Tag Archives: Jeff Longwell

Wichita City Council Member Jeff Longwell

The City of Wichita says it has safeguards built in to the proposed baseball park land development deal.

This week the Wichita City Council will consider a land development deal for land surrounding the new ballpark on the west bank of the Arkansas River downtown. The city assures us that there are safeguards in the deal that protect Wichitans.

We need safeguards. The city is borrowing to pay for the project, and the city expects to collect a lot of money from surrounding development, necessary to pay off the borrowed money. ¹

To spur this development, the city plans to sell (about) 4.25 acres of land to the development team for $1 per acre. If the developer does not perform by building commercial space according to a schedule, the city can buy back land at that same price.

This — the buyback of the land — is promoted as security for the city. There are protections, the city tells us. The city also acknowledges that some past deals like WaterWalk have not had the type of protections built in to the ballpark deal.

But really: What is the value of the safeguards in the ballpark land deal?

If the ballpark developers fail (I’d like to name them, but we don’t know anything about them except for one person ²), the city can get its land back. But what then? Who pays the bonds? (Some of the borrowing is in the form of STAR bonds, which are not obligations of the city. But if these bonds went unpaid, it would be a very large and bad blot on the city’s reputation.)

The city says it would hurry to find another developer. But finding reputable developers willing to take over a failed effort might be difficult. Principal and interest must be paid during this time.

This doesn’t seem like much protection.

Walk away from WaterWalk

Critics of city development projects point to WaterWalk as an example of a failed downtown development. Some $41 million of city funds were spent there with few positive results, and with the recent closing of the Gander Mountain store, fortunes are not looking up.

But WaterWalk is different, the city says. In a recent social media town hall, the city stated, “Waterwalk wasn’t the deal we put together nor did it have the safeguards of this project. Waterwalk is not a city owned development.” ³

I guess it depends on the meaning of “we.” True, most city officials weren’t in office at the time of the WaterWalk deal. Accountability belongs to others is the attitude of Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell and others.

But most of the people of Wichita are still here, and still waiting for the city’s promises to be realized.

While the city criticizes the WaterWalk deal for not having safeguards, the protections built in the baseball deal aren’t very strong. And while the city says “WaterWalk is not a city owned development,” neither is the ballpark land development deal. Remember, the city is selling the land.

The protections

In the Wichita city council agenda packet for March 19, 2019, we find this in item IV-1:

City grants the Developer an initial, exclusive right to purchase the Private Development Site for the development of the hospitality, commercial, retail, office and residential uses, as contemplated herein, for $1.00 an acre. This opportunity extends for ninety (90) days after the start of the first full season of the team’s residency in Wichita.

The next point requires the developer to exercise the purchase rights and meet a series of benchmarks, with a first phase of 30,000 square feet of development starting in 2021, with a second phase of 20,000 square starting the following year, and another 15,000 square feet after that.

Then the purported safeguards:

If the Developer fails to Commence Construction on any Phase by the appointed time or fails to complete construction of any Phase of development within the appointed time. The Developer can forestall a default by providing personal guarantees and making the CID and TIF shortfall payments. The Developer will also forfeit any right to any future phase of development. The City may repurchase any unaffected phase property for the original sale price. If the Developer fails to make the shortfall payments, the City may collect on the personal guarantees and exercise all legal remedies.

There is an escape clause:

Developer may provide personal guarantees reasonably satisfactory to the City as security that Developer will make the City whole for the lost revenue stream required to satisfy the state and local STAR bond repayments, CID and TIF District financing pro forma on an annual basis (Shortfall Payments).

As for accepting personal guarantees, we don’t know the identities of the developers, except for majority owner Lou Schwechheimer. ⁴ We don’t know the size of the share he owns, except the city tells us it is over 50 percent.

—
Notes

Weeks, Bob. Did Wichita forget the interest? Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/did-wichita-forget-interest/. ↩
City of Wichita social media town hall on Facebook, March 7, 2019. See https://wichitaliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/City-of-Wichita-Facebook-2019-03-07-c.png. Also https://wichitaliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/City-of-Wichita-Facebook-2019-03-07.png. ↩
City of Wichita social media town hall on Facebook, March 7, 2019. See https://wichitaliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/City-of-Wichita-Facebook-Waterwalk-2019-03-07.png. ↩
Weeks, Bob. Coverage of Wichita baseball owner Lou Schwechheimer. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/wichita-baseball-owner-lou-schwechheimer/. ↩

Wichita city government

Wichita vets its baseball partner(s)

March 15, 2019 Bob Weeks Leave a comment

The City of Wichita tells us it has thoroughly vetted the majority owner of the new Wichita baseball team.

It appears that the owners of the New Orleans Baby Cakes baseball team talked with the City of Wichita before the team received permission from Minor League Baseball. The Wichita Eagle reports: “A Minor League Baseball team may have violated league rules by talking to Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell before seeking approval from the league, according to a letter from the league’s attorney.” ¹

While the letter doesn’t name the New Orleans team, the Eagle reported in the same story, “A city official confirmed Wednesday night that Longwell was communicating with the Baby Cakes.”

This revelation is relevant for a few reasons.

First, if we look at the timing of this letter, the city — at least Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell — knew of this transgression over a year ago. ²

These rules of minor league baseball were considered so sacred that the mayor used them as a pretext for conducting negotiations in secret, particularly withholding disclosure of a side land development deal. (Although the city did disclose, at least somewhat. ³) Apparently, these rules didn’t mean much to the majority owner of the New Orleans team — someone the city says it has “thoroughly vetted.” Now we know that Schwechheimer is alleged to have these rules regarding moving his team to Wichita.

By the way, the rules of minor league baseball that the city shared applied to the team, not the city. The letter the mayor received warned the team could be fined, not the city.

When the city was notified that the team had broken the rules, didn’t this raise a warning flag?

Second, the city says it vets its partners thoroughly, including baseball team majority owner Lou Schwechheimer. But in this case, we don’t know the identities of all the partners. All we know is that one Lou Schwechheimer is a majority owner. When asked what proportion of the team he owns, the city replied, “Over 50%.” Either the city does not know the number, or is not willing to tell us. ⁴ There’s a big difference between owning 51 percent of something and, say, 95 percent.

The team owners are breaking their stadium lease in New Orleans in order to move to Wichita. There is much press coverage of the owners making grand promises to the people there, only to start planning to move the team within two years. ⁵

Now the majority owner makes grand promises to Wichita. But the city says he’s been “thoroughly vetted,” and relies on long-term agreements with him.

Why won’t Schwechheimer reveal the identities of his partners or the percent of the team he owns? Why is the city willing to enter expensive and long-term agreements without knowing this?

—
Notes

Swaim, Chance. Baseball team owners may have broken rules by talking to Wichita behind league’s back. Wichita Eagle, March 13, 2019. Available at https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article227674224.html. ↩
Letter and attachments from Minor League Baseball to City of Wichita 2018-01-16.pdf. Available at https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PIrEaj3X3XoqqX9Ekq1u5m6KCGV9hFDH. ↩
“A bond disclosure document anticipated a development agreement for land surrounding the new Wichita ballpark.’ Weeks, Bob. Wichita ballpark STAR bonds, 2018 issue. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/wichita-ballpark-star-bonds-2018-issue/. ↩
City of Wichita social media town hall on Facebook, March 7, 2019. See https://wichitaliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/City-of-Wichita-Facebook-2019-03-07-c.png. Also https://wichitaliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/City-of-Wichita-Facebook-2019-03-07.png. ↩
Weeks, Bob. Coverage of Wichita baseball owner Lou Schwechheimer. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/wichita-baseball-owner-lou-schwechheimer/. ↩

Wichita city government

In Wichita, respecting the people’s right to know

March 13, 2019 Bob Weeks Leave a comment

The City of Wichita says it values open and transparent government. But the city’s record in providing information and records to citizens is poor, and there hasn’t been much improvement.

The City of Wichita is proud to be an open and transparent governmental agency, its officials say. Former Mayor Carl Brewer often spoke in favor of government transparency. ¹

When the city received an award for transparency in 2013, Wichita City Manager Robert Layton said the city was honored. ²

Mayor Jeff Longwell penned a column in which he said, “First off, we want City Hall to be open and transparent to everyone in the community.” And the mayor’s biography on the city’s website says, “Mayor Longwell has championed many issues related to improving the community including government accountability, accessibility and transparency …”

But the reality is different. It shouldn’t be. Nearly four years ago the city expanded its staff by hiring a Strategic Communications Director. When the city announced the new position, it said: “The Strategic Communications Director is the City’s top communications position, charged with developing, managing, and evaluating innovative, strategic and proactive public communications plans that support the City’s mission, vision and goals.”

But there has been little, perhaps no, improvement in the data and information made available to citizens. The Wichita Eagle has editorialized on the lack of sharing regarding the details surrounding the new baseball team. ³

While this is important and a blatant example, there are many things the city could do to improve transparency. Some are very simple.

For example, it is very common for governmental agencies post their checkbooks on their websites. Sedgwick County does, as does the Wichita school district. But not the City of Wichita.

Until a few years ago, Wichita could supply data of only limited utility. What was supplied to me was data in pdf form, and as images, not text. It would be difficult and beyond the capability of most citizens to translate the data to a useful format. Even if someone translated the reports to computer-readable format, I don’t think it would be very useful. This was a serious defect in the city’s transparency efforts.

Now, if you ask the city for this data, you’ll receive data in an Excel spreadsheet. This is an improvement. But: You may be asked to pay for this data. The city says that someday it will make check register data available, but it has been promising that for many years. See Wichita check register for the data and details on the request.

Another example: For several years, the Kansas city of Lawrence has published an economic development report letting citizens know about the activities of the city in this area. The most recent edition may be viewed here.

The Lawrence report contains enough detail and length that an executive summary is provided. This report is the type of information that cities should be providing, but the City of Wichita does not do this.

