Voice For Liberty

Tag: Carl Brewer

Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer

  • Wichita’s Naysayers Shortchanged in Council’s Record

    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.

    On Monday August 18 I looked at the city’s website to read the minutes from that meeting. I printed the part of the minutes that covered this item. My printout may be seen in this image. But you don’t need to look at the printout to see what concerns me:

    Reverend Harding’s remarks are covered using about 227 words in the minutes.

    John’s remarks are covered using 24 words.

    Mine are covered using 11 words.

    Why the discrepancy? The mayor calls John and I “naysayers.” It is as simple, and as blatant, as that?

    (John’s testimony may be read in the post Testimony Opposing Tax Increment Financing for the Ken Mar Redevelopment Project, and mine may be read in Reverend Kevass Harding’s Wichita TIF District: A Bad Deal in Several Ways. I make these remarks available on this website before I deliver my testimony, and I email notice of its posting to all council members plus a few other people at city hall.)

    Even more curious, after we three testified, Mayor Carl Brewer delivered his “covered wagon” speech. You can read my transcription of it in Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer, August 12, 2008, and some commentary in Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer Saves Us From Covered Wagons.

    But nowhere in the minutes is it recorded that the mayor spoke, much less what he spoke about.

    Then, even more curious, the minutes of this meeting are not available on the city council’s website today (Wednesday August 20, 2008). The minutes of the August 5 meeting are missing, too. A short while ago I wrote and asked for an explanation.

    August 21, 2008 update: The missing city council minutes have been located. I forgot that they’ve been moved. The page Council Meetings Video On Demand is where minutes may be found.

  • Wichita’s Naysayers Are Saying Yes to Liberty

    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 the GOP voters of western Sedgwick County have selected the ultimate CAVE person in Karl Peterjohn.

    Naysayers, too, can’t be happy, according to a recent statement by Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer: “And I know that there’s always going to be people who are naysayers, that they’re just not going to be happy.”

    If you read all of Mayor Brewer’s remarks at Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer, August 12, 2008, you’ll learn that without government management of economic development in Wichita, we’d be back to the days of covered wagons. (I’m not kidding. He really said that, and I think he really believes it.)

    Wichita’s news media, led by the Wichita Eagle, continually expresses a bias in favor of government. Even in news reporting this bias can be seen, as shown in the post The Wichita Eagle’s Preference For Government. On the Eagle’s editorial page, we rarely see an expansion of government interventionism opposed by the editorial writers. I can’t think of a single case.

    But saying no to government doesn’t mean saying no to progress. It does mean saying “no” to the self-serving plans of politicians and bureaucrats. It means saying “no” to the dangers of collectivist thinking, as expressed in The Collectivism of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius.

    It means saying “no” to Wichita’s political entrepreneurs, who seek to earn profits through government coercion rather than meeting the needs of customers in the marketplace. It means saying “no” to the public-private partnership, where all too often it is the risk that is public and the profit that is private. It means saying “no” to a monopoly on the use of public money in the education of children, and “no” to an expansion of that monopoly through a new bond issue.

    So yes, I guess I and Wichita’s other naysayers are saying “no” to a lot of things.

    But what we’re saying “yes” to is liberty and freedom. We’re saying “yes” to the rich diversity of human individuality instead of government bureaucracy. We’re saying “yes” to free people cooperating voluntarily through free markets rather than forced government transfers from taxpayers to favored individuals and programs.

    We’re saying “yes” to consumers choosing which businesses in Wichita thrive, rather than politicians on the city council choosing. We’re saying “yes” to people making their own choices, rather than government “incentivizing” the behavior it desires through TIF districts and tax abatements, those incentives being paid for by taxpayers.

    So let me ask you: what do you say “yes” to?

  • Tiff over Wichita TIFs

    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 more of this preference and the faulty assumptions that go along with it.

    For example, he speaks of the need to “incentivize development.” Incentives are designed to get people to do something they wouldn’t do on their own. That pretty much describes downtown development. I’m sure that Mr. Wilson is aware that there’s lots of development going on in Wichita. It’s just not where politicians such as Wichita mayor Carl Brewer and council member Sharon Fearey want it to be. Add journalists like Mr. Wilson to this list, apparently. The Wichita Eagle editorial board has been on this list for a long time.

