Hunter Larkin for Kansas
A 23-year-old Kansas mayor who re-installed himself back into office last month in what some horrified observers said was “essentially, a coup” is refusing to leave in the face of furious community opposition.
At a contentious city council meeting Monday night, Goddard Mayor Hunter Larkin invoked the late Apple founder Steve Jobs, suggesting that he—Larkin—was also a visionary attempting to “change the world.”
In a move that one Goddard resident likened to “Germany in 1935,” Larkin manipulated existing rules to reclaim a position he’d lost in May 2022 following a news report detailing questionable ties to a local real estate family. After his ouster in 2022, Larkin was arrested for DUI arrest, then launched a bid for the statehouse, promising he would spend his time focusing on “voter integrity, the right to bear arms, protecting the unborn and keeping Critical Race Theory (CRT) out of schools.” He lost. However, as The Daily Beast reported last month, Larkin kept his seat on the Goddard City Council, eventually using his position to gain other members’ support behind the scenes before dispatching then-Mayor Larry Zimmerman along with a city administrator who had been critical of his business dealings.