Example from the Lawrence report. Click for larger.

It’s not like the City of Wichita does not realize the desirability of providing citizens with information. In fact, Wichitans have been teased with the promise of more information in order to induce them to vote for higher taxes. During the campaign for the one cent per dollar Wichita city sales tax in 2014, a city document promised this information regarding economic development spending if the tax passed: “The process will be transparent, with reports posted online outlining expenditures and expected outcomes.” (This is what Lawrence has been doing for several years.)

The city should implement this reporting even though the sales tax did not pass. If it’s good for citizens to have this type of information if the sales tax had passed, it’s good for them to know in any circumstance, because the city (and other overlapping governmental jurisdictions) still spends a lot on economic development.

Why is this information not available? Is the communications staff overwhelmed, with no time to provide this type of information?

During the sales tax campaign Wichita city staff had time to prepare news releases with titles like “City to Compete in Chili Cook-off” and “Jerry Seinfeld Returns to Century II.” Now the city produces headlines like “Wichita Transit to Receive Good Apple Award.”

But if you want to know how the city spends economic development dollars, you won’t find that.

There are other things:

It would be easy to improve the availability and utility of the city’s legal notices.
When the city supplies doeuments in electronic form, also post them online.
The city could require its tax-funded partners to disclose how they spend taxpayer money.
The city could stop creating taxpayer-funded entities to avoid open records laws.
Hold social media town halls even if the city doesn’t like the questions. See A Wichita social media town hall.

Most of all, the city simply needs to change its attitude. Here’s an example.

Citizen watchdogs need access to records and data. The City of Wichita, however, has created several not-for-profit organizations that are controlled by the city and largely funded by tax money. The three I am concerned with are the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation, Visit Wichita (the former Go Wichita Convention and Visitors Bureau), and Greater Wichita Economic Development Coalition, now the Greater Wichita Partnership. Each of these agencies refuses to comply with the Kansas Open Records Act, using the reasoning that they are not “public agencies” as defined in the Kansas law that’s designed to provide citizen access to records.

The city backs this interpretation. When legislation was introduced to bring these agencies under the umbrella of the Kansas Open Records Act, cities — including Wichita — protested vigorously, and the legislation went nowhere.

Recently the City of Wichita added a new tax to hotel bills that may generate $3 million per year for the convention and visitors bureau to spend. Unless the city changes its attitude towards citizens’ right to know, this money will be spent in secret.

This attitude has been the policy of the city for a long time. In 2008, Randy Brown, at one time the editorial page editor at the Wichita Eagle wrote this:

I’m fairly well acquainted with Bob Weeks, our extraconservative government watchdog. It’s fair to say that I agree with Weeks no more than one time in every 20 issues. But that one time is crucial to our democracy.

Weeks is dead-on target when he says that conducting the public’s business in secret causes citizens to lose respect for government officials and corrupts the process of democracy (“TIF public hearing was bait and switch,” Dec. 5 Opinion). And that’s what happened when significant 11th-hour changes to the already controversial and questionable tax-increment financing plan for the downtown arena neighborhood were sneaked onto the Wichita City Council’s Tuesday agenda, essentially under cover of Monday evening’s darkness.

This may not have been a technical violation of the Kansas Open Meetings Act, but it was an aggravated assault on its spirit. Among other transgressions, we had a mockery of the public hearing process rather than an open and transparent discussion of a contentious public issue.

The Wichita officials involved should publicly apologize, and the issue should be reopened. And this time, the public should be properly notified.

Randy Brown
Executive director
Kansas Sunshine Coalition for Open Government

A few years later, Brown noticed the attitude had not improved. Although he did not mention him by name, Brown addressed a concern expressed by Wichita City Council Member Pete Meitzner (district 2, east Wichita). He accurately summarized Meitzner’s revealed attitude towards government transparency and open records as “democracy is just too much trouble to deal with.”

I don’t think things have improved.

—
Notes

For example, in his State of the City address for 2011, Brewer listed as an important goal for the city this: “And we must provide transparency in all that we do.” See https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xgx96BEXALDEgLBRcQdz2Kg0_W5x3e2J. ↩
“The City Council has stressed the importance of transparency for this organization,” City Manager Robert Layton said. “We’re honored to receive a Sunny Award and we will continue to empower and engage citizens by providing information necessary to keep them informed on the actions their government is taking on their behalf.” Wichita City New Release. Available at https://www.wichita.gov/News/Pages/2013-03-18b.aspx. ↩
Wichita Eagle Editorial Board. *Fight for transparency during ‘Sunshine Week’ and year-round.” Available at https://www.kansas.com/article227430494.html. ↩

Wichita city government

Wichita ballpark STAR bonds, 2018 issue

March 13, 2019 Bob Weeks Leave a comment

A bond disclosure document anticipated a development agreement for land surrounding the new Wichita ballpark.

When offering bonds for sale, issuers file a disclosure document that is often full of interesting detail. In the disclosure for the STAR bonds for the new Wichita ballpark, we learn this:

The City and the owner of the minor league team are anticipated to enter into a development agreement whereby the owner has the ability to develop approximately 15 acres of property surrounding the stadium. The development agreement is anticipated to require development to commence within 18 months of completion of the stadium and include the development of a hotel, retail spaces, restaurants and bars to complement the stadium and surrounding areas.

This is from a documente dated November 1, 2018 and filed with the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board on November 16, 2018. This seems to contradict a claim made by Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell and other city officials that the city was barred from disclosing the fact of land development negotiations until last week. The bond disclosure is silent regarding terms of an agreement.

Following are some excerpts from the disclosure. The complete document is available at https://emma.msrb.org/IssueView/Details/ER387382.

$42,140,000
City of Wichita, Kansas
Sales Tax Special Obligation Revenue Bonds
(River District Stadium Star Bond Project)
Series 2018

Official Statement dated November 1, 2018

STAR Bonds Overview

(page 1)

“Sales tax and revenue” bonds (“STAR Bonds”) are authorized to be issued by the City pursuant to K.S.A. 12-17,160. et seq., as amended (the “STAR Bond Act”), The STAR Bond Act provides a form of tax increment financing that enables the issuance of bonds payable from certain State and local sales and compensating use tax revenues generated from STAR Bond projects constructed within a STAR Bond district.

To implement STAR Bond financing, a local government must adopt a resolution that specifies a proposed STAR Bond project district’s boundaries and describes the overall district plan, hold a public hearing on the district and the plan, and pass an ordinance that establishes the STAR Bond project district.

There may be one or more proposed STAR Bond projects within a STAR Bond project district. As with the STAR Bond project district, the local government must adopt a resolution, hold a hearing, and pass an ordinance that establishes each such STAR Bond project. Each project also must have a project plan that includes a description and map of the project area, a plan for relocating current residents and property owners, a detailed description of the proposed buildings and facilities and a feasibility study showing that the project will have a significant economic impact, generate enough tax revenues to pay off STAR Bonds proposed to be issued to finance the project, and not adversely affect existing businesses or other STAR Bonds that have already been issued. STAR Bonds can be used to pay for certain costs of a STAR Bond project, including property acquisition, site preparation, infrastructure improvements, certain hard construction costs, bond issuance costs, bond financing costs, loan financing costs, and related soft costs.

The District and the Project

(page 2)

In 2007, the City adopted the River District STAR Bond Project Plan (the “Original Project Plan”) for an approximately 210 acre tract known as the East Bank Redevelopment District (the “Original District” or the “Phase I Project Area”). The Original Project Plan anticipated a $155.8 million redevelopment project along the banks of the Arkansas River (the “River”) through the City’s Central Business District.

In December 2016, the City adopted an ordinance to expand the boundaries of the Original District by adding approximately 64 acres located on the west bank of the River north from Kellogg Avenue to approximately 1st Street (the “Additional Property.” the “West Bank Project Area” or the “Phase II Project Area”). The West Bank Project Area includes commercial properties, the City’s Lawrence-Dumont Baseball Stadium, the Wichita Ice Center and the Wichita Public Library’s Advanced Learning Library. The Original District, as expanded by the Additional Property, is referred to herein as the “STAR Bond District” or the “District.”

The West Bank Project Area was added to the Original District to fund additional riverbank improvements between Douglas Avenue and the Kellogg Avenue Bridge, to install a pedestrian bridge to connect the performing arts area on the East Bank with the sports and entertainment area on the West Bank, to construct a multi-sport athletic facility that will replace the existing Lawrence-Dumont Baseball Stadium on the same site and to construct a baseball-themed spoils museum in conjunction with the multi-sport athletic facility. On December 20, 2016. the Secretary of Commerce of the State of Kansas (the “Secretary”) determined that the District, as expanded by the Additional Property, is an “eligible area” within the meaning of the STAR Bond Act.

On January 3, 2017, the City adopted an ordinance to approve the Project Plan Amendment to the STAR Project Plan, dated as of December 2016 (the “STAR Bond Project Plan Amendment”). The STAR Bond Project Plan Amendment included a pedestrian bridge across the River, a baseball/sports museum, riverbank improvements and design and site work related to the baseball stadium. Major components of the STAR Bond Project Plan Amendment and the Phase II Project Plan (the “2018 Projects”) include the following:

(i) the replacement of the City’s existing Lawrence-Dumont Baseball Stadium expected to be the home a Triple-A minor league affiliate of the Miami Marlins;
(ii) a museum and home of the National Baseball Congress; and
(iii) a pedestrian bridge across the River.

(page 5)

The proceeds of the Series 2018 Bonds, along with other available fluids, will be used to (i) pay a portion of the costs of the 2018 Projects; (ii) fond a deposit to the Capitalized Interest Fund established under the Indenture for the Series 2018 Bonds to be used to pay interest on the Series 2018 Bonds through September 1, 2020; and (iii) pay certain costs related to the issuance of the Series 2018 Bonds.