    There’s nothing magic about downtown. The fact that people, when spending and investing their own funds, overwhelmingly choose to take action somewhere other than downtown is direct evidence of that. How arrogant is it for politicians and bureaucrats to overrule these decisions made freely by people acting in their own best interest?

    In a comment, Mr. Wilson states “I have a hard time equating TIF money with a direct government handout …” I would encourage him to read the post Wichita City Council’s Misunderstanding of Tax Increment Financing, in which the author explains how TIF financing is, in fact, a direct subsidy to developers. I would be interested to see if Mr. Wilson can develop a refutation to this argument.

    Mr. Wilson also writes of the need for “proper analysis and monitoring” of TIF district proposals. But government is ill-suited for either task. Politicians and government bureaucrats face a different set of incentives from private developers. Politicians seek to please their campaign contributers so they can be re-elected. Bureaucrats seek to preserve their own jobs and increase their domain of influence and power.

    Market entrepreneurs, however, are directly accountable to their customers through the profit and loss system. If they do a good job anticipating what customers want, and if they are able to efficiently deliver what customers want, they’ll earn a profit. If not, they either change or go out of business.

    Politicians and bureaucrats do not face such a stern taskmaster. When their decisions turn out to be faulty, the usual response is to pour more money into something that should be allowed to die. An example is the Old Town Warren Theater.

  • Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer saves us from covered wagons

    On August 12, 2008, at a meeting of the Wichita City Council, Wichita 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 remarks is that John Todd and I had just testified against the city establishing a tax increment financing (TIF) district that benefits a local developer. Mayor Brewer believes it is the city’s firm duty to guide and subsidize economic development. His remarks on July 1, 2008 (Mayor Brewer Warren Theatre [sic] Statement) leave no doubt about this. So I wasn’t too surprised that the mayor ignored John’s and my advice and supported the formation of this TIF district.

    What surprised me was when the mayor said that without the city’s “role in guiding and identifying how the city was going to grow … we would still be in covered wagons and horses.”

    When I heard him say that, I thought he’s just using a rhetorical flourish to emphasize a point. But later on he said this: “… then tomorrow we’ll be saying we don’t want more technology, and then the following day we’ll be saying we don’t want public safety, and it won’t take us very long to get back to where we were at back when the city first settled.”

    So I think it’s fair to say that the mayor believes that without the city’s role in economic development, we would soon return to the stone age (okay, there I exaggerate a bit).

    Many people in Wichita, including the mayor and many on the city council and county commission, believe that the public-private partnership is the way to drive innovation and get things done. It’s really a shame that this attitude is taking hold in Wichita, a city which has such a proud tradition of entrepreneurship. The names that Wichitans are rightly proud of — Lloyd Stearman, Walter Beech, Clyde Cessna, W.C. Coleman, Albert Alexander Hyde, Dan and Frank Carney, and Fred C. Koch — these people worked and built businesses without the benefit of public-private partnerships and government subsidy.

    Today this rugged heritage is disappearing in favor of the public-private partnership and programs like Visioneering Wichita. We don’t have long before the entrepreneurial spirit in Wichita is totally extinguished. What can we do to return power to the people instead of surrendering it to government?

  • Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer, August 12, 2008

    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 Wichita TIF District: A Bad Deal in Several Ways. John’s remarks are here: Testimony Opposing Tax Increment Financing for the Ken Mar Redevelopment Project.

    I took the time to transcribe the mayor’s remarks not only because I think Wichitans need to know more about his philosophy of the way government should work, but also because they reveal a few of the mayor’s beliefs that I found astonishing. The mayor appeared to be speaking informally, without prepared remarks.

    Commentary on the mayor’s remarks is here: Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer Saves Us From Covered Wagons. Video is at Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer on role of government and free enterprise.

    Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer: You know, I think that a lot of individuals have a lot of views and opinions about philosophy as to, whether or not, what role the city government should play inside of a community or city. But it’s always interesting to hear various different individuals’ philosophy or their view as to what that role is, and whether or not government or policy makers should have any type of input whatsoever.

