KSHB 41 reporter Ryan Gamboa covers Miami County in Kansas and Cass County in Missouri. He also covers agricultural topics — the Lagemann's reached out to Ryan in October 2025 to share their story and concerns regarding code enforcement in Lenexa, Kansas. Share your story idea with Ryan.
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On Monday, Kansas Governor Laura Kelly announced she would veto five bills, including one, HB 2111, that would have provided greater protections for farmers under agritourism laws.
The topic is one KSHB 41 News Reporter Ryan Gamboa covered last year after Walnut Pond Agricultural Discovery Center found itself in a standoff with the city of Lenexa over its future development plans.
"If there is something that is standing in front of your face, and it's important, then it's worth fighting for," Shawn Lagemann told Gamboa in October 2025. Lagemann is the farm operator at Walnut Pond.
Walnut Pond is a nonprofit organization that is a fully-functioning farm — raising chickens, beef cattle, hogs, and specialty crops.
The goal of the nonprofit is to educate the public on where their food comes from. About 75% of the nonprofit's educational demonstrations happen away from the farm. Visits to the farm are by reservation only.
Walnut Pond found itself going to battle with the city of Lenexa over building code requirements that would cost them over $250,000. Lagemann, reached out to Gamboa to share her voice about the impact this would have on the nonprofit.
A few years later, the city of Lenexa piled on more code requirements.
"We're not going to do it," Lagemann said last year.
Lagemann and the Johnson County Farm Bureau went to the state legislature to fight back — drafting HB 2111 to provide more protections for operation's like Walnut Pond that can fall under "agritourism" protections.
The legislation further defines an operation as "agritourism." Walnut Pond has that designation and would provide Lagemann's operation greater protections under the law.
"No city or county shall enforce any building code or any other ordinance or resolution regulating the use of a nonpublic registered agritourism location, including, but not limited to, regulations related to health and safety, property maintenance, facility usage or requirements for permits, licenses or fees," the law states.
Gamboa caught up with Lagemann over the phone on Tuesday to discuss the Gov. Kelly's decision to veto the bill that could save her farm for years to come.
"It's a slap in the face for agriculture," Lagemann said. "I am disappointed. This bill was specific to properties like ours. It's a slap in the face for agriculture in the state of Kansas and for education."
Lagemann went on to add that Kansas continues to lose farming operations across the state to urban sprawl and data centers continue to threaten Kansas farmland — while the state offers tax abatement's for data center development under Senate Bill 98.
"While HB 2111 may be well-intentioned, this legislation was not requested by the agritourism industry at large. Rather, it was requested by a single entity and rammed through the legislative process at the last minute," Governor Kelly stated in a press release. "It is irresponsible for the Legislature to rush to amend state law on behalf of a single entity when the changes contained in this bill could have far-reaching negative consequences for the agritourism industry as a whole."
The threat to agriculture in the eyes of Lagemann is Lenexa's unprecedented growth.
"The future of Lenexa is going gangbusters," Community Development Director Scott McCullough told KSHB 41 last year. "Growth is going to happen, it has for decades, and we have to acknowledge that it will continue to happen."
In Lenexa's comprehensive plan, the future land use of Lagemann's farm would be Low-Density Residential — a neighborhood.
KSHB 41 reached out the city of Lenexa and they declined to comment.
"Additionally, this bill overrides local governments’ ability to enforce their own building codes, regulations, and ordinances on the new class of agritourism entities created by this bill," Governor Kelly said. "I do not support the Legislature’s continued attempts to infringe on local control and this bill is another example of that. Cities and counties are best positioned to partner with agritourism businesses to develop and enforce regulatory structures that foster this diversified revenue stream while protecting the health and safety of Kansans."
Lagemann intends to attack this issue again in the next legislative session.
Senate President Ty Masterson, a Republican. sent a statement to KSHB 41 regarding Gov. Kelly's veto of HB 2111.
"Today, Laura Kelly chose to side with big government over local farmers that open their land to teach Kansas kids about agriculture," Masterson wrote in the statement. "This veto is incredibly short-sighted. We need to provide our students more opportunities to learn about agriculture in our state, not less."
Lagemann says Walnut Pond will continue to operate as it has for the foreseeable future, regardless of the obstacles presented to them.
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