(Page 8)

THE DISTRICT AND THE 2018 PROJECTS

The Original STAR Bond District and the Original Project

In 2007, the City adopted the Original Project Plan for the Original District. The Original Project Plan anticipated a $155.8 million redevelopment project along the banks of the River through the City’s Central Business District. The first phase of the project plan extended from the First/Second Street Bridge to the Central Avenue (Little Arkansas) and Seneca Street (Big Arkansas) bridges. It included upgrades to the area surrounding the Keeper of the Plains statue at the confluence of the rivers. Additional construction included a portion of the South Riverbank to the west of Exploration Place, two cable-stayed pedestrian bridges linking the Keeper of the Plains monument to the outer banks of each river, and work along the East Riverbank from Central to First Street. The first phase also included construction of the Fountains at WaterWalk, a fountain attraction incorporating programmed water jets linked to lights and music.

The East Riverbank Project was completed in 2011 as part of the Drury Plaza Hotel Broadview redevelopment. The $2,500,000 STAR revenue financed project involved extensive East Riverbank improvements north of Douglas Avenue. This project phase supported the $29 million Drury Plaza Hotel redevelopment project. Improvements included a venue space, pedestrian access from Waco Street and river overlook areas.

The recently completed West Bank Apartments Project, located within the boundaries of the Original District, included a West Riverbank promenade between Second Street and Douglas Avenue and the Chisholm Trail McLean Memorial Fountain area, riverbank improvements with landscaping, fountains and walking/bike paths along the River. These improvements are associated with a tax increment financing and community improvement district development that includes an apartment complex, parking garage and a boat and bike rental facility. STAR Bonds financed $4,750,000 of West Riverbank improvements associated with the West Bank Apartments Project.

The Expanded STAR Bond District

In December 2016, the City adopted an ordinance to expanded the boundaries of the Original District by adding approximately 64 acres located on the west bank of the River north from Kellogg Avenue to approximately 1st Street (the “Additional Property,” the “West Bank Project Area” or the “Phase II Project Area”). The West Bank Project Area includes commercial properties, the City’s Lawrence-Dumont Baseball Stadium the Wichita Ice Center and the Wichita Public Library’s Advanced Learning Library. The Original District, as expanded by the Additional Property, is referred to herein as the “STAR Bond District” or the “District.” A map depicting the boundaries of the District, is set forth above.

The West Bank Project Area was added to the Original District to fund additional riverbank improvements between Douglas Avenue and the Kellogg Avenue Bridge, to install a pedestrian bridge to connect the performing arts area on the East Bank with the sports and entertainment area on the West Bank, and to construct a baseball-themed sports museum on the site of the Lawrence-Dumont Baseball Stadium. On December 20, 2016, the Secretary of Commerce of the State of Kansas (the “Secretary”) determined that the District, as expanded by the Additional Properly, is an “eligible area” within the meaning the of the STAR Bond Act.

The 2018 Projects

On January 3, 2017, the City adopted an ordinance adopting the STAR Bond Project Plan Amendment which provided for additional development within the District. On March 20, 2017, the Secretary took the following actions with respect to the District and the STAR Bond Project Plan Amendment:

(1) found and determined that the District, as expanded, is a major commercial entertainment and tourism area and an “eligible area” within the meaning of the STAR Bond Act;
(2) approved and designated improvements to the West Bank of the Arkansas River and enhanced public improvements within the District as part of a “STAR bond project” within the meaning of the STAR Bond Act; and
(3) approved the issuance of up to $19,500,000 (exclusive of approved financing costs) in STAR Bond financing for the improvements and amenities related to the STAR Bond Project Plan Amendment.

On May 2, 2017, the City adopted an ordinance adopting the River District Phase II STAR Bond Project Plan (the “Phase II Project Plan”) which provides for the redevelopment of the West Bank Project Area. On April 30, 2018, the Secretary took the following actions with respect to the District and the Phase II Project Plan:

(1) found and determined that the District, as expanded, includes a “major multi-sport athletic facilities” and museum components and is an “eligible area” within the meaning of the STAR Bond Act;
(2) approved and designated improvements to the East Bank of the Arkansas River and enhanced public improvements within the District as part of a “STAR bond project” within the meaning of the STAR Bond Act; and
(3) approved the issuance of up to $20,500,000 (exclusive of approved financing costs) in STAR Bond financing for the improvements and amenities related to the Phase II Project Plan.

Major components of the Phase II Project Plan (also known as the “2018 Project”) include the following:

(i) the replacement of the City’s existing Lawrence-Dumont Baseball Stadium which is expected to be the home a Triple-A minor league affiliate of the Miami Marlins;
(ii) a museum and home of the National Baseball Congress; and
(iii) a pedestrian bridge across the River.

The estimated overall plan of finance for the 2018 Projects includes the use of fluids provided from other available City fluids or borrowings, including proceeds of general obligation bonds and revenues from tax increment financing districts and community improvement districts, which proceeds are expected to be available in the first half of 2019. The following table provides a summary of the sources and uses of such funds:

Sources of Funds
STAR Bonds: 40,000,000.00
Available City Funds & Financing: 43,000,000.00
Total Sources: 83,000,000.00

Uses of Funds
Stadium & Museum: 75,000,000.00
Pedestrian Bridge: 3,000,000.00
Riverbank Improvements: 3,000,000.00
Parking & Infrastructure: 2,000,000.00
Total Uses: 83,000,000.00

The existing Lawrence-Dumont Baseball Stadium was constructed in 1934 as part of the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression. The stadium previously served as the home to the Wichita Wranglers (Class AA Texas League) through the 2007 baseball season. As part of the plans to continue to redevelop the City’s downtown area, the City has estimated the demolition of the current stadium by year end 2018 and completion of the new stadium by March 2020. The new facility is estimated to include 6,500 to 7,000 fixed seats, with group areas and other spaces bringing total capacity to around 10,000. The stadium will serve as the home for a to-be-named Triple A minor league affiliate of the Miami Marlins and be used to hold concerts and various high school and collegiate sporting events.

The City and the owner of the minor league team are anticipated to enter into a development agreement whereby the owner has the ability to develop approximately 15 acres of property surrounding the stadium. The development agreement is anticipated to require development to commence within 18 months of completion of the stadium and include the development of a hotel, retail spaces, restaurants and bars to complement the stadium and surrounding areas.

Other Anticipated Development in the District

Anticipated future phases of development expected to occur within the West Bank Project Area include: (i) completion of the west bank corridor improvements from Douglas Avenue south to Kellogg with an estimated $5 million in STAR Bond funded improvements for a plaza and riverbank amenities designed to complement the stadium and surrounding Delano neighborhood; (2) an East Bank Catalyst Site north of the Broadview Hotel redevelopment site and across the River from the West Bank Apartments Project (as described above), with an anticipated $40 million mixed-use development along the river that complements both the River corridor and adjacent Broadview Hotel and includes an estimated $4 million in STAR Bond financed plaza and River bank amenities; and (3) development of the area referred to as the Upper Reach, extending from the Seneca Street Bridge to Sim Park on the opposite side of the River.

The City and EPC Real Estate Group. LLC (the “Delano Catalyst Site Developer”) have entered into a Development Agreement relating to certain property within the West Bank Project Area, consisting to the property south and east of the Wichita Public Library’s Advanced Learning Library. Pursuant to the Development Agreement, the Delano Catalyst Site Developer has agreed to develop the property to include the following:

a public greenway/gathering area on the property;
an apartment complex consisting of a minimum of 180 apartment units;
a hotel consisting of a minimum of 90 guest rooms;
a minimum of 114 parking spaces available to the public; and
a minimum of 5,000 square feet of Class A commercial space.

The Delano Catalyst Site Developer has agreed to meet certain project milestones in connection with the development of the property, including full project completion by October 1, 2020.

Projected Incremental Tax Revenues

(page 14)

Click here to view Wichita ballpark STAR bonds series 2018 projected incremental tax revenues.pdf

(page 15)

SOURCES AND USES OF FUNDS

The following sets forth the estimated sources and uses of fluids relating to the proceeds of the Series 2018 Bonds:

Sources of Funds
Series 2018 Bond Principal: 42,140,000.00
Net Original Issue Premium: 1,733,967.20
Total Sources: 43,873,967.20

Uses of Funds
Deposit to Project Fund: 40,000,000.00
Deposit to Capitalized Interest Fund: 3,276,163.30
Costs of Issuance(1): 597,803.90
Total Uses: 43,873,967.20

(1) Includes underwriters’ discount (see “UNDERWRITING” herein) and other costs of issuance related to the Series 2018 Bonds.

Debt Service Requirements

(page 16)

Click here to view Wichita ballpark STAR bonds series 2018 debt service requirements.pdf

Wichita city government

Is the Wichita mayor satisfied with this?

February 17, 2019 Bob Weeks Leave a comment

A gloomy jobs forecast is greeted with apparent approval by Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell.

We have to wonder: Did Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell read before tweeting?

A recent Longwell tweet references news reports regarding a forecast from Intrust Bank Wealth Services. Titled 2019 Economic Outlook and Market Perspectives, it contains this regarding Wichita:

The Wichita economy saw jobs lost in 2017, but improved last year. Job growth is expected to trend slightly higher in 2019, buoyed by manufacturing and professional services. We anticipate the Wichita economy to expand this year, but grow at slower rate than the U.S. and the majority of metro areas. Business/consumer optimism and aerospace demand should help power the local economy; however, trade issues, commodity prices, lack of skilled labor, and slow population growth will likely limit growth in southeast Kansas.

There’s not much good news in this forecast, except that job growth is expected to grow rather than decline as it did two years ago. So we have to wonder why the mayor retweeted — presumably approvingly — this grim forecast.

