photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Kerry Altenbernd, vice president of the Black Jack Battlefield Trust, spoke to county commissioners on Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025.

Douglas County commissioners approved agreements with Baldwin City on Wednesday to jointly acquire and preserve the historic Black Jack Battlefield site.

The agreements that the commission approved at its meeting aim to ensure the long-term preservation and management of the Black Jack property through public ownership. Black Jack Battlefield is both a historic landmark and a nature park, and it was the site of the Battle of Black Jack on June 2, 1856, which was the first armed clash between Free State and pro-slavery forces in the turbulent Bleeding Kansas era.

Under the agreements, Douglas County will contribute $250,000 from its existing open space funds to support Baldwin City’s purchase of the property, while the city will take on site maintenance, ensure ongoing public access and work with the county to appoint an advisory board to guide the site’s future use and preservation. Baldwin City approved the agreements on Sept. 16.

Commissioner Karen Willey said the Black Jack site was a special place for people locally and beyond.

“I think there’s been a lot of work that’s gone into it and I think there’s been a lot of voices that have been in here, and I think I am supportive of open space funds being used in this way for this property,” Willey said.

The agreements came about after a period of financial uncertainty involving the Black Jack Battlefield Trust, the nonprofit that had been caring for the land. As the Journal-World reported, the Black Jack Battlefield Trust ran into financial trouble when some large donations fell through, and in April 2024, county staff was notified that the trust was at risk of mortgage default. In response, the Black Jack Battlefield and Nature Park Preservation Committee conducted financial assessments, explored preservation strategies and issued a report recommending public ownership of Black Jack Battlefield.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Kerry Altenbernd, vice president of the Black Jack Battlefield Trust, addressed the commission during a public comment period and told the commissioners that he felt the group had not had a voice in the process. He said he believed that under the new agreements, the trust would no longer be involved in the operation of the site. Specifically, Altenbernd claimed that Baldwin City had taken action to prevent members of the trust from serving on the new advisory board.

“I am a trustee. It is my obligation to do the best for that thing as possible,” Altenbernd said. “… We’ve been treated as if we are somehow untrustworthy even though we’ve kept that place going for more than 20-something years.”

Deputy County Administrator Sean Pederson said there were no limitations in the agreements the county had signed on who could be appointed to the advisory board the county and Baldwin City will create.

“There’s nothing in the agreement that stipulates anybody needs to specifically be on there other than to say that there will be an equal set of individuals from the city and then the county,” Pederson said.

The number of people on the board has not yet been determined, but Pederson said the city and county would both get to appoint the same number of individuals: “So if you have five, the city will get five,” he told the commission.

Commissioner Shannon Reid said that collaboration and change is hard. But she said all the information she had received before the proposal told her that there had been a series of conversations with all relevant parties, including Black Jack Battlefield Trust.

“I think (this is) really a positive pathway forward,” Reid said. “I don’t doubt, as we’ve discussed in this room, there are some things about (what) the full long-term future of that site looks like … but I think that those things are possible to figure out and could be more enhanced and more robust after being able to secure it as public land.”

The site won’t just be preserved for its historic significance, but also for its significance as a nature area and one of the county’s open spaces, and County Administrator Sarah Plinsky told commissioners that projects like this are what the open space funds are for.

“And we will be bringing projects to you in the future that will expand the county’s investment in open spaces,” Plinsky said.

In other business, county commissioners:

• Held a work session on Zero Suicide, a framework for helping health care and behavioral health organizations prevent suicide and respond with compassion. Suicide ranks eighth among causes of death in Douglas County for all ages and is the second-leading cause of death for Douglas County residents ages 15 to 44.

According to the presentation given to commissioners, firearms are the most common method of suicide for all ages, especially for people 65 and older – which makes up 70.8% of suicides in that age group ahead of suffocation and poisoning.

In addition, since 2018, the rates of people being seen at emergency rooms for suicide attempts has statistically decreased for both male and female residents. In 2018, the rate was 38.2 per 10,000 residents for women and 20.6 per 10,000 residents for men. Last year, from provisional data, it was 17 per 10,000 residents for women and 10.9 per 10,000 residents for men. The most common method for both men and women attempting suicide was poisoning.