see State v. Bates, 316 Kan. ___, 513 P.3d 483 (2022) (affirming the district court's 

denial of suppression motion for alternative legal grounds previously rejected by the 

district court with no mention of need for cross-appeal). 
10

This difference in treatment may be interesting in an academic sense. But we need 

not finally resolve the scope of all potential cross-appeals here. Instead, we find the facts 

of this case demonstrate that no cross-appeal is necessary for two reasons. 

First, there was no adverse ruling from which the County or Intervenors could 

seek our review. The district court made two rulings relevant to this appeal. It denied 

Pretty Prairie's summary-judgment motion, and then it granted the parties' agreed-upon 

motion to dismiss Pretty Prairie's remaining claims so that Pretty Prairie could appeal the 

summary-judgment denial. Neither ruling was adverse to the County or the Intervenors—

in both instances, judgment was entered in their favor on the merits.

Second, the statutory analysis of K.S.A. 25-3602 and K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-757 is 

key to deciding Pretty Prairie's appeal. Determining whether the district court erred in 

denying summary judgment—that is, in deciding that the protest petitions were valid—

requires determining what statute governs, and in turn what standards govern protest 

petitions for conditional-use permits. Pretty Prairie apparently perceived the importance 

of this statutory question, as it presented and pressed the issue in its opening brief. To 

hold otherwise would require this court to engage in a bizarre and potentially misleading 

discussion—to conduct a legal analysis under a statute that may not, in actuality, apply. 

This statutory analysis is thus different from other determinations, which have been 

involved in case-specific factual findings, where Kansas courts have found cross-appeals 

necessary. See Lumry, 305 Kan. at 554; Novotny, 297 Kan. at 1181. 

Under these circumstances, we are not persuaded by Pretty Prairie's argument that 

the absence of a cross-appeal limits our review of the district court's summary-judgment 

ruling. We thus proceed to our analysis of the relevant statutory provisions.
11

2. K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-757(f)(1), not K.S.A. 25-3602, governs the zoning protest 

petitions.

As we have indicated, the primary question in this appeal is whether K.S.A. 25-

3602 applies to zoning protest petitions. The district court found the petition requirements 

in K.S.A. 25-3602(b) apply to zoning protest petitions under K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-757. 

In reaching this decision, the court noted the absence of many specific requirements in 

K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-757(f)—particularly with regard to circulator certifications—for 

protest petitions' signatures. The court also noted that K.S.A. 25-3601(c) states the 

section applies to petitions "protesting" an ordinance or resolution. 

On appeal, Pretty Prairie supplements this reasoning by pointing to Deffenbaugh 

Disposal Services, Inc. v. City of Kansas City, No. 63,131, unpublished opinion filed June 

6, 1989 (Kan. App.), and Kansas Attorney General Opinion No. 2003-18, which both 

assumed—without deciding—that K.S.A. 25-3602 applies to zoning protest petitions. 

The County and Intervenors note that we are not bound by these decisions. They also 

argue that K.S.A. 25-3602 relates specifically to petitions in the elections context, and 

applying K.S.A. 25-3602 to a protest petition would require courts to disregard most of 

that statute's requirements. 

K.S.A. 25-3601 through K.S.A. 25-3608 govern petitions "required or authorized 

as part of the procedure applicable to the state as a whole or any legislative election 

district or to any county, city, school district[,] or other municipality." K.S.A. 25-3601(a).

A previous panel of this court described K.S.A. 25-3601 as "a procedural statute" that 

"provides a format for submitting ballot questions and a process for getting official 

approval of questions before getting citizen signatures on petitions seeking a public vote." 

Ramcharan-Maharajh v. Gilliland, 48 Kan. App. 2d 137, 141, 286 P.3d 216 (2012), rev. 

denied 297 Kan. 1247 (2013). K.S.A. 25-3601 and K.S.A. 25-3602 include several 

requirements for petitions to be effective. For example: 
12

• K.S.A. 25-3601(c) sets forth the "form of any question in a petition requesting an 

election on or protesting an ordinance, or resolution, adopted by" the relevant 

governing body must take. 