It’s a continuation of a trend:

Several times Longwell and other city officials have promoted a study claiming Wichita is a highly “recession-proof” city. That study is nonsense and ignores key economic data and the definition of a recession. See Wichita mayor promotes inaccurate picture of local economy and Wichita, a recession-proof city.
Responding to a different forecast of job growth in Wichita for 2019, Scot Rigby, who is Assistant City Manager, Director of Development Services for the City of Wichita, tweeted “great news.” But that forecast is as gloomy as the Intrust forecast, with job growth expected to be about half the national rate. See Job growth in Wichita: Great news?
Generally, Wichita officials are pleased with the local economy (Former Wichita City Council Member Pete Meitzner: “We have enjoyed great progress and growth during my two terms as a City Council member and I plan to do my part to assure Sedgwick County is part of this continued success.”) But the available statistics are grim and are improving only slowly. See Growing the Wichita economy.

If Wichitans don’t read beyond the rosy headlines and tweets from the mayor and city officials, they will be uninformed, and unfortunately, misinformed by people we should be able to trust.

Wichita city government

From Pachyderm: Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell

Audio February 8, 2019 Bob Weeks Leave a comment

From the Wichita Pachyderm Club: Jeff Longwell, Mayor of the City of Wichita. This was recorded February 8, 2019.

Wichita city government

Facade improvement program raises issues in Wichita

February 2, 2019 Bob Weeks Leave a comment

An incentive program in Wichita should cause us to question why investment in Wichita is not feasible without subsidy.

At its February 5, 2019 meeting, the Wichita City Council will consider an item regarding economic development in Delano. The owner of a building there has applied for financial assistance under the city’s facade improvement program.

The purpose of the facade improvement program, according to city documents, is to provide “low-cost loans and grants” to help improve the appearance of buildings “located in defined areas needing revitalization, including the City’s core area.”

The matter before the council this week is to accept the petition of the property owner and set February 19, 2019 for the public hearing.

Undoubtedly council members will praise the property owner for deciding to invest in Wichita. I’m glad he is, and it sounds like the project will improve the Delano area. But the need for this item raises a few questions regarding public policy in Wichita that are more important than any single project.

First, city documents state: “The Office of Economic Development has reviewed the economic (‘gap’) analysis of the project and determined there is a financial need for incentives based on the current market.” In other words, the city has determined that this project is not economically feasible unless it receives a government subsidy. Will any council members ask why is it not possible to renovate a building in the core of Wichita without subsidy? What factors in Wichita — specifically Delano — make it impossible to have investment like this without subsidy?

Second: Wichita officials, especially Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell, tell us that the city doesn’t use cash as an economic development incentive. But this proposal includes a cash grant of $30,000. This is not a low-cost loan that must be repaid. Instead, it is an incentive, a gift — and it’s cash.

Wichita city government

Wichita mayor promotes inaccurate picture of local economy

January 31, 2019 Bob Weeks 2 Comments

Wichita city leaders will latch onto any good news, no matter from how flimsy the source. But they ignore the news they don’t like, even though it may come from the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, or U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

In his media briefing today, Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell cited an article promoting the purportedly recession-proof and growing Wichita-area economy. ¹

Based on the article ² Longwell cited Wichita’s low unemployment rate and growing job count.

One quote from the article highlights Wichita’s low unemployment rate: “In 2018, the city saw unemployment fall to 3.5 percent — the lowest it’s been since May 1999.” Here’s some data regarding this claim:

In the table, we see that the unemployment rate (monthly average) for 2018 is nearly unchanged from 1999. Also nearly unchanged for these 19 years are the civilian labor force and number of jobs. Both values are slightly lower now. This is not “steady job growth.”

The article the mayor relies upon doesn’t reflect the economic reality in Wichita. It isn’t even close. Yet the mayor and other city officials have heavily promoted this article on social media.

Mayor Longwell also said, “We want to celebrate some of our successes because it has not been easy to get here and it’s been very intentional, and the things that we’re doing that help make Wichita a great place to live but more importantly a place where we can ride out a potential recession that may hit the rest of the country at some point in time and we think that’s a great place for us to be right now.”

Regarding recessions and being “recession-proof:” The usual definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of declining economic activity as measured by gross domestic product. For the nation, the last recession ended in 2009. For metropolitan areas like Wichita GDP data is not available quarterly. Annual data, however, tells us that since 2011 — well after the end of the last national recession — Wichita has had two separate years in which real GDP declined, 2013 and 2017. ³

That’s like two recessions in Wichita at a time the national economy was growing. Is that recession-proof?

The mayor also presented a forecast that Wichita will add 2,700 jobs in 2019. The source of this forecast is the Center for Economic Development and Business Research at Wichita State University. ⁴

For the Wichita metropolitan area economy, adding 2,700 jobs in a year represents 0.9 percent job growth. Is that good? Nationally, the economy is expected to continue strong growth, although perhaps slightly slower than in 2018, in which nonfarm jobs grew by 1.8 percent. ⁵ Nationally, job growth is forecast at 1.7 percent for 2019. ⁶ Wichita’s forecast rate of 0.9 percent is 53 percent of the national rate — barely more than half.

The nearby chart illustrates that since the end of the last recession, job growth in Wichita has been below job growth in the nation as a whole. ⁷ Generally, job growth in Wichita has been at about half the rate of the nation. In 2017, Wichita lost jobs. Yet, City of Wichita officials tout “steady job growth.”

It’s not only jobs and output. Personal income has grown only slowly. ⁸

The Wichita metropolitan area population is growing, but at a rate slower than most metro areas. From 2010 to 2017, the Wichita metro area grew in population by 2.3 percent. For all U.S. metro areas, the population growth was 6.5 percent. Of the 382 metropolitan areas, Wichita ranked 245. Considering just the change from 2016 to 2017, Wichita’s population grew by 0.1 percent, ranking 268 of the 382 metro areas. All U.S. metro areas grew by 0.8 percent over the same period.

For net domestic migration, Wichita experienced a loss of 2.9 percent of its population from 2010 to 2017. This ranked 295 among metro areas. For 2016 to 2017, Wichita lost 0.5 percent, ranking 293, nearly unchanged from the larger earlier period. ⁹

This slow population growth and out-migration is happening at the same time Wichita-area leaders tell us that we have great momentum going forward. But the data — domestic migration, employment, gross domestic product, and personal income — don’t support what our leaders tell us.

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Notes

City of Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell’s Media Briefing January 31, 2019. ↩
Handy, Emily. The 7 Most Recession-Proof Cities in the US. Livability. January 22, 2019. Available at https://livability.com/topics/careers-opportunities/the-7-most-recession-proof-cities-in-the-us. ↩
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Total Real Gross Domestic Product for Wichita, KS (MSA) RGMP48620, retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RGMP48620, January 31, 2019.
The All industry total includes all Private industries and Government. Real GDP by metropolitan area is an inflation-adjusted measure of each metropolitan area’s gross product that is based on national prices for the goods and services produced within the metropolitan area.
Also: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Real Gross Domestic Product GDPCA, retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPCA, January 31, 2019. ↩
Center for Economic Development and Business Research at Wichita State University. Wichita Employment Forecast. January 8, 2019. Available at http://www.cedbr.org/forecast-blog/forecasts-wichita/1558-economic-outlook-wichita-2019-january-revision. ↩
Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee. December 18-19, 2018. Available at https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomcminutes20181219.htm. ↩
Yandle, Bruce. Block out the noise: Here’s the 2019 economic outlook. Available at https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/block-out-the-noise-heres-the-2019-economic-outlook. ↩
Weeks, Bob. Wichita employment to grow in 2019. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/economics/wichita-employment-to-grow-in-2019/. ↩
“For all metropolitan areas in the United States, personal income rose by 4.5 percent. For the Wichita metro area, the increase was 2.3 percent. Of 383 metropolitan areas, Wichita’s growth rate was at position 342.’ Weeks, Bob. *Personal income in Wichita rises, but slowly. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/economics/personal-income-in-wichita-rises-but-slowly/. ↩
Weeks, Bob. Wichita migration not improving. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/economics/wichita-migration-not-improving/. ↩

Wichita city government

In Wichita, a gentle clawback

January 20, 2019 Bob Weeks 1 Comment

Despite the mayor’s bluster, Wichita mostly lets a company off the hook.

As reported in Wichita City Council to consider a clawback, a company failed to meet the targets of an economic development incentive, and according to that agreement, owes the city $253,000 in clawbacks.

The city council, however, decided to require the company to pay only $100,000 of that. The city reasoned that because the company is planning an expansion, that would offset the other $153,000 of the clawback.

Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell described this is holding the company accountable. The Wichita Eagle quoted him as saying, “This is why we’ve done it, to make sure that everyone is accountable and that the taxpayers, at the end of the day, win.”

But despite the mayor’s bluster, the city failed to enforce the agreement it made to protect taxpayers. Instead, the company receives $153,000 in free taxes that it didn’t deserve, along with an interest-free loan of $100,000 amortized over four years.

By the way, the same Eagle article reported: “Fiber Dynamics, a company founded by Darrin Teeter to commercialize technology developed at Wichita State’s National Institute for Aviation Research in the early ‘90s, hasn’t had to pay city property taxes since 2008, an estimated value of more than $500,000.”

Actually, the company didn’t pay any property taxes on the exempted property. That includes county, school, and state taxes.

Sedgwick county government

Sedgwick County tax exemptions

December 15, 2018 Bob Weeks 1 Comment

Unlike the City of Wichita, Sedgwick County has kept track of its tax exemptions.

As part of an effort to increase efficiency and management of Sedgwick County government, former county manager Michael Scholes implemented numerous changes, as detailed in the document Efficiencies in Sedgwick County government. One management accomplishment was described as this:

Developed a tax system and business intelligence query to identify Industrial Revenue Bonds (IRB) & Economic Development (EDX) tax exemptions and report foregone property tax revenues for Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) 77 reporting. The report provides the ability to report by tax authority, company, and real or personal property for one (1) or up to four (4) years. Prior reporting was time consuming and error prone; requiring manual data entry into Excel spreadsheets.

