Voice For Liberty in Wichita

Kansas Liberty, in the post JoCo GOP battle exposes party weaknesses reports on the recent Johnson County Republican Party leadership position elections. Unlike the same event in Sedgwick County, where dissent was discouraged (see Sedgwick County Republicans, Not All United), there was choice available to Republicans Kansas’ most populous county.
What also happened is that the [...]

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I received this from a Republican activist who isn’t pleased with the process that took place last Thursday, when the Sedgwick County Republican Party met to select new officers. As a committeeman, I was there and took part in the process. As a new committeeman, attending my first of these meetings, I mostly kept my [...]

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For about the last week, the City of Goddard, Kansas, has been using its website to campaign for its mayor in her race for the Sedgwick County Commission.
The website, located at www.goddardkansas.us, usually looks like a typical city website, holding general news and information, with links to city departments. But around October 21, according to [...]

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A letter in the Wichita Eagle on October 26, 2008 contains a few inaccuracies — okay, lies — and I’m surprised it made it past the editors.
The Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce has said several times that Karl Peterjohn, in his interview before them, was confused about the Greater Wichita Economic Development Coalition and its [...]

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A letter in support of Marcey Gregory for Sedgwick County Commissioner printed in the Wichita Eagle on October 26, 2008 requires a correction.
A lie in this letter is this “… Gregory, as mayor of Goddard, has a record of keeping Goddard taxes low.”
The actual record is that in her approximately 1.5 years as mayor of [...]

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Karl Peterjohn, candidate for Sedgwick County Commission, is being criticized by his opponent for being a paid lobbyist. It’s a timely slur, as lobbyists are never popular. Lobbying legislators and testifying at the state house is a form of speech that is protected by the First Amendment. Advocacy is one of the ways [...]

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In the story Wichita businesses not leaving home after all, Kansas Liberty finds that criticism of Karl Peterjohn by some Wichita business leaders is a little over-the-top.

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Wichita business leaders support Karl Peterjohn.
The recent opposition by certain Wichita aircraft executives to Karl Peterjohn — a well-respected and strong candidate for Sedgwick County Commission in District 3 — is ill-informed. Peterjohn, an economist by training, has long been an advocate for fiscal prudence and has fought, on behalf of the Kansas taxpayer, against [...]

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Here’s a chart that shows the number of Sedgwick County residents for each Sedgwick County employee:

Although there have been ups and downs, the trend is that Sedgwick County employee count is growing faster than the county’s population.

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Richard Taylor, President of the Building and Construction Trades Council of South Central Kansas, in a news story stated “Marcy Gregory and Tim Norton are for low taxes and they are for jobs and people.”
I don’t know where Mr. Taylor learned about these two candidates, but stating that both are for low taxes must be [...]

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A recent advertisement by Sedgwick County Commission Candidate Marcey Gregory in the October 12, 2008 Wichita Eagle contained a few points that deserve comment and clarification.
First, the ad, as part of a checklist of attributes or characteristics of Gregory, has the item “Lower taxes.” If she’s proclaiming that we need lower taxes, voters only need [...]

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Editor’s note: the original version of this article contained an error in arithmetic, which has been corrected.
In Sunday’s Wichita Eagle, Wichita businessman Ray Frederick wrote a letter supporting Marcey Gregory for the Sedgwick County Commission.
In listing her qualifications, he wrote “Gregory is for low taxes.” That doesn’t square with Gregory’s recent actions.
On August 11, 2008, [...]

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Once in a while you read a letter in the newspaper that makes you wonder. A letter in the Wichita Eagle by Susan Priest of Wichita makes me wonder a few things.
This letter reports on an overheard conversation among airline pilots. One source of their amusement is that there are no direct flights between Wichita [...]

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Yesterday (August 27, 2008) I testified briefly at a meeting of the Sedgwick County Commission opposing the formation of a tax increment financing (TIF) district that will benefit a Wichita political insider. My concern that I wanted the commissioners to be aware of is was that the applicant, Wichita school board member Reverend Kevass Harding, [...]