    I would be afraid, because I’ve had an opportunity to hear some of the views, and under the models of what individuals’ logic and thinking is, if government had not played some kind of role in guiding and identifying how the city was going to grow, how any city was going to grow, I’d be afraid of what that would be. Because we would still be in covered wagons and horses. There would be no change.

    Because the stance is let’s not do anything. Just don’t do anything. Hands off. Just let it happen. So if society, if technology, and everything just goes off and leaves you behind, that’s okay. Just don’t do anything. I just thank God we have individuals that have enough gumption to step forward and say I’m willing to make a change, I’m willing to make a difference, I’m willing to improve the community. Because they don’t want to acknowledge the fact that improving the quality of life, improving the various different things, improving bringing in businesses, cleaning up street, cleaning up neighborhoods, doing those things, helping individuals feel good about themselves: they don’t want to acknowledge that those types of things are important, and those types of things, there’s no way you can assess or put a a dollar amount to it.

    Not everyone has the luxury to live around a lake, or be able to walk out in their backyard or have someone come over and manicure their yard for them, not everyone has that opportunity. Most have to do that themselves.

    But they want an environment, sometimes you have to have individuals to come in and to help you, and I think that this is one of those things that going to provide that.

    This community was a healthy thriving community when I was a kid in high school. I used to go in and eat pizza after football games, and all the high school students would go and celebrate.

    But, just like anything else, things become old, individuals move on, they’re forgotten in time, maybe the city didn’t make the investments that they should have back then, and they walk off and leave it.

    But new we have someone whose interested in trying to revive it. In trying to do something a little different. In trying to instill pride in the neighborhood, trying to create an environment where it’s enticing for individuals to want to come back there, or enticing for individuals to want to live there.

    So I must commend those individuals for doing that. But if we say we start today and say that we don’t want to start taking care of communities, then tomorrow we’ll be saying we don’t want more technology, and then the following day we’ll be saying we don’t want public safety, and it won’t take us very long to get back to where we were at back when the city first settled.

    So I think this is something that’s a good venture, it’s a good thing for the community, we’ve heard from the community, we’ve seen the actions of the community, we saw it on the news what these communities are doing because they know there’s that light at the end of the tunnel. We’ve seen it on the news. They’ve been reporting it in the media, what this particular community has been doing, and what others around it.

    And you know what? The city partnered with them, to help them generate this kind of energy and this type of excitement and this type of pride.

    So I think this is something that’s good. And I know that there’s always going to be people who are naysayers, that they’re just not going to be happy. And I don’t want you to let let this to discourage you, and I don’t want the comments that have been heard today to discourage the citizens of those neighborhoods. And to continue to doing the great work that they’re doing, and to continue to have faith, and to continue that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and that there is a value that just can’t be measured of having pride in your community and pride in your neighborhood, and yes we do have a role to be able to help those individuals trying to help themselves.

  • In Wichita, is Economic Development Proven Public Policy?

    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 mayor’s name with theater developer Bill Warren’s name in a way that is, I am sure, unintentionally humorous. Mayor Brewer Warren? Who is he?)

    The Warren Theater economic development project is one example of economic development that has proven not to work, despite the mayor’s claims.

    But that is only my opinion. The definition of success, I realize, could mean different things to different people. To me, I would expect that once a development is given a huge head start with millions of dollars in subsidy provided through tax increment financing, that after a few years it would at least be breaking even. Certainly, I would hope — and I think the people of Wichita agree — that the project does not become a continual drain on the resources of the people of Wichita, as the Old Town Warren Theater has become.

    But it appears that Mayor Brewer and council member Sharon Fearey have a different definition of success. To them, tax increment financing is not a subsidy to a developer. It’s an investment by the city. All it’s used for, according to Fearey, is to pay bonds: “Under a TIF, the additional property taxes generated by new development are used to repay bonds. No dollars go to private developers.” (Sharon Fearey: Warren loan is an investment in future, July 1, 2008 Wichita Eagle)

    Ms. Fearey, may I ask this question: the proceeds from the bonds that were issued: how are they spent?