The county has not made this report available on its website. To access this report in an alternative manner, click here

The City of Wichita, to my knowledge, does not provide information like this, except as a total amount in the city’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR). (The city and county numbers are not in agreement, and by a large amount.)

Of note, the mayor’s page on the Wichita city government website holds this: “Mayor Longwell has championed many issues related to improving the community including government accountability, accessibility and transparency …” So far, the mayor’s leadership and stewardship has not produced this level of information.

Of further note, a majority of the Sedgwick County Commission decided to fire Michael Scholes.

Wichita city government

On big contracts, Wichita has had problems

December 3, 2018 Bob Weeks Leave a comment

As Wichita prepares to award a large construction contract, let’s hope the city acts in an ethical manner this time.

As the Wichita City Council prepares to make a decision regarding a contract for the new baseball stadium, the council’s past reputation in these matters can’t be overlooked.

The controversy over the stadium contract has been covered by the Wichita Eagle: “The Wichita City Council hasn’t officially approved a design-build team for the city’s new $75 million Minor League ballpark, but there’s already been a protest over the recommended group. … At issue in a protest by a competing team is whether the JE Dunn team meets a key requirement to be selected, which is that it has built at least three similar Major or Minor League ballparks.” ¹

The biggest potential for unethical behavior comes from Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell. In 2012, as the Wichita city council was considering the award of the contract for the new airport terminal, Longwell (then a council member) received campaign contributions from executives of Walbridge, a Michigan construction company partnering with Key Construction to build the new Wichita airport terminal. ²

Two Walbridge contributions were made on July 16, 2012, the day before the council, Longwell included, voted to award the contract to the Key/Walbridge partnership. More contributions from Walbridge arrived on July 20, according to Longwell’s campaign finance reports.

When questioned about the Michigan contributions, Longwell told the Wichita Eagle, “We often get contributions from a wide variety of sources, including out-of-town people.” But analysis of past campaign finance documents filed by Longwell showed just three out-of-state contributions totaling $1,500. ³

In deciding the airport contract issue, the council was asked to make decisions involving whether discretion was abused or whether laws were improperly applied. It’s not surprising that Jeff Longwell made these decisions in favor of his campaign contributors. But he shouldn’t have been involved in the decision.

That was not the first time Jeff Longwell has placed the interests of his campaign contributors ahead of taxpayers. In 2011 the city council, with Longwell’s vote, decided to award Key a no-bid contract to build the parking garage that is part of the Ambassador Hotel project. The no-bid cost of the garage was to be $6 million, according to a letter of intent. Later the city decided to place the contract for competitive bid. Key Construction won the bidding, but for a price $1.3 million less.

It’s not only Longwell with problematic behavior in the past. In 2012, before the vote on the airport contract, executives of Key Construction and spouses contributed heavily to the campaigns of both Wichita City Council Member Lavonta Williams (district 1, northeast Wichita) and Wichita City Council Member James Clendenin (district 3, southeast and south Wichita). These contributions were not known to the public until months after the vote was cast.

Williams is no longer on the council, but Clendenin remains.

Former Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer had his own issues, with a curious set of ethics principles. ⁴

The city needs an adult in the room. That person is, or should be, Wichita city manager Robert Layton. In the past he has implemented policies to end the practice of no-bid contracts. We don’t know what will happen this week.

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Notes

Rengers, Carrie. City selects ballpark design-build group; competing bidder questions qualifications. Wichita Eagle, November 29, 2018. Available at https://www.kansas.com/news/business/biz-columns-blogs/carrie-rengers/article222372330.html (subscription may be required). ↩
“A campaign finance report filed by Wichita City Council Member Jeff Longwell contains contributions from executives associated with Walbridge, a Michigan construction company partnering with Key Construction to build the new Wichita airport terminal. … These contributions are of interest because on July 17, 2012, the Wichita City Council, sitting in a quasi-judicial capacity, made a decision in favor of Key and Walbridge that will cost some group of taxpayers or airport customers an extra $2.1 million. Five council members, including Longwell, voted in favor of this decision. Two members were opposed.” Weeks, Bob. Michigan company involved in disputed Wichita airport contract contributes to Jeff Longwell. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/michigan-company-involved-in-disputed-wichita-airport-contract-contributes-to-jeff-longwell/. ↩
“Analysis of Longwell’s July 30, 2012 campaign finance report shows that the only contributions received from addresses outside Kansas are the Walbridge contributions from Michigan, which contradicts Longwell’s claim. Additionally, analysis of ten recent campaign finance reports filed by Longwell going back to 2007 found three contributions totaling $1,500 from California addresses.” Weeks, Bob. Jeff Longwell out-of-town campaign contributions. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/jeff-longwell-out-of-town-campaign-contributions/. ↩
Weeks, Bob. The odd ethics of Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/odd-ethics-wichita-mayor-carl-brewer/. ↩

Wichita city government

It’s not the bonds, it’s the taxes

December 3, 2018 Bob Weeks Leave a comment

A Wichita Eagle headline reads “Wichita aircraft supplier plans 45 new jobs with $7.5 million bond request,” but important information is buried and incomplete.

According to the agenda packet for the December 4, 2018 meeting of the Wichita City Council, a local aircraft supplier is “requesting issuance of bonds” worth $7.5 million. ¹

Even if you read the entire Wichita Eagle article² on this matter, you wouldn’t really learn much about this item. You might think the city is lending the company this money, which many people assume is the purpose of the Industrial Revenue Bonds program. But in the IRB program, the city lends no money, nor does it guarantee repayment of the bonds. ³

Instead, the purpose of the IRBs is to convey a tax holiday. In the very last paragraph, the article mentions this property tax abatement, but no dollar value is given, even though the “city documents” presumably used as a source for this story clearly state the dollar values. The sales tax exemption is also mentioned, with no dollar value given. City documents don’t hold that, either.

The value of the tax holiday, according to the city, is estimated at $82,040 annually for up to ten years, shared among local taxing authorities thusly:

City of Wichita: $22,837
State of Kansas: $1,050
Sedgwick County: $20,575
USD 259 (Wichita school district): $37,578

For the value of the sales tax exemption, no value is given. By city documents state the purpose of the bonds is to pay for “$4,000,000 for new machinery and equipment.” Sales tax on that would be $300,000. If the entire $7.5 million is spent on taxable purchases, sales tax savings would be $562,500.

Why doesn’t the Wichita Eagle mention some of these important matters?

The article also holds no mention of the important public policy issues involved. For example, why does the owner of the business want to escape paying the same taxes that (nearly) everyone else must pay? This question is especially pertinent as Kansas is one of the few states in which even low-income households pay the full sales tax rate on groceries.

Perhaps the reason is that the cost of government makes this investment unprofitable. If that is true, we have a grave problem. If the city must issue bonds and create a tax holiday for this rather small investment, we have a capacity problem. A reader on Facebook left this wry comment to the Eagle story: “So, local area population 600,000+ people … About to add 45 jobs over 5 years?”

The city justifies tax giveaways like this by using a benefit-cost analysis. That is, if the city gives up some taxes, it will receive even more in additional taxes. This analysis is useful to politicians and bureaucrats. But the analysis is valid and meaningful only if the investment is impossible without the tax giveaway.

The question then becomes: Is this tax forgiveness necessary? City documents don’t say. Showing necessity is not a requirement of the IRB incentive program. We’re left wondering if the tax expenditure, which is potentially more than one million dollars over ten years, is truly needed.

The city is proud of its requirements that the benefit-cost ratio must be at least 1.3 to 1. But for USD 259, the Wichita school district, the ratio is 1.17 to 1. So the city is pushing an “investment” on the school district that is below the standard it requires for itself. The school district has no say in the matter, based on Kansas state law. Note also that the school district gives up the most tax revenue, 1.6 times as much as the city.

By the way, Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell says the city is no longer using cash as economic development incentives. But when the city waves a magic legislative wand and says you don’t have to pay $82,040 per year in property tax, how is that different than giving the same amount in cash? Or when the city says don’t bother paying the sales tax on this, how is that different than giving a cash discount?

The answer is there’s no difference. The mayor, city council members, and city bureaucrats hope you won’t notice the sleight of hand, that is, skillful deception. And with the Wichita Eagle being the watchdog, there’s little chance very many people will be informed.

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Notes

City of Wichita, agenda for December 4, 2018. V-2: Public Hearing and Issuance of Industrial Revenue Bonds, Etezazi Industries, Inc. Available at http://www.wichita.gov/Council/Agendas/12-04-2018%20Agenda.pdf. ↩
Siebenmark, Jerry. Wichita aircraft supplier plans 45 new jobs with $7.5 million bond request. Wichita Eagle, November 30, 2018. ↩
“Industrial Revenue Bonds are a mechanism that Kansas cities and counties use to allow companies to avoid paying property and sales taxes.” Weeks, Bob. Industrial revenue bonds in Kansas. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/kansas-government/industrial-revenue-bonds-kansas/. ↩

Education

Education gap on Wichita City Council

October 2, 2018 Bob Weeks Leave a comment

Currently there is discussion in Wichita on whether higher education is valued by residents. Following, from April 2011, a look at the educational achievement of the Wichita City Council. The members of the council cited below were Lavonta Williams, Sue Schlapp, Jim Skelton, Paul Gray, Jeff Longwell, and Janet Miller. Carl Brewer was mayor.

Before Jim Skelton left the council in January, none of the four men serving on the Wichita City Council had completed a college degree. The three women serving on the council set a better example, with all three holding college degrees.

Of the candidates running in next week’s election for four council seats and the office of mayor, less than half hold college degrees.

Is it necessary to complete college in order to serve in an office like mayor or city council? Apparently, none of the four men who held these offices without a degree thought so. The two running to retain their present positions — Mayor Carl Brewer and council member Jeff Longwell (district 5, west and northwest Wichita) — evidently don’t think so, or they would not be running again.