• K.S.A. 25-3602(b) requires a petition to include various information, such as the 

question "which petitioners seek to bring to an election" and the political or taxing 

subdivision "in which an election is sought to be held." K.S.A. 25-3602(b)(1), (2).

• K.S.A. 25-3602(b)(3) requires a petition to include the statement, "'I have 

personally signed this petition. I am a registered elector of the State of Kansas and 

of [the relevant political subdivision] and my residence address is correctly written 

after my name.'" 

• If a circulator is involved in the petition process, K.S.A. 25-3602(b)(4) requires 

the petition contain a recital stating the circulator (as defined by K.S.A. 25-3608) 

is qualified as a circulator and personally witnessed the signers sign the petition. 

The circulator's recital must be "verified upon oath or affirmation before a notarial 

officer in the manner prescribed by the revised uniform law on notarial acts." 

K.S.A. 25-3602(b)(4).

These requirements do not apply to petitions in all contexts. For example, K.S.A. 

25-3601(f) explicitly excludes recall petitions and grand-jury petitions from complying 

with these provisions. And K.S.A. 25-3601(d) states that "[w]hen any other statute 

imposes specific requirements which are different from the requirements imposed by 

K.S.A. 25-3601 et seq., and amendments thereto, the provisions of the specific statute 

shall control."

K.S.A. 12-757 governs zoning decisions. K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-757(f)(1) states 

that protest petitions for a potential zoning decision must be "filed in the office of the city 
13

clerk or the county clerk within 14 days after the date of the conclusion" of the planning 

commission's public hearing. If protest petitions "signed . . . by the owners of record of 

20% or more of the total real property within the area required to be notified by this act"

are filed, then a three-fourths vote is required to pass the proposed amendment. K.S.A. 

2021 Supp. 12-757(f)(1). For zoning outside city limits, all property owners living within

at least 1,000 feet of the area to be altered must be notified. K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-

757(b). Reno County's zoning ordinance contains a similar requirement. See Reno 

County Zoning Regulations § 20-102 (requiring a protest petition to be "duly signed and 

acknowledged by the owners").

The County points out several textual indications that the legislature did not intend 

for K.S.A. 25-3601 through K.S.A. 25-3608 to apply to zoning protest petitions. We 

agree that the language of these statutes concerns elections and signature requirements for 

electors. See generally K.S.A. 25-3601 (referencing elections and the county election 

officers throughout); K.S.A. 25-3602(b) (establishing signature requirements for 

"electors"); K.S.A. 25-3604 (setting forth the method of verifying that the signatures are 

provided by registered voters). Even K.S.A. 25-3601(f), which specifically excludes 

recall petitions and grand-jury petitions from its requirements, concerns petitions that 

involve elections or electors' signatures. See K.S.A. 25-4301 et seq. (governing recall of 

elected officials); K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 22-3001(c) (grand jury can be summoned by a 

petition from a requisite number of qualified "electors").

These "election" and "elector" requirements do not make sense for zoning protest

petitions. In the zoning context, people signing protest petitions must own property in or 

adjacent to the area to be rezoned. K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-757(f)(1). There is no 

requirement that those property owners be registered to vote or even be Kansas residents. 

Thus, most requirements in K.S.A. 25-3601 and 3602 could not apply. The only potential 

exception is the circulator verification in K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 25-3602(b)(4), which 

refences "petition circulator[s]" and does not mention elections or electors. But we cannot 
14

read this provision in isolation, nor can we read out or ignore the remainder of that 

statute. See Spencer Gifts, 304 Kan. 755, Syl. ¶ 3.

Our review of other statutes that reference K.S.A. 25-3601 through K.S.A. 25-

3608 further underscores our conclusion that those provisions were only intended to 

apply to election petitions. See K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-6a36(d) (requiring election for city 

to issue full-faith-and-credit bonds if protest petition objecting to issuance is signed by 

percentage of qualified voters in municipality); K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-1774(b)(2) (similar 

requirement for full-faith-and-credit tax-increment bonds); K.S.A. 41-302(a)-(b) (similar 

requirement for election questions concerning licensing the retail sale of alcohol in its 

original packaging). These statutes indicate the types of situations to which K.S.A. 25-

