Council candidate points to pride in city

Lana Kombacher is a self-described conservative Christian, a retired nurse and is running for the 3rd District seat on the Topeka City Council.

Kombacher said she had six children, including one who is deceased, 19 grandchildren and has spent about 40 years in Topeka.

Why are you running for Topeka City Council?

Kombacher said she is running for city council because she wants to be a new set of eyes for the governing body. She said she wants Topekans to be proud of where they live.

She said her decades in the city has shown her what Topeka could be. Kombacher said she supports the police and said good community safety, jobs and entertainment was the staple of the community in the past.

She said Topeka is a great city for older populations but added that people in their 20s will move to bigger cities. In fact, Kombacher was one who left the city when she was younger.

“(There) is really not much for the younger community to do," Kombacher said.

She said one highlight of

her time in Richmond, Va., was a teen club, or a safe place, for teenagers to gather. Kombacher said she also wants to see more investment on the outer edges of the community while bringing in businesses and jobs.

She said access to health care, grocery stores and activities for the younger generation are needed because “there is so much potential for things.”

Kombacher said she is supportive of the development downtown but wishes more was done in all areas of town.

She said her leadership roles in the hospital have best prepared her for the council.

“I don’t like it when people … say, ‘we need to get out of Topeka there is nothing here in Topeka,’” Kombacher said. “No, there is. We just have to build on it.”

Why do you follow multiple QAnon accounts?

Kombacher has a Parler account that follows multiple accounts dedicated to QAnon. Her Parler account has no posts. Kombacher said she doesn’t support extremism and doesn’t support conspiracy theories popular with QAnon.

“I don’t follow anybody,” she said.

“I got (a Parler account) because people were moving there because a lot of them didn’t like Twitter, didn’t like Facebook,” Kombacher said. “A lot of patriots, older women … that is why I moved there. I never used it.”

She said she created the account but didn’t understand how to use Parler.

Kombacher said she didn’t support the Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol and didn’t talk about any COVID-19 conspiracies when speaking with The Capital-Journal.

Parler was shut down and taken out of app stores after the insurrection. Parler eventually returned and has been a haven for hate speech with little moderation.

Kombacher said she isn’t an anti-masker, said COVID-19 never scared her and that it is “pretty much gone.” Kombacher also said she loved how Gov. Laura Kelly handled virus restrictions.

Kombacher shared Facebook posts critical of mask mandates and one saying the Centers for Disease Control can’t be trusted. Other posts from Kombacher’s Facebook weren’t available. The posts could have been deleted or weren’t shared with the public.

Blaise Mesa, Topeka Capital-Journal USA TODAY NETWORK