    An interest-free or reduced-interest loan is not a subsidy according to the mayor, it’s “targeted economic development.” It’s a “public-private partnership.” Without it, our taxpayer dollars would not be protected.

    John Todd tells me that there is a groundswell of resentment building in Wichita over this loan. I hope that in the coming months this increased interest in the economic development activities of the Wichita city government leads to more discussion of what path we want to pursue in Wichita. Do we want more private initiative and entrepreneurship, or do we want more politicians and bureaucrats?

  • Wichita Old Town Warren Theater Public Hearing Remarks

    From John Todd.

    Testimony I presented before the Wichita City Council on July 1, 2008 in opposition to the proposed Old Town Warren Theater LLC loan.

    The question before the council today relates to the proper role of government.

    I believe the role of government is that of acting as a non-partial judge from the sidelines, protecting the rights and property of all citizens, through the rule of law, and not acting as a participant in any activity, particularly economic, that places it in a partnership role with one group of citizens to the exclusion of all others. When government becomes an active participant in economic activity or acts as an agent for one party to the exclusion of other citizens, it abdicates its proper role of providing the legal framework and physical security needed for private economic activity.

    The dilemma our city faces today is a result of its participation in an economic activity that it should never have been involved in, in the first place. For starters, our city government needs to divorce itself from further involvement with the Old Town Warren Theater project for a number of reasons.

    Our city is not a bank, and the proposed loan being discussed today is an inappropriate role for city government.

    If the Old Town Theater group is facing financial problems, they need solve those problems without help from the public treasury. Based on what I have read about the principals in this group, I believe they possess the management talent and skills to succeed without public assistance.

    The beautiful thing about the free-market is the freedom for a business enterprise to succeed and enjoy the fruits of that success. By the same token, a business should be allowed the freedom to fail, and suffer whatever consequences that brings. Thousands of other businesses across our city play by those same rules every day without the government parachute or the backing of the public treasury that is being proposed for this private group. The Old Town Theater project owners should be no exception to these rules.

    I talk daily to other people in our city and have found no public support for the Old Town Theater loan, and, in fact, I have been surprised at the high level of outrage people are expressing towards this proposal.

    I request that you vote NO for this project. I believe, by voting NO, you will be exercising the will of your constituents and the public, and will be exercising the stewardship they expect from you as their elected officials.

    P.S. After a strong lecture from Mayor Carl Brewer about the economic advantages of public/private partnerships like Old Town, the council voted 6-0 to grant the Old Town Warren Theater loan with Council Member Jim Skelton abstaining from the vote.

    NOTE: I had the following material ready for presentation, but decided not to be too philosophical with the council so I did not present either.

    I believe a quote by 18th Century French economist Frederic Bastiat, is appropriate for today’s discussion when he was describing the socialism that permeated his native France when he said, and I quote: “The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.” I believe Bastiat would describe the work of today’s city council as legal plunder or the use of political power to redistribute wealth from others what they are unwilling to obtain through the voluntary exchange in the marketplace.

    To paraphrase a statement made by President Cleveland prior to 1900 when he was called upon to save a struggling orphanage in New York City during a severe economic crises. He said something to the effect, that “I cannot be a party to taking money (from the public treasury) from one group of citizens and give it to another group of citizens, no matter how worthy the cause, it is the responsibility of citizens to support their government, it is not governments responsibility to support its citizens.”

  • Everyone’s Right in AirTran Affair

    The Wichita Eagle reports that Mayor Carl Brewer and City Manager George Kolb received free upgrades to business class seats on a recent AirTran flight. The two are indignant over being questioned about the propriety of accepting the gift. The Eagle described Kolb as “peeved.” The Mayor was moved to write a letter to the Eagle describing its reporting as a “cheap shot” with its “lapse in basic journalistic standards” a risk to “harming reputations.”

    The AirTran station manager who granted the free upgrade was quoted as saying “Do I expect something from those people? No!”

    Wichita civic and business leaders who also traveled on the flight were bothered by the incident, according to Eagle reporting.

