Former mayor and state broadband director terminated

Jade Piros de Carvalho, director of the Kansas Office of Broadband Development, says the U.S. Department of Commerce approved the state's framework for distribution of $451 million in federal aid to improve home and business access to high-speed internet services. CREDIT SHERMAN SMITH/KANSAS REFLECTOR

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Jade Piros de Carvalho announced in a LinkedIn post that she will no longer be working with the Kansas Office of Broadband Development.

Piros de Carvalho said she made an unprofessional comment to the “wrong person who made a phone call and I was gone.”

“(Public servants) dodge bullets every day,” Piros de Carvalho said. “My comment was unprofessional and I certainly shouldn’t have made it. But I’m flabbergasted that I was let go because of it.”

Piros de Carvalho worked in the broadband industry for nearly nine years, working as director of KOBD for two years and with Ideatek for almost seven.

She also served on the Hutchinson City Council for nearly a decade, presiding as Mayor in 2022.