But we tell young people that college holds the key to success. We encourage schoolchildren to consider college and to take a rigorous high school curriculum in order to prepare for it. We encourage families to save for college. Our region’s economic development agency promotes the number of people with college or advanced degrees. We promote our colleges and universities as a factor that distinguishes Wichita. We hope that our elected officials will set an example we want young people to follow.

Once in office, we ask our city elected officials to attempt to grasp and understand complex sets of financial data, working with a budget of about half a billion dollars for the City of Wichita. We hope that they will be able to consider large and weighty issues such as the role of government in a free society. Members of the professional management staff — bureaucrats — that manage the city, county, and state are generally required to hold college degrees.

The irony is that elected officials often are highly reliant on the bureaucratic staff for information, data, and advice, and this professional bureaucracy is often highly educated. Does this imbalance create problems?

Elected officials compared to regular people

Amazingly, it turns out that elected officials, as a group, are less knowledgeable about civics than the general population. That’s the finding of Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which surveyed Americans and their knowledge of civics in 2008. After analyzing the data, ISI concluded: “Simply put, the more you know about American government, history, and economics the less likely you are to pursue and win elective office.”

Wichita city government

Wichita, not that different

September 6, 2018 Bob Weeks Leave a comment

We have a lot of neat stuff in Wichita. Other cities do, too.

In New York Magazine, Oriana Schwindt writes in “The Unbearable Sameness of Cities: What my journey across the United States taught me about indie cafés and Ikea lights.”

I couldn’t stop noticing. I’d go on to see the same in Colorado Springs, in Fresno, in Indianapolis, in Oklahoma City, in Nashville.

And it wasn’t just the coffee shops — bars, restaurants, even the architecture of all the new housing going up in these cities looked and felt eerily familiar. Every time I walked into one of these places, my body would give an involuntary shudder. I would read over my notes for a city I’d visited months prior and find that several of my observations could apply easily to the one I was currently in.

In his commentary on this article, Aaron M. Renn wrote: “While every company tries its hardest to convince you of how much different and better it is than every other company in its industry, every city tries its hardest to convince you that it is exactly the same as every other city that’s conventionally considered cool.”

Later in the same piece, he wrote:

A challenge these places face is that the level of improvement locally has been so high, locals aren’t aware of how much the rest of the country has also improved. So they end up with an inflated sense of how much better they are doing versus the market. … People in these Midwest cities did not even know what was going on in the next city just 100 miles down the road. They were celebrating all these downtown condos being built. But the same condos were being built everywhere. … But even today people in most cities don’t really seem to get it that every city now has this stuff. Their city has dramatically improved relative to its own recent past, but it’s unclear how much it’s improved versus peers if at all.

Does this — the sameness of everywhere — apply to Wichita? Sure. Everyone thinks Wichita is different from everywhere else. We have a flag! A warehouse district! A Frank Lloyd Wright house! The NCAA basketball tournament! We’re (probably) getting a new baseball team and stadium!

We even have, as Schwindt does in cataloging what you’ll find in every single city mid-size and above, “Public murals that dare you to pass them without posing for a pic for the ‘gram.”

So many other places have this stuff, too.

It isn’t bad that Wichita has these things. But the danger, as Renn notes, is that these things don’t distinguish Wichita. As much as we wish otherwise, these things are probably not going to reverse the course of the declining Wichita economy. If you don’t believe the Wichita economy is declining, consider that our GDP in 2016 was smaller than in the year before. Wichita metro employment growth was nonexistent during 2017, meaning it’s unlikely that GDP grew by much. (In January 2017 total non-farm employment in the Wichita MSA was 295,000. In January 2018 it was the same. See chart here.)

Even things that might really have a positive effect on the economy, like the Wichita State University Innovation Campus, are far from unique to Wichita. But developments like this are pitched to Wichitans as things that will really put Wichita on the map. A prosperous future is assured, we are told.

It’s great to love your city. But we can’t afford to be lulled into complacency — a false recognition of achievement — when all the data says otherwise.

We need a higher measure of honesty from our leaders. It might start with the mayor and the chair of the county commission, but the mayor seems terribly misinformed, as is the commission chair. Institutions that we ought to respect, like the local Chamber of Commerce, have presided over failing economic development but refuse to accept responsibility or even to acknowledge the facts. Worse, the Chamber spends huge amounts of money on blatantly dishonest campaigns against those candidates that don’t support its programs. Those programs, by the way, haven’t worked, if the goal of the Chamber is to grow the Wichita economy.

Wichita city government

Wichita being sued, alleging improper handling of bond repayment savings

August 26, 2018 Bob Weeks 2 Comments

A lawsuit claims that when the City of Wichita refinanced its special assessment bonds, it should have passed on the savings to the affected taxpayers, and it did not do that.

A lawsuit filed in Sedgwick County District Court charges that the City of Wichita improperly handled the savings realized when it refinanced special assessment bonds at a lower interest rate. The case is 2018-CV-001567-CF, filed on July 13, 2018, and available here.

The suit names David L. Snodgrass and Leslie J. Snodgrass as plaintiffs, and a long list of defendants, namely:

The City of Wichita, Kansas
Wichita City Manager Robert Layton
Wichita Finance Director Shawn Henning and Former Wichita Finance Director Kelly Carpenter
Wichita City Clerk Karen Sublett
Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell and former Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer
Current Wichita City Councilmembers Brandon Johnson, Pete Meitzner, James Clendenin, Jeff Blubaugh, Bryan Frye, and Cindy Claycomb
Former Wichita City Councilmembers Lavonta Williams, Janet Miller, Sue Schlapp, Paul Gray, Jeff Longwell, Jim Skelton, and Michael O’Donnell
Springsted Incorporated
Gilmore And Bell, A Professional Corporation
Kutak Rock, LLP
Sedgwick County Treasurer Linda Kizzire

The suit asks for a class to be created consisting of “all other affected land owners paying excess special assessments,” which would, undoubtedly, be many thousands of land owners. No specific amount of relief is requested.

The suit’s basis

The city borrows money by issuing bonds to fund improvements to (generally) new neighborhoods. These bonds pay for things like residential streets, water pipes, and sewer lines. The debt service for these bonds, that is, the money needed to make the bond payments, is charged to benefitting property owners in the form of special assessment taxes, often called “specials.” These specials are separate from the general property taxes that are charged to all property.

General property taxes are based on a property’s assessed value multiplied by a mill levy rate. Specials, however, are based on the cost of the infrastructure and the payments needed to retire the debt. This amount is determined at the time bonds are sold and the repayment schedule is established. (Bond payments depend on the amount borrowed, the length of the repayment period, and the interest rate. All this is known at the time the bonds are issued.)

These specials usually last 15 years, and after paid, no longer appear on a property’s tax bill. Sometimes special assessments are prepaid.

What the city did, and didn’t do, according to plaintiffs

During the last decade, interest rates on long-term bonds generally fell. In response, the city issued refunding bonds. These bonds took advantage of low interest rates by paying off old bonds that had higher interest rates, replacing them with bonds with lower interest rates. The lawsuit alleges that since 2009, the city has issued $216 million in refunding bonds saving $60.2 million, according to city documents cited in the lawsuit. The suit does not specify how much of this savings is attributed to special assessment bonds.

So the city refinanced special assessment debt at a lower rate, reducing the cost of the debt. That’s good. Homeowners often do this when mortgage rates are low, and it’s good that the city does this too.

The problem, according to the lawsuit, is that some of the refinanced debt was special assessment debt. The lawsuit contends that, based on Kansas law, the city should have passed on the savings to the property owners that were paying off this special assessment debt. Instead, says the suit, “the City of Wichita transferred the excess special assessment money paid by affected Wichita taxpayers to support its general fund and/or other municipal funds.” In other words, the city spent the savings on other things, when it should have directed the savings to land owners who were paying the special taxes.

Plaintiffs allege that the conduct of the city and its advisors constitutes fraud against those paying special assessment taxes:

The fraudulent actions of Defendant City of Wichita, along with the other Wichita Defendants, and Defendants Springsted, Gilmore and Bell and Kutak Rock resulted in the misappropriation of millions of dollars of “saved” tax payments that should have been returned to Plaintiffs along with all other affected land owners paying special assessments levied under the General Improvement and Assessment Laws of the State of Kansas.

Further, the suit alleges that the liability faced by many of the defendants is personal:

Because the Wichita Defendants actively participated in the fraud practiced by Defendant City of Wichita, they cannot escape personal liability for the fraudulent actions of the City of Wichita upon Plaintiffs and all other affected land owners paying special assessments.

While there is one named party as plaintiff, the suit alleges that all similarly situated persons have been harmed, and so a class action is appropriate. That would be all property owners who have paid special assessment taxes to Wichita since 2009, including myself.

WichitaLibertyTV

WichitaLiberty.TV: Sedgwick County and Wichita issues

Video August 24, 2018 Bob Weeks Leave a comment

In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: The end of a Sedgwick County Commission election, the Wichita Eagle editorializes on school spending and more taxes, and Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell seems misinformed on the Wichita economy. View below, or click here to view at YouTube. Episode 207, broadcast August 26, 2018.

Shownotes

The Wichita Eagle reports there will be a recount: Ranzau and Nicks commission race headed to a recount as Ranzau clings to narrow lead.
The Wichita Eagle reports on the result of the recount: (cue sound of crickets)
Article: Wichita school spending, according to the Wichita Eagle: A recent editorial by the largest newspaper in Kansas misinforms its readers.
Kansas Policy Institute.
Article: Wichita Eagle calls for a responsible plan for higher taxes. A Wichita Eagle editorial argues for higher property taxes to help the city grow.
Article: Wichita Eagle argues for higher taxes: The Wichita Eagle editorial board wants higher taxes. Relying on its data and arguments will lead citizens to misinformed and uninformed opinions.
Article: The Wichita Mayor on employment: On a televised call-in show, Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell is proud of the performance of the city in growing jobs.