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Two weeks ago, Kansas held its primary elections. As part of the primary, we elect precinct committeeman and committeewomen. It’s sort of confusing, as everyone else on the ballot goes on to face a challenger in the November general election. But for the precinct races, it ends in August.
Earlier this year someone convinced me that [...]

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I was one of the two campaign co-managers for Karl Peterjohn’s successful campaign for the Republican nomination for Sedgwick County Commissioner, third district. As such I was invited to the election night party where we watched the returns roll in.
I had my laptop computer with me, connected to the outside world by a wireless network [...]

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Several Wichita Eagle editorials in recent weeks have mentioned the success of the Intrust Arena being built in downtown Wichita.
Success, I might ask, at doing what?
The fact that the arena structure is rising is evidence of only the smallest measure of competence by Sedgwick County officials. Having entrusted them with some two hundred million [...]

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This was received from a friend, and was also printed in the Wichita Eagle. The writer accuses the Sedgwick County Commission of doing something “questionable.” He is being much too kind to the commission with his choice of words.
I read with great interest “Sedgwick County budget halts jail plans” (July 17 Eagle). What really caught [...]

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A press release from the Peterjohn for County Commissioner campaign
23 July 2008
The Wichita Eagle’s lead story July 23 mentions a new county proposal to raise a new local sales tax to cover a variety of new spending programs. A variety of new or expanded county spending projects were mentioned in this article.
There is a history [...]

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I’ve started a page that lists candidates for election in the Wichita and Sedgwick County area, containing links to candidate websites. It’s not quite finished, but it’s a start. The link is here: Wichita and Sedgwick County Candidate Websites.

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On June 5, 2008, Karl Peterjohn officially filed to become a Republican candidate for the Sedgwick County Commission in district 3. I and some other local news media interviewed him afterwards.

Peterjohn believes taxes are an important issue in Sedgwick county. “Taxpayers need additional protection in Sedgwick County. The most effective position for taxpayers is a requirement that any and all county tax hikes must be approved by voters.” “People are concerned about the growing tax problem in Sedgwick County.”

Peterjohn said he intends to provide voters with the information they need so that they may make informed decisions about the candiates: “As I campaign in this district I find that voters need and want additional information about the positions of all of the candidates running.”

Finally, Peterjohn believes in private property rights: “Voters are disappointed to find out the county’s position on having strong eminent domain powers at the expense of homeowners, farmers, and businesses in our community. The negative impact of government authority over property instead of having the people control their land, their homes, their businesses is an indicator of how power is shifting to the central authority of the state instead of the people. If I am elected county commissioner, this is one county policy I will change and we will expand protection of property for the people.”

The campaign’s website is karlpeterjohn.com.

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I received this letter to Sedgwick County (Kansas) Commissioner David Unruh “over the transom” and I thought it merited reading by the general public. The author speaks of the “road to economic perdition.” I had to use the dictionary to refresh my memory of the exact meaning of the word “perdition.” While that term seems at first to be a little strong, I believe that trash franchising, like a ban on smoking, is just the first step in the plans of our local government officials. If politicians and newspaper editorialists can convince us that we require the force of government to take care of something as simple as picking up the trash — something that works very well already – it’s an easy jump to the next level of control. So perdition seems appropriate.

The May 21 Wichita Eagle reported that you and a number of other commissioners want to impose some sort of franchise on trash collection by cities operating in the area where Sedgwick County is responsible for trash disposal with state authorities. The Eagle quotes you as supporting a government franchise monopoly by haulers in specific areas as well as uniform terms for collection of residential refuse.

Before joining the commission I know that you were a businessman in the car repair business. Since government monopolies and uniformity in service is apparently preferable to free markets and open competition I hope that you will want to extend government into providing uniform monopoly in car repair as well as other private sector businesses. If the county’s goal is ending duplication of services and allegedly “wasteful” competition what basis do you have for only limiting franchising to trash hauling?

It is very clear to even the most casual consumer that there is significant variations in pricing among the folks repairing automobiles just like there are in the trash hauling business. There is a lack of uniformity in people getting their cars repaired too.