3601 applies—petitions requiring signatures from a certain number or percentage of 

electors to trigger an election. Multiple other statutes reflect this system to prompt an 

election. See, e.g., K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 2-131b (in counties with fair associations, tax 

levies for erection and maintenance of fair association buildings); K.S.A. 10-203

(building, purchasing, or repairing of bridges); K.S.A. 12-614 (bonds for resurfacing 

paved streets); K.S.A. 12-1236 (creating library district); K.S.A. 12-3013 (describing 

process for proposed ordinances); K.S.A. 24-122 (returning oversight of drainage district 

to directors) ; K.S.A. 68-598 (abandoning county rural highway system); K.S.A. 72-1143

(establishment of teacherages); K.S.A. 80-1514b (general obligation bonds for fire 

district).

Zoning protest petitions under K.S.A. 12-757, however, are qualitatively different 

from election petitions. Unlike statutes concerning elections, rezoning begins by

submitting a zoning amendment to a planning commission, not through a petition

process. K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-757(b). Protest petitions do not trigger public involvement 

in the rezoning decision—a successful petition simply increases the threshold required

for the Board to pass a rezoning ordinance or resolution. K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-757(f)(1). 

The petition-signing requirement is based on land ownership, not the ability to vote.
15

K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-757(f)(1). And petitions are filed with the city or county clerk, not 

an election officer. K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-757(f)(1).

The authorities that Pretty Prairie references on appeal do not persuade us 

otherwise. In Deffenbaugh, a panel of this court found a circulator properly verified 

signatures on zoning protest petitions under the predecessor to K.S.A. 25-3602(b)(4). 

Deffenbaugh assumed, rather than decided, that K.S.A. 25-3601 applied to zoning protest 

petitions; that issue was not presented for the panel's consideration, nor was it given any 

consideration or meaningful discussion in that opinion. Accord State v. Fleming, 308 

Kan. 689, 706, 423 P.3d 506 (2018) (Court of Appeals panels are not required to follow 

decisions of previous panels); Graham v. Herring, 297 Kan. 847, 861, 305 P.3d 585 

(2013) (unpublished opinions are not binding precedent). 

Similarly, in Attorney General Opinion No. 2003-18, the attorney general relied 

on the broad language of K.S.A. 25-3601(a) and (d)—stating the statute applies generally 

to petitions unless a more specific statute controls—to conclude the signatures of 

individual petitioners need not be notarized. But we owe no deference to this 

interpretation. Accord Willis v. Kansas Highway Patrol, 273 Kan. 123, 130, 41 P.3d 824 

(2002) ("[A]ttorney general opinions are not binding law in Kansas."). And the statutory 

language, when read in context, shows that K.S.A. 25-3601 applies to election petitions, 

not zoning petitions.

In short, we conclude that the requirements of K.S.A. 25-3601 through K.S.A. 25-

3608 do not apply to zoning protest petitions. K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-757(f)(1) requires 

protest petitions in the zoning context to be signed by a qualifying property owner and 

submitted to the county clerk within the timeframe provided in that statute. Contrary to 

the district court's statements in its ruling, the absence of further requirements does not 

indicate that courts must use other provisions to supplement that statute; it simply means 

that the legislature intended zoning protest petitions to be subject to fewer statutory 
16

restrictions. Likewise, the fact that most of the protest petitions here included a circulator 

declaration does not mean such a declaration was required by law, or that the decision to 

include this declaration somehow transformed the documents into election petitions under

K.S.A. 25-3601.

There is no question that the protest petitions here meet the requirements of K.S.A. 

2021 Supp. 12-757(f)(1). Thus, the district court correctly concluded that the petitions 

were valid, albeit for a different reason than that court provided. 

Before closing, we observe that the Intervenors urge several procedural reasons 

why we should not consider Pretty Prairie's appeal. They allege Pretty Prairie invited any 

error because it asked that final judgment be entered (even though all parties consented to 

that procedure), and they challenge the way Pretty Prairie brought this case before the 

district court. We do not find these arguments persuasive. And in light of our conclusion 

that the protest petitions in this case were valid under K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 12-757(f)(1), 

we need not address them further. 

Affirmed.