Wichita city government

The Wichita Mayor on employment

July 26, 2018 Bob Weeks Leave a comment

On a televised call-in show, Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell is proud of the performance of the city in growing jobs.

On the inaugural episode of Call the Mayor on KPTS, Wichita’s public television station, Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell said this:

Three years ago the biggest concern in this community is we need jobs. Jobs, jobs, jobs. And today, we need people. And so keeping Cargill in Wichita and seeing Spirit grow and seeing companies invest is far different than what we had just three years ago when people were so concerned about the opportunity to find meaningful employment in our city.

What the mayor said sounds good. Now. here are statistics from Bureau of Labor Statistics, civilian labor force and nonfarm employment by metropolitan area, seasonally adjusted, for the Wichita Metropolitan Statistical Area:

May 2015
Civilian labor force: 311,294
Employment: 296,249
Unemployment rate: 4.8 percent

May 2018
Civilian labor force: 306,574 (down by 1.5 percent)
Employment: 295,012 (down by 0.42 percent)
Unemployment rate: 3.8 percent (down by 1.0 percentage point, or 20.8 percent)

These are statistics from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) data set, also known as the household survey.

Here are some other statistics, again from Bureau of Labor Statistics, state and area employment, seasonally adjusted, for the Wichita Metropolitan Statistical Area:

May 2015
Employment: 295,500

May 2018
Employment: 298,600 (up by 1.0 percent)

These are statistics from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) data set, sometimes called payroll data.

These are two different sets of data. One shows employment rising, and one shows it declining. The difference comes from the fact that one set of data comes from households, and the other from employers. For a full explanation of the data and how there can be these differences, see Visualization: Metro area employment and unemployment.

The important thing is that Mayor Longwell said, in a roundabout way, that there are plenty of jobs in Wichita, and there are not enough workers to fill them.

If there are not enough workers in Wichita, it’s because the labor force (the number of people working plus those looking for work) shrank over the time period the mayor mentioned. That’s why there are not enough people to meet Wichita’s job growth (such as it is).

And while the number of jobs in Wichita rose in the employer survey, it rose by 1.0 percent over three years. The same statistic for the entire United States rose by 5.1 percent over the same period. This doesn’t seem like much of an accomplishment, Wichita growing jobs at a rate one-fifth of the nation.

But Mayor Longwell is proud. Good for him.

Economics

Wichita in ‘Best Cities for Jobs 2018’

May 21, 2018 Bob Weeks Leave a comment

Wichita continues to decline in economic vitality, compared to other areas.

NewGeography.com is a joint venture of Joel Kotkin and Praxis Strategy Group. Its annual “Best Cities for Jobs” project ranks metropolitan areas according to growth in employment.

Of 422 metropolitan areas considered, Wichita ranked 383, dropping 28 spots since the previous year.

Among 100 medium size metropolitan areas, Wichita ranked 93, dropping 5 spots from the previous year.

NewGeography.com uses employment data from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics from November 2006 to January 2018. ¹ Last year’s publication contains a more detailed explanation of how the rankings capture current year-growth, mid-term growth, and momentum. ²

In the analysis for 2017, Wichita had also fallen in ranking.

Wichita has momentum, they say

Despite this news, Wichita leaders are in denial. Recently Greater Wichita Partnership president Jeff Fluhr told a group of young people this:

From the innovation campus at Wichita State University and development along the Arkansas River in downtown, including a new baseball stadium, to the conversations happening now about a new convention center and performing arts facility, Fluhr said the momentum is pushing to keep Wichita on par with the development of other communities around the country.

That development, which has in recent years expanded to incorporate the entire region, is a critical component to attracting and retaining talent — the exact kind of talent in the ICT Millennial Summit crowd. ³

In January Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell said, “It’s hard to find a time when we’ve had more momentum.” ⁴

In March Sedgwick County Commissioner David Dennis penned a column for the Wichita Eagle praising the county’s efforts in economic development. ⁵ Dennis is also chair of the commission this year. In his column, the commissioner wrote: “Economic development is a key topic for the Board of County Commissioners and for me in particular. Right now we have a lot of momentum to make our community a more attractive place for people and businesses.”

At the same time, the Wichita Eagle editorialized: “Wichita’s economy struggled to rebound from the last recession, which held the city back. But there have been positive economic signs of late, including a renewed focus on innovation and regional cooperation. … There also is a sense of momentum about Wichita. Yes, challenges remain, but the city seems to have turned a corner, with even greater things ahead.”⁶

In announcing his candidacy for Sedgwick County Commission, Wichita city council member Wichita City Council Member Pete Meitzner (district 2, east Wichita) said, “We have enjoyed great progress and growth during my two terms as a City Council member and I plan to do my part to assure Sedgwick County is part of this continued success.” ⁷

Given all this, it ought to be easy to find economic data supporting momentum, progress, and growth. Besides the NewGeography.com report cited above, let’s look at some other indicators.

Personal income. For the Wichita metropolitan statistical area, personal income in 2016 rose slightly from the 2015 level, but is still below the 2014 level. In real (inflation-adjusted) dollars, personal income fell in 2016. ⁸

Personal Income Summary, Wichita, through 2016. Click for larger.

Population. In 2000 Wichita was the 80th largest metropolitan area. In 2017 its ranking had fallen to 89. See Wichita metropolitan area population in context for more on this topic.

Trends of business activity in downtown Wichita. Click for larger.

Downtown Wichita. There’s been a lot of investment in downtown Wichita, both public and private. But since 2008 the trend is fewer business establishments, fewer people working downtown, and lower earnings generated in downtown Wichita. Almost every year these numbers are lower than the year before. This is movement in the wrong direction, the opposite of progress. There may be good news in that the number of people living downtown may be rising, but business activity is declining. ⁹

Employment. While officials promote the low Wichita-area unemployment rate, there is an alternative interpretation. First, the good news: The unemployment rate for the Wichita metro area declined to 3.9 percent in March 2018, down from 4.2 percent in March 2017. The number of unemployed persons declined by 8.3 percent for the same period. ¹⁰

Is Wichita’s declining unemployment rate good news, or a byproduct of something else? The unemployment rate is the ratio of the number of unemployed persons to the labor force. While the number of unemployed persons fell, so too did the labor force. It declined by 3,367 persons over the year, while the number of unemployed persons fell by 1,056. This produces a lower unemployment rate, but a shrinking labor force is not the sign of a healthy economy.

A further indication of the health of the Wichita-area economy is the number of nonfarm jobs. This number declined by 1,200 from March 2017 to March 2018, a decline of 0.4 percent. This follows a decline of 0.7 percent from February 2017 to February 2018.

Of the metropolitan areas in the United States, BLS reports that 308 had over-the-year increases in nonfarm payroll employment, 72 (including Wichita) had decreases, and 8 had no change.

Growth in output. The worst news, however, is that the Wichita-area economy shrank from 2015 to 2016. In real (inflation-adjusted) dollars, the Wichita metropolitan area gross domestic product fell by 1.4 percent. For all metropolitan areas, GDP grew by 1.7 percent. Since 2001, GDP for all metropolitan areas grew by 29.3 percent, while Wichita had 12.3 percent growth. ¹¹

Wichita MSA employment, annual change. Click for larger.

The GDP figures are for 2016, and figures for 2017 won’t be available until September. So what happened in 2017? Could 2017 be the genesis of momentum to drive our economy forward?

While GDP figures aren’t available, jobs numbers are. For the year 2016, total nonfarm employment in the Wichita metropolitan area grew by 0.62 percent. For 2017, the growth rate was 0.56 percent — a slowdown in the rate of job growth. These job growth figures are far below the rate for the nation, which were 1.79 and 1.58 percent respectively.

Annual change in job growth, Wichita and USA through 2017. Click for larger.

Furthermore, Wichita’s job growth rate in 2016 was lower than 2015’s rate of 1.07 percent. This is momentum in the wrong direction. Nearby charts illustrate. ¹²

What to do?

The failure of the Wichita-area economy to thrive is a tragedy. This is compounded by Wichita leaders failing to acknowledge this, at least publicly. While we expect people like the mayor, council members, and the chamber of commerce to be cheerleaders for our city, we must wonder: Do these people know the economic statistics, or do they choose to ignore or disbelieve them?

From private conversations with some of these leaders and others, I think it’s a mix of both. Some are simply uninformed, while others are deliberately distorting the truth about the Wichita economy for political or personal gain. The people who are uninformed or misinformed can be educated, but the liars are beyond rehabilitation and should be replaced.

—
Notes

“The methodology for our 2018 ranking largely corresponds to that used in previous years. We seek to measure the robustness of metro areas’ growth both recently and over time, with some minor corrections to mitigate the volatility that the Great Recession has introduced into the earlier parts of the time series. The ranking is based on three-month rolling averages of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ ‘state and area’ unadjusted employment data reported from November 2006 to January 2018.” 2018 How We Pick The Best Cities For Job Growth. Available at http://www.newgeography.com/content/005973-2018-how-we-pick-best-cities-job-growth. ↩
2017 How We Pick The Best Cities For Job Growth. Available at http://www.newgeography.com/content/005618-2017-how-we-pick-best-cities-job-growth. ↩
Daniel McCoy. ICT Millennial Summit: Wichita is having a moment. Wichita Business Journal, November 30, 3017. Available at https://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/news/2017/11/30/ict-millennial-summit-wichita-is-having-a-moment.html. ↩
Heck, Josh. Emerging Leaders panel offers insight into eco-devo strategies. Available at https://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/news/2018/01/11/emerging-leaders-panel-offers-insight-into-eco.html. ↩
David Dennis. Sedgwick County part of drive to strengthen area workforce. Wichita Eagle, March 5, 2018. Available at http://www.kansas.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/article203559734.html. ↩
Wichita is moving forward. March 1, 2018. Available at http://www.kansas.com/opinion/editorials/article135573253.html. ↩
Bill Wilson. Wichita council member unveils bid for county commission. Wichita Business Journal, November 30, 3017. Available at https://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/news/2018/02/13/wichita-council-member-unveils-bid-for-county.html. ↩
Weeks, Bob. Wichita personal income up, a little. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/wichita-personal-income-up-2016/. ↩
Weeks, Bob. Downtown Wichita business trends. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/downtown-wichita-business-trends/. ↩
Weeks, Bob. Wichita unemployment rate falls. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/economics/wichita-unemployment-rate-falls-2018-03/. ↩
Weeks, Bob. Wichita economy shrinks. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/economics/wichita-economy-shrinks/. ↩
In some presentations these figures may differ slightly due to data revisions and methods of aggregation. These differences are small and not material. ↩

Wichita city government

Wichita metropolitan area population in context

May 10, 2018 Bob Weeks 1 Comment

The growth of population in Wichita compared to other areas.