I must also note that an Unruh repair shop near 13th St. W. and Maize Rd. is only a short distance away from Westlink Auto Service. Having two firms competing for customers is obviously as duplicative and excessive as multiple trash firms going down the same street to collect refuse.

We have a similar situation nearby where two instances of two separate firms selling groceries are located on adjacent corners at 21st W and Maize Rd. (Walmart and Dillons) as well as Maize Rd. and W. Central (Aldi and Dillons).

Government monopolies have also a proven track record of performance. There is a name for this when university students study 20th century governments where these types of restrictions are commonplace.

Look how Wichita water and sewer rates have performed in the last few years and how it now appears likely that the city will be once again raising these rates significantly soon. Municipal power plants that dot many small Kansas towns also have a similar track record of costly performance for the citizens who have to pay the rates.

The City of Wichita got out of the trash hauling business in the late 1970’s for a reason. Establishing private/public franchise monopolies is a power that should be exercised very cautiously and carefully and has failed in the past. However, if you are going to expand local government’s roles in establishing ways of eliminating duplication of services and wasteful competition, you should fully understand where this road to economic perdition leads.

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Currently both Sedgwick County and Wichita are considering trash franchising.

On the surface, “franchising” sounds like a good thing. It sounds like someone’s opening a new Subway sandwich shop.

But what trash franchising does is to grant a monopoly to one (or sometimes a few) service providers for specific geographic areas. Under franchising, people living in an area will have either no choice, or perhaps limited choice, in choosing who picks up their trash. Rates will also be set by government.

The effect of this is that the profit motive for trash haulers is dramatically modified. Under franchising, trash companies have guaranteed customers paying mandated rates. What is the likely effect of this? I refer to Walter E. Williams, who said this: “Here’s Williams’ law: Whenever the profit incentive is missing, the probability that people’s wants can be safely ignored is the greatest.”

The use of the term “franchising” glosses over the consequences of a government mandate of who customers may choose to do business with. Citizens need a better term that accurately describes what our government is considering. Unfortunately, I am having trouble coming up with such a term, so I am asking you for help.

So far I have these terms: “mandatory service provider selection,” “choice elimination,” “enforced selection,” and “trash service reduction program.”

As you see, none of these terms are very artful. So please help me. You may email your suggestions to bob.weeks@gmail.com, or leave them as a comment to this article. Comments may be anonymous.

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Remarks delivered at a public hearing for the Sedgwick County solid waste management plan, April 24, 2008. Sedgwick County, Kansas, home to the City of Wichita, is considering a mandatory household recycling program. Or, perhaps people won’t be forced to recycle, but they will be required to pay for the cost burden that recycling places on communities.

You may listen to this article in audio form by clicking here.

The economist Frederich Hayek tells us that the price system communicates all the information we need to know about the relative value of things. The price system allows people who don’t know each other to coordinate their activities in the most effective and efficient way possible. The price system is truly a miracle.

If you want to see what happens when the price system is not allowed to work, usually because a government attempts to manage prices, just look at the former Soviet Union and other planned economies. The economist Thomas Sowell relates this story:

The last premiere of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, is said to have asked British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: How do you see to it that people get food? The answer was that she didn’t. Prices did that. And the British people were better fed than those in the Soviet Union, even though the British have never grown enough food to feed themselves in more than a century. Prices bring them food from other countries.

The price system can do its work only when free people trade with each other freely under a system where property rights are respected. Any attempt by governments to manage prices leads to inefficiencies that manifest themselves as shortages, waiting lines, surpluses, and black markets. The emergence of these problems lead to calls for even more government interventionism to fix the very problem the government caused by interfering with the price system. It can be a never-ending cycle.

How does this apply to recycling in Sedgwick County?

In some cases the price system tells us that recycling is a beneficial use of resources. About 75% of automobiles are recycled, and used cardboard is often recycled in commercial settings. That’s because the price paid for these recycled items is high enough that, in these contexts, recycling can be profitable. That’s the price system at work. It tells us that the best use of an old car is to recycle it, and the same goes for cardboard boxes at the grocery store.

