Another Repug returns campaign contributions from Westar, while others hang on tight. In the meantime, another consumer group asks three Westar directors to resign.

The citizen board's filing attacked the special report that Westar's directors made public in late May. The report had detailed abuses of company airplanes, funds to decorate lavish executive offices, and other activities.

The citizen board's filing said the internally generated report had deflected blame away from the three directors, who should have known of problems at the company. It said that the directors also had used company planes to attend sporting events.

"It stretches the bounds of credibility that these directors' vast experiences in the world of business and corporate boards did not clue them into the fact that Westar was not playing by the rules...It simply stretches the bounds of credibility to the breaking point to call their claims of ignorance `reasonable,' " the filing said.

The ratepayer group also asked that Westar counsel or executives verify the report's accuracy on the grounds that many parties had "become somewhat gun-shy of accepting the company's word after two years of subterfusion, obfuscation and prevarication."

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