Several Wichita city officials have noted that the population of the City of Wichita now exceeds that of Cleveland. This, to them, is a point of pride and sign of momentum in Wichita.

It’s true, at least the population facts. For 2016, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates the population of Wichita as 389,902 and Cleveland as 385,809. From the 2010 census, Wichita’s population was 382,368; Cleveland’s 396,815. ¹

That Wichita moved up in population rank is more due to Cleveland losing 11,006 people (2.8 percent loss) while Wichita gained 7,534 people (2.0 percent gain).

Looking only at city population, however, misses the fact that the Cleveland metropolitan statistical area population is 2,058,844 compared to the Wichita MSA at 645,628, a difference of 3.2 times.

For most types of economic and demographic analysis, metropolitan statistical areas (MSA) are preferred to cities proper. The Census Bureau notes: “The general concept of a metropolitan or micropolitan statistical area is that of a core area containing a substantial population nucleus, together with adjacent communities having a high degree of economic and social integration with that core.” ²

Wichita officials usually recognize this and have started to emphasize the importance of the region (the MSA), not just the city. Many of our civic agencies have named or renamed themselves like these examples: Greater Wichita Partnership, Wichita Regional Chamber of Commerce, Blueprint for Regional Economic Growth, Metropolitan Area Planning Commission, Wichita Area Planning Organization, Regional Economic Area Partnership of South Central Kansas, South Central Kansas Economic Development District.

Further, there is more economic data available at the MSA level (compared to the city level) from agencies like Bureau of Labor Statistics and Bureau of Economic Analysis. This data includes important measures like employment, labor force, unemployment rate, gross domestic product, and personal income.

City boundaries are still important, as Wichita, for example, can’t impose property or sales taxes outside the city limits. Nor can it write laws affecting neighboring towns or the county.

But not even schools respect city boundaries, with several large suburban school districts (Andover, Maize, Goddard) reaching far into the city limits of Wichita.

While Wichita may be the 50th largest city, its rank is not as high when considering metropolitan areas. Worse, its rank is slipping as other areas grow at a faster clip. In the 1990 and 2000 census, Wichita was the 80th largest metro area. By 2010 Wichita’s rank had fallen to 82, and for 2017 the rank is 89.

Growth of Wichita MSA population and economy

Wichita officials incessantly talk about momentum. Using a misguided measure of regional size and growth (Wichita is larger than Cleveland!) is one example.

Unfortunately, there are many other examples. Recently Wichita’s mayor spoke of a “thriving city” and that “we’re going to continue our growth pattern.” ³

Recently Greater Wichita Partnership president Jeff Fluhr told a group of young people this:

From the innovation campus at Wichita State University and development along the Arkansas River in downtown, including a new baseball stadium, to the conversations happening now about a new convention center and performing arts facility, Fluhr said the momentum is pushing to keep Wichita on par with the development of other communities around the country.

That development, which has in recent years expanded to incorporate the entire region, is a critical component to attracting and retaining talent — the exact kind of talent in the ICT Millennial Summit crowd. ⁴

In January Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell said, “It’s hard to find a time when we’ve had more momentum.” ⁵

But these pictures — thriving, growth, progress, momentum — just aren’t true, according to the best statistical evidence. Wichita is shedding jobs. ⁷ In 2016 the Wichita economy shrank. ⁸ Our labor force is declining. ⁹ Sedgwick County shows a decline in employees and payroll in 2016. ¹⁰

Finally, as can be seen in the nearby chart of population growth in the Wichita metro area and a few other examples. Wichita’s growth rate is low, and is slowing. (The other metro areas in the chart are our Visioneering peers plus a few others.)

It is terribly unfortunate that the Wichita economy is not growing. What’s worse is the attitude of our city leaders. If we don’t confront our problems, we probably won’t be able to solve them.

In an interactive visualization I’ve prepared from census data, you can compare growth in metropolitan statistical areas. Click here to access the visualization.

Wichita and other population growth. Click for larger.

—
Notes

Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places of 50,000 or More, Ranked by July 1, 2016 Population: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2016. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division. Release Date: May 2017 ↩
Available at https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/metro-micro/about.html. ↩
Weeks, Bob Mayor Longwell’s pep talk. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/politics/mayor-longwells-pep-talk/. ↩
Daniel McCoy. ICT Millennial Summit: Wichita is having a moment. Wichita Business Journal, November 30, 3017. Available at https://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/news/2017/11/30/ict-millennial-summit-wichita-is-having-a-moment.html. ↩
Heck, Josh. Emerging Leaders panel offers insight into eco-devo strategies. Available at https://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/news/2018/01/11/emerging-leaders-panel-offers-insight-into-eco.html. ↩
Bill Wilson. Wichita council member unveils bid for county commission. Wichita Business Journal, November 30, 3017. Available at https://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/news/2018/02/13/wichita-council-member-unveils-bid-for-county.html. ↩
Weeks, Bob. Wichita unemployment rate falls. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/economics/wichita-unemployment-rate-falls-2018-03/. ↩
Weeks, Bob. Wichita economy shrinks. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/economics/wichita-economy-shrinks/. ↩
Weeks, Bob. Why Wichita may not have the workforce. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/why-wichita-may-not-have-the-workforce/. ↩
Weeks, Bob. Business patterns in Kansas counties. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/economics/business-patterns-in-kansas-counties/. ↩

Wichita city government

Wichita baseball consulting contract extension may have no discussion

April 6, 2018 Bob Weeks Leave a comment

The City of Wichita proposes to extend a baseball consulting contract without public explanation or discussion.

Wichita city leaders want a better baseball team, not to mention a new stadium. To help find a minor league baseball team, the city engaged a consultant last October. ¹ That contract called for a spending limit of $50,000. ²

You may have noticed that there has not been an announcement of a team. It also appears that the $50,000 spending cap of the October contract has been reached (or nearly so). So next Tuesday the city council will consider spending (up to) another $50,000 with the same consultant. ³

Why the need for a contract extension? City documents explain: “Over the course of the past six months, Beacon has made successful inroads into the affiliated baseball community presenting the opportunities for MiLB and its teams. Due to the success in attracting the interest of affiliated baseball, staff believes it is imperative to further pursue affiliated baseball discussions with the assistance and expertise of Beacon Sports Capital Partners, LLC.”

I’m afraid I just don’t understand. The consultant’s effort has been successful, says the city, but yet there is no team. It’s really puzzling because last August Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell was confident there would be an announcement before the end of 2017:

“By the end of this calendar year, we feel confident that we will be able to announce a team, who the team is, all of the above,” Longwell told The Eagle Tuesday afternoon. “We hope that we can complete all of those conversations by the end of this year and be able to announce a contract in place.” ⁴

That confidence was expressed before the engagement of the consultant in October.

Consent agenda, again

The city council will deal with this matter on its consent agenda. A consent agenda is a group of items — perhaps as many as two dozen or so — that are voted on in bulk with a single vote. An item on a consent agenda will be explained and discussed only if a council member requests the item to be “pulled.” If that is done, there will be discussion. Then the item might be withdrawn, delayed, voted on by itself, or folded back into the consent agenda with the other items.

“Pulling” an item is uncommon, as items on consent agendas are not controversial, at least according to the city’s reasoning. I suppose that applies to this item, as the first contract with this consultant was also handled on the consent agenda. And on March 27 the council authorized the spending of over $7 million on a consent agenda item. ⁵

—
Notes

Weeks, Bob. A consultant to help Wichita’s confidence factor. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/consultant-help-wichita-confidence-factor/. ↩
“MiLB Baseball Consultant Contract.” Wichita City Council Agenda packet for October 24, 2017. Available at http://www.wichita.gov/Council/Agendas/10-24-2017%20City%20Council%20Agenda%20Packet.pdf. ↩
“MiLB Baseball Consultant Contract Amendment.” Wichita City Council Agenda packet for April 10, 2018. Agenda Report No. II-15. Available at <a href=”http://www.wichita.gov/Council/Agendas/04-10-2018%20City%20Council%20Agenda%20Packet.pdf. ↩
Salazar, Daniel. Expect affiliated baseball team announcement by end of 2017, Wichita mayor says. Wichita Eagle, August 29, 2017. Available at http://www.kansas.com/news/local/article170095417.html. ↩
Weeks, Bob. In Wichita, spending semi-secret. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/wichita-spending-semi-secret/. ↩

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Walk away from WaterWalk

The protections

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STAR Bonds Overview

The District and the Project

THE DISTRICT AND THE 2018 PROJECTS

The Original STAR Bond District and the Original Project

The Expanded STAR Bond District

The 2018 Projects

Other Anticipated Development in the District

Projected Incremental Tax Revenues

SOURCES AND USES OF FUNDS

Debt Service Requirements

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Elected officials compared to regular people

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The suit’s basis

What the city did, and didn’t do, according to plaintiffs

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Shownotes

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Wichita has momentum, they say

What to do?

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Growth of Wichita MSA population and economy

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Consent agenda, again

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Individual liberty, limited government, economic freedom, and free markets in Wichita and Kansas