“I’m going to go ahead and have it,” Bernard said. “They can’t do more than shut me down, can they?”

Bernard said he held his first auction in October at the intersection of U.S. 24-40 and Leavenworth County Road 1, two miles south of Tonganoxie. And he has scheduled auctions this week on Thursday and Sunday. Bernard, who is selling construction equipment and odds and ends, said the auctions may be ongoing. He even plans to install streetlights, he said.

“We’re trying to get rid of everything we’ve got,” Bernard said. “It may last six months. If it gets good we might try to go ahead and keep it. There’s none out here except Moore’s.”

Since last spring, Jamie Moore has held auctions on the east side of Tonganoxie, each time with a permit from the city.

Bernard said he selected the highway frontage, which is part of land at Paradise Trailer Court, because of the site’s prime visibility.

“We wanted it here so everybody would see it,” he said.

John Zoellner, Leavenworth County’s director of planning and zoning, said Tuesday morning he had not yet received an application for a permit from Bernard.

“If he wants to do it, I suppose he’s going to do it and we’re going to have to send him a letter telling him he shouldn’t do it,” Zoellner said. “But he already knows that, he’s known it for weeks.”

There is no specific penalty for operating such a business without a special use permit, Zoellner said.

“We would have to take him to court,” he said.

Bernard has picked up an application for a special-use permit from the county. He said Friday that he planned to submit his application and fee on Monday of this week. Then, late Monday afternoon, he said he planned to submit the application on Tuesday.
Bernard’s application were submitted by today, there would be a slim chance that county commissioners could vote on it at Thursday’s meeting.