    Who’s right in this story? The answer is: everyone!

    The Eagle is right to report this story. It happened; therefore it’s news.

    The AirTran station manager was correct in giving the upgrades to the politicians. She clearly knows who butters her bread. I presume she was being discreet when she denied expecting something from those people — something other than the up to $7 million annual subsidy provided by the City, Sedgwick County, and the State of Kansas, that is.

    The Wichita civic and business leaders are right to be miffed, as they are the ones who buy a lot of AirTran tickets, and if anyone deserves to receive a free upgrade, it’s them.

    The two politicians are right to be peeved about the reporting of the appearance of a conflict of interest. That’s because there is a conflict of interest, since the city and other local governments give up to $7 million of taxpayer money each year to AirTran. Any relations between the airline and these governments must be analyzed in the light of the subsidy. This is symptomatic of the problems that arise when government intervenes in areas properly left to markets.

    When I receive the occasional free upgrade to first class, I say “Thank you, American Airlines!” and accept it gladly, with clean conscience, knowing that I have done nothing wrong. The fact that Mayor Carl Brewer and City Manager George Kolb weren’t able to do this, coupled with how their acceptance of a business courtesy caused such a stir, tells us a great deal about the problems of government interventionism.

  • Bill Davitt on blight

    Bill Davitt makes some excellent points about the dangers of giving politicians power to control blight through eminent domain. He also explains why it is best to vote for Carlos Mayans for mayor of Wichita.

    Bill warns us that your home or business may be declared blighted even though it is in good and desirable condition. He is referring to cases all over the country where local officials abuse their power to declare property blighted so that it can be taken from its owners. The Castle Coalition has examples of property that is being declared blighted. You be the judge as to the condition of these properties:
    www.castlecoalition.org/CastleWatch/bogusblight    .

    Testimony of William T. Davitt before Senate Judiciary Committee of Kansas Legislature at 9:00 A.M. on Thursday, March 1, 2007 AGAINST amending BLIGHT into Kansas Statutes as an excuse for EMINENT DOMAIN.

    My name is William T. Davitt from Wichita. Everything I say is my opinion, belief and understanding.

    Last August I went to a meeting called by Wichita City Manager. 250 people in the room. Fancy buffet with salmon sandwiches along the wall.

    Up on the stage two members of Wichita City Council show color slides on large screen. “Oh, look at the beautiful swimming pool, manicured lawn, attractive apartments! It is so wonderful that we are going to have all this in Wichita REDEVELOPMENT!”

    Standing at the microphone, big developer from St. Louis explains that he will continue owning these new apartments and collecting the rent. Says he is going to KNIT together churches and schools, city and county government, taxpayers and philanthropists.

    Question from audience: “What if we don’t want to sell our land to you?” Answer of developer: “We’ll TAKE IT with EMINENT DOMAIN … clean up Wichita’s BLIGHT!”

    And BLIGHT is why we are here today. They want the legislature to nail BLIGHT in Kansas Statutes so they can use BLIGHT as an excuse to destroy our homes and places of business with a bulldozer, take our land away from us, turn our land over to big developer from St. Louis so he can build rental apartments and scoop in millions of dollars in profits for himself.

    Well, you say your home is so beautiful that they can never declare your home BLIGHTED. Don’t kid yourself.

    BLIGHT is going to be whatever the Kansas Supreme Court says it is following the argument of BIG LAW FIRMS representing BIG DEVELOPERS . . . because every judge on Kansas Supreme Court owes his job to a handful of BIG LAW FIRMS.

    That is why we desperately need an amendment to our Kansas Constitution taking selection of these judges away from BIG LAW FIRMS and requiring these judges to be confirmed by Kansas Senate as is done in the federal.

    We also desperately need an amendment to our Kansas Constitution that will protect our homes and places of business from EMINENT DOMAIN.

    What more can I say?

    LIBERABUS DOMINE.

    William T. Davitt
    Wichita, Kansas

    Note that Wichita City Council member Carl Brewer IS in favor of creating a REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY.

    Wichita Mayor Carlos Mayans IS NOT in favor of creating a REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY.