Topeka ? Three directors should be removed from Westar Energy Inc.’s corporate board for participating in past company mismanagement, attorneys representing consumers said Thursday.

The Citizens’ Utility Ratepayers Board identified board Chairman Charles Q. Chandler IV and directors R.A. Edwards and John C. Nettels Jr.

“By failing to stand up for what is right, they participated in the near-destruction of the credibility and reputation of what was once a financially sound utility,” the board said in a 25-page statement that attorneys David Springe and Niki Christopher filed with Kansas Corporation Commission late Thursday.

Westar spokeswoman Karla Olsen said Thursday the company still was reviewing the ratepayers board’s filing and could not comment on the specific allegations it contained.

But, she said, “The three directors in question have been instrumental in guiding our management in developing our plan to reduce debt and return to being purely an electric company.”

Chandler and Edwards did not immediately return messages left at their homes Thursday night; calls to Nettels’ home went unanswered.

The ratepayers board asked the KCC, which regulates utilities, to “strongly recommend” the removal of Chandler, Edwards and Nettels. The board has eight members, including two Johnson County residents, Mollie Hale Carter and Arthur Krause, named Wednesday.

Springe and Christopher also requested an independent audit of Westar’s management.

The ratepayers board was among the harshest critics of former Westar chief executive David Wittig, who resigned in November to defend himself against federal fraud charges unrelated to Westar business.

The consumer agency argued Wittig weakened the company, particularly by pursuing a strategy to move Westar into security alarm services and other businesses. Westar now plans to sell such nonutility assets to reduce its $3.2 billion debt.

Chandler, of Wichita, is the CEO of INTRUST Bank and has been a Westar director since December 1999.

Edwards, of Hutchinson, is the chairman and CEO of First National Bank and has served on Westar’s board since October 2001. Nettels, an Overland Park attorney who once was Wittig’s college roommate, has been a Westar director since March 2000.

“They may now be working with a more honorable set of top executives, but they have not demonstrated that they are the sentinels that directors should be,” the ratepayers board said.

Last month, Westar’s board released a 376-page report charging that Wittig and former Chief Strategic Officer Douglas T. Lake, who has been on administrative leave since December, abused their positions, sought to enrich themselves, tried to stifle dissent and misused corporate aircraft.

But the ratepayers board said the report had a “clear bias” against Wittig and Lake and was an effort to “exonerate the other directors.” Wittig and Lake were board members.

Wittig is scheduled to go to trial in U.S. District Court, along with former Topeka banker Clinton Odell Weidner II, on Monday. The KCC plans more hearings into Westar’s management on July 22-24.