A household setting is different. Households usually have to pay to engage in recycling. The prices that recyclers can get for these recycled goods doesn’t cover the cost of collecting them from households, as evidenced by the fact that in Wichita households must pay someone to pick up recyclables. That’s the price system at work again. Its sober assessment is that in the context of households, recycling is a waste of resources. That waste can be tremendous. Orange County, Florida, for example, spends roughly $3 million per year to collect recyclable goods from households, but sells them for only $56,000.

What about running out of landfill space? If landfill space were truly scarce, the price system would tell us so, because landfill operators — if there is a free market for landfills — could charge high prices for accepting trash. But evidently, they can’t.

So the price system tells us sometimes recycling is a good use of resources, and sometimes it isn’t.

A mandatory recycling program or one where people have to pay fees even if they don’t actually recycle their household goods amounts to the government attempting to override the price system. It is attempting to manage the price system through government interventionism. These policies, should Sedgwick County implement them, will cause citizens to suffer the same inefficiencies that all planned economies have demonstrated, if on a smaller scale.

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On Tuesday December 4, 2007, Sedgwick County hosted the formal groundbreaking ceremony for the downtown Wichita arena. While local government leaders and news media hailed the event as a transforming event in the history of Wichita, this writer does not share their enthusiasm.

The building of this arena is government interventionism at its worst. Stakeholders in the arena, such as Bob Hanson of the Greater Wichita Area Sports Commission, demonstrate the harm of rent-seeking, as they seek to obtain, at taxpayer expense, a large and expensive playhouse for their pleasure. Supporters dressed their arguments for the arena in the language of public goods and economic development. But Henry Hazlitt and others have explained that the money spent on the arena is money that wasn’t spent somewhere else, with the attendant loss of jobs and economic activity somewhere else. (See my review of Economics in One Lesson at wichitaliberty.org/node/226, and my article “Prepare for Sales Tax-Induced Job Effects Now” at wichitaliberty.org/node/31, also printed in The Wichita Eagle.) As local governments consider an expensive plan for development of the surrounding area, that money — just like the money collected through the sales tax — is money that citizens won’t be spending somewhere else of their own choosing.

Even the most basic economic arguments given for the arena were flawed. I found out that the estimated operating budget for the arena was defective, as officials were not aware of, or did not care to disclose, the proper government accounting standards the arena would be required to use. (See my articles “Arenas’ Financial Statements Not Complete” at wichitaliberty.org/node/13 and “WSU Study on Downtown Wichita Arena Not Complete” at wichitaliberty.org/node/12.)

Government, too, is not qualified to build and own assets like this arena. Consider the status of the Kansas Coliseum, which having opened in 1978 is only 29 years old. Yet three years ago we were told that it required extensive renovation for continued use, that poor condition being the stick used to promote the downtown arena. (Century II, not much older, is often described in the same terms.) So can you spot the irony in Sedgwick County Commission Chairman Dave Unruh’s statement at the groundbreaking? “I think probably most everyone here…will have a story they can tell their children and grandchildren on how they had a part in changing the profile and character of our community.” If this new arena suffers the same fate as the Coliseum, one generation from now we’ll be building another.

Further, government and its officials are not allowed to campaign for the arena as they did. Kansas Attorney General Opinion 93-125 states: “…public funds may not be used to promote or advocate the position of a governing body on a matter which is before the electorate.” If you examine news media accounts of the debate before the election in November 2004, you will see that our local government officials and their quasi-governmental surrogates were working in full force for the passage of the arena and its tax, in direct violation of this regulation. See my article “Government Funds Promoting Downtown Wichita Arena” at wichitaliberty.org/node/342.

Finally, by building a government arena, we lose the opportunity to have a privately-owned arena. A private arena, you say? Wouldn’t it have to be owned by greedy capitalists, only seeking to exploit our town just to earn a profit? But in the absence of government coercion or intervention, a business can earn a profit only by meeting customers’ needs, and doing that efficiently. Governments and their bureaucrats do not have this powerful motivating factor. The absence of the computation of profit and loss means that we will never know whether the resources spent on the arena were spent wisely. See my article “A Public or Private Downtown Wichita Arena, Which is Desirable?” at wichitaliberty.org/node/284.

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