At the Tuesday December 16, 2008 meeting of the Wichita City Council, Mayor Carl Brewer expressed his displeasure with the way city staff handled its investigation of a developer the city was preparing to do business with. The problem, it seems, is largely one of communications. City staff didn’t present the council members with relevant information. The process, according to mayor Brewer, “made a complete mockery of the entire process and everything we actually do.”
The mayor’s fault-finding is quite selective. The December 2, 2008 meeting of the council was marked by something that, in its own way, is worse. That’s when the council, having published notice of a public hearing, substantially changed the plan that was the subject of the hearing. That, to borrow a phrase from the mayor, made a complete mockery of the public hearing. Why wasn’t the mayor upset about that?
Previous coverage:
Wichita Public Hearing Action Not Evidence of Leadership
Problems with Open Government in Wichita
Wichita TIF Public Hearing Was Bait and Switch
Randy Brown: Reopen Downtown Wichita Arena TIF Public Hearing
Letters to Wichita City Council and Sedgwick County Commission Regarding Downtown Wichita TIF District
PDF Related posts:
- Wichita’s letter of intent for Douglas Place LLC
- Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer’s Message to Wichitans
- Kansas law requires Wichita to hold another public hearing
- Some Wichita communications breakdowns are more important than others
- Wichita and Sedgwick County Agenda Deadlines Are Too Short
- Letters to Wichita City Council and Sedgwick County Commission Regarding Downtown Wichita TIF District
- Wichita TIF public hearing was bait and switch
- Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer’s Reformulated TIF Plan Still a Bad Idea
- Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer Saves Us From Covered Wagons
- Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer to critics: stop grandstanding
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Mayor Brewer has been showing how incompetent he is at doing his job….losing the Bowling tournament; several City manager’s changes; divisive votes at the Council meetings; arguing with the County officials; not creating the jobs that he promised during his campaign; temper outbursts with Kolb, Flentje and Scott Moore and many more behind closed doors against Gray and Skelton.
Brewer supporters are already talking that he is a “one term Mayor”. Promises made, promises not kept.
The Mayor has problems communicating himself. Most people don’t know what he is talking about most of the time. The guy talks in circles.
City councilwoman Sharon Fearey and Park Board President Janet Miller knew of the problems with the developers months before this issue came to the attention of the media. People in the real estate business brought these financial issues to Fearey and Miller but they told them to stay out of it and that they had taken care of the problems. Wrong! look for Miller to run for City council to replace Fearey and have four more years of the same!
She’s running. The Wichita Eagle has reported it, and here’s her campaign website: http://janetmillerwichita.com/
Re: Ross’ accusation that two people knew about about the financial issues and ignored them. Without proof, this sounds like a libel attack, and Bob is responsible for publishing.