Anthony ? Of the three Harper County commissioners who proposed a landfill project to handle Sedgwick County’s trash, one has been recalled and one chose not to seek re-election.

Now a citizens’ group, after one failed attempt, has again set its sights on recalling the third commissioner.

Commissioner Ken Williams stepped down Friday after the results of a Tuesday recall vote became official. Voters recalled him by a vote of 474 to 295.

The recall was prompted by apparent violations of the Kansas Open Meetings Act. The citizens group accused Williams and fellow commissioners Sid Burkholder and Robert Sharp of hiring a new public works superintendent two years ago during a series of cellular phone calls, a violation of the open meetings law.

The commissioners’ phone records came under scrutiny when the citizens group started investigating the commission’s involvement in recruiting Waste Connections Inc. to construct a regional landfill in the county.

Burkholder didn’t seek re-election last fall, and now the group that got Williams recalled is looking to revive a failed recall petition drive against Sharp.

A petition to recall Sharp was invalidated last year by a Pratt County District Court judge who determined not all of the people who sought signatures for the petition lived in Sharp’s district.

The commissioners hailed the landfill as a means of producing revenue by receiving about 2,000 tons of garbage daily from Wichita, whose only landfill was closed in 2001 because of leaking contaminants.

The group that pushed the recall is confident the Harper County Republican Party will name a replacement for Williams who opposes the landfill.

The party will select a new commissioner at a convention within three weeks and submit that name to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. She must appoint that person within seven days of receiving the name.

The landfill, which would be on 950 acres of undeveloped land in northern Harper County, would be less than five miles from the Chikaskia River.

“My main concern is that more than 20,000 people in south-central Kansas and northern Oklahoma get their drinking water from the Chikaskia River. I am appalled that we would destroy such a beautiful site.”

McCreary’s district contains part of Harper County.