Voice For Liberty in Wichita

On October 7, 2008, the Center for Economic Development and Business Research at Wichita State University released a glowing economic forecast for the near future in Wichita. Events immediately following the release of this report, however, illustrate just how hard it is to forecast economic conditions. When policymakers rely on these reports, bad decisions are [...]

[Read more →]

Recently a travel and tourism expert visited Wichita and said (and I hesitate to repeat his exact words on this family-oriented blog) “Your air service sucks.”
(See Tourism expert has frank tips for Kansas.)
I’m more than a little distressed to hear that. Right now we spend $6.5 million per year in subsidy to low-cost airlines [...]

[Read more →]

Today the Wichita City Council holds a special meeting to consider a reformulated plan to provide tax increment financing (TIF) for the area surrounding the downtown Wichita arena. It’s still a bad idea.
It appears there are two major changes in the new plan. First, the TIF district is smaller. Second, spending on the district would [...]

[Read more →]

A Wichita Eagle news story today tells how City Council divvies up tax dollars for the arts.
Can you imagine sitting through these meetings with people like Joan Cole and other members of the Arts Council as they decide who gets — and who doesn’t get — government largesse?
I imagine that these people actually think [...]

[Read more →]

Reporting in the Wall Street Journal (Airports Suffer Terminal Illness) tells us that airports across the country are suffering just like the airlines:
This loss of passengers is creating a vicious economic spiral that is gripping airports across the country. At a time when airports have taken increasing roles in passenger comfort and care because of [...]

[Read more →]

Today, September 4, 2008, marks the first day of the ban on smoking in Wichita. It’s not quite a total ban, and that has some smoking ban supporters upset. In a letter to the Wichita Eagle, anti-smoking activist Cindy Claycomb writes “If you are a supporter of clean indoor air, please do not spend your [...]

[Read more →]

In a statement read at the August 26, 2008 meeting of the Wichita City Council (see City Council Acts on Arena Area Redevelopment), Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer expressed his concern that “The naysayers have gotten too much media attention while those who are engaged and do the hard work are too often ignored and criticized.”
I [...]

[Read more →]

On August 12, 2008, the Wichita City Council considered the establishment of a TIF district that would benefit Reverend Kevass Harding and his real estate development team. At the council meeting Reverend Harding spoke, and then John Todd spoke, and then myself. We all spoke for, I would guess, roughly the same amount of time. [...]

[Read more →]

Wichita politicians, newspaper editorial writers, and sometimes just plain folks are fond of bashing those they call the “naysayers,” sometimes known as CAVE people. An example is from a recent Opinion Line Extra in the Wichita Eagle:
An acquaintance in another city refers to the anti-everything people as “CAVE” people (Citizens Against Virtually Everything). I fear [...]

[Read more →]

A post titled Keeping TIFs from a public tiff by Wichita Eagle business reporter Bill Wilson on the Eagle’s Business Casual blog reveals his bias in favor of government over individual action and preference.
My post The Wichita Eagle’s Preference For Government documents one such example from the past. In this blog post Mr. Wilson reveals [...]

[Read more →]

On August 12, 2008, at a meeting of the Wichita City Council, Mayor Carl Brewer delivered remarks that I found … well, I’m still trying to find the words that fully describe my astonishment. You can read my transcription of his remarks in this post: Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer, August 12, 2008.
The context of these [...]

[Read more →]

Update: some commentary about these remarks may be read here: Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer Saves Us From Covered Wagons.
Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer delivered these remarks after John Todd and I testified against the creation of a tax increment financing (TIF) district benefiting Wichita minister Kevass Harding. My remarks can be read here: Reverend Kevass Harding’s [...]

[Read more →]

Testimony of John Todd, opposing the formation of a tax increment financing (TIF) district, delivered to the Wichita City Council on August 12, 2008.
Mr. Mayor and members of the Wichita City Council, thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak before you today. My name is John Todd. I stand before you today as [...]

[Read more →]

Remarks to be delivered to the Wichita City Council on August 12, 2008.
There’s several reasons why this council should not approve this request for TIF financing.
Material in today’s agenda packet doesn’t specify an amount, but past materials indicated that the project was $2.5 million short of the total needed for the project.
Now some on [...]

[Read more →]

From John Todd.
Mr. Mayor and members of the Wichita City Council, thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak before you today. My name is John Todd. I stand before you today as a citizen in opposition to the Expansion of the City South Redevelopment District (Tax Increment Financing) (Districts I & VI).
I [...]

[Read more →]

Remarks to Wichita City Council, August 5, 2008.
When I’ve been talking to people in Wichita, I find there is great confusion about the way that TIF districts work. This confusion serves to obfuscate what really happens with TIF districts: the TIF developers get to use their own property taxes to pay for things that non-TIF [...]

[Read more →]

A recent Wichita Eagle article City tax districts aren’t breaking even reports on some of the problems with tax increment financing, or TIF, districts in Wichita:
One promise of TIFs was that revitalizing certain areas — such as Old Town and the East Bank — would boost property values throughout downtown.
In the past four years, assessed [...]

[Read more →]

In a Wichita Eagle article City tax districts aren’t breaking even we find this whopper of a quote:
Vice Mayor Sharon Fearey likened the situation to what would happen if she put a swimming pool in her yard.
“I’d probably actually lose money, but for the years that I’ve had that swimming pool, I’d have a quality [...]

[Read more →]

On July 8, 2008 I testified at a public hearing at a Wichita city council meeting. Afterwards, a council member told me that I had a “glaring error” in my arguments. I won’t identify this member in order to avoid embarrassing the member. The minutes of the meeting don’t identify the member who said this, [...]

[Read more →]

Here’s some good commentary I received from a citizen. Wichita’s smoking “ban” will take effect before too long.  Smoke ‘em while you can, I guess.
Wichita’s Smoking Ban and the latest authoritarian arrogance emitted by elitist professor

University of Kansas School of Medicine professor Dr. Rick Kellerman is on the front page of the May 30 Wichita [...]

[Read more →]

Do we really want government art in Wichita?
David Boaz, in his recent book The Politics of Freedom: Taking on The Left, The Right and Threats to Our Liberties writes this in a chapter titled “The Separation of Art and State”:
It is precisely because art has power, because it deals with basic human truths, that it [...]

[Read more →]

Recently the Wichita City Council approved a no-interest and low-interest loan to Old Town Wichita theater owner Bill Warren and his partners. Citizen opinion in Wichita seems to be mostly outrage at this giveaway, and rightly so. See Wichita Old Town Warren Theater Public Hearing Remarks and Wichita and the Old Town Warren Theater Loan.
Now, [...]

[Read more →]

Remarks to be delivered to the Wichita City Council, July 8, 2008.
Mr. Mayor and members of the council, today I will not discuss the desirability of tax increment financing (TIF) districts in general, or the merits of this one in particular. I’ll leave that for the August 12 public hearing. Instead, I wish to express [...]

[Read more →]

Wichita City Council Member Jeff Longwell, in the news article Little time to review Warren loan terms (July 1, 2008 Wichita Eagle), was reported as remarking “It’s unlikely many residents would read the full contract even if it had been made public earlier.”
Mr. Longwell, many people in Wichita do read documents such as these. I [...]

[Read more →]

In a statement read by Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer and released on the city’s website at Mayor Brewer Warren Theatre [sic] Statement, the mayor states “Economic development is proven public policy.” The word “proven” was used several other times in the statement.
(I don’t know who wrote the title to the statement, but it combines the [...]

[Read more →]