Wichita City Council Member Jeff Longwell
From the Wichita Pachyderm Club this week: Wichita mayoral candidates Jeff Longwell and Brandon Whipple. This audio presentation or podcast was recorded on September 27, 2019. Todd Johnson is the moderator.
Despite heavy promotion and investment in downtown Wichita, the number of jobs continues to decline.
The United States Census Bureau has a program known as LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics, or LODES. According to the Bureau, “The LEHD program produces new, cost effective, public-use information combining federal, state and Census Bureau data on employers and employees under the Local Employment Dynamics (LED) Partnership. State and local authorities increasingly need detailed local information about their economies to make informed decisions. The LED Partnership works to fill critical data gaps and provide indicators needed by state and local authorities.”
Data is available by zipcode. This allows isolation of downtown Wichita, which usually recognized as zip code 67202. Data was released at the end of August for calendar year 2017.
What does the data tell us about downtown Wichita? As can be seen in the nearby chart, the trend in jobs is down, and down almost every year. Most notably, the number of private sector jobs has declined by 28.6 percent since 2002. (Click charts for larger versions.)
Since 2010, about the time Wichita started more aggressive promotion of downtown, the number of private sector jobs has fallen by 9.4 percent.
Of note, for the three age groups this data tracks, the jobs in group “age 55 or over” is growing, although it is numerically the smallest group.
The City of Wichita and the Wichita Metropolitan Statistical Area are not doing well. According to the same data set, the rate of job growth has been declining since 2012, and was near zero or negative for 2016 and 2017.
For more information on this data, and to access the interactive visualization of this data, see Visualization: Downtown Wichita jobs.
Because of the public policy aspect of this data, I asked both candidates for Wichita Mayor for a response. Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell did not respond to repeated requests. Challenger Brandon Whipple provided this by email:
Under current city leadership, our sister cities are all growing at a higher rate economically than Wichita. Wichita’s recent job growth is at .5%, compared to Oklahoma City at 3.4%, Omaha, NE at 1.9% and the national average at 1.6%. The current Mayor brags that our unemployment rate is at 3.9%, but that’s the same as the national average, which means it’s nothing to brag about. Omaha, Tulsa, Oklahoma City and Des Moines all have lower unemployment than Wichita and the national average.
Wichita has competed and beat our sister cities in the past economically. We need leaders who are not afraid to compare Wichita not only to our past, but also to other mid-size cities and have the vision to again become an economic leader among them. There is no silver bullet but the first step towards economic growth is recognizing we have room to grow.
Also we’re not gaining jobs, we’re losing people. That’s nothing to brag about.
For the two institutions planning and developing policy for downtown, the city’s public information office did not respond. Jaimie Garnett, Executive Vice President of Strategic Communications, Greater Wichita Partnership provided this:
Based on how the Census Bureau collects LEHD data it can be difficult to get a true comparison of year-to-year numbers especially in smaller geographic areas. Our understanding is that how a company reports its workers can vary and that the Census Bureau gives data in each category what they call a “noise infusion” to protect individual firms’ confidentiality. When we have talked with economic groups such as WSU’s CEDBR, they consider the LEHD data the best data available while also recognizing these issues.
We’re excited about many recent Wichita area announcements from downtown to the region. For downtown Wichita, we’re pleased by the fact that the private sector made 90 percent of the investment in 2018 and over the past 10 years, the private sector made 77 percent of the investment. In addition, downtown is experiencing corporate investment and there are companies relocating to the core.
While these concerns about LEHD data are valid, I don’t believe they explain the long-term trend. Additionally, both the city, its agencies, and WSU’s CEBDR have made gross errors in using LEHD data. 1 2
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Notes
Details of the Wichita baseball stadium land deal were an issue at the first Wichita mayoral debate.
The Wichita first mayoral debate of the general election season between Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell and Brandon Whipple was characterized by the Wichita Eagle headline, “Wichita mayor candidates accuse each other of lying in first debate.” But I noticed a story told by the mayor that sounds like a good deal, but deserves scrutiny.
It has to do with the four acres of land sold for $1 per acre to the owners of the new Wichita baseball team. The controversy is that the fact of the sale was not known by the public until shortly before the council was asked to approve the deal. As reported by the Wichita Eagle:
The City Council sold four acres of public land for $1 an acre in a deal where some city staff members acknowledged they didn’t follow city guidelines for selling city property.
“We can always communicate better,” Longwell said. “Certainly, it was a learning opportunity for many of those at City Hall that had been working on that bill for a long time.
“But let me tell you what really didn’t get reported. The previous stadium had a contract where the team paid us $25,000 a year to play there. The new team is going to be paying us up to $600,000 a year. I’ll negotiate four acres away every day for $600,000 every year that we can put into the Wichita city coffers and all of the growth that it’s going to bring that river corridor.
“So at the end of the day, what people are not arguing is how good the deal is. They’re just complaining about the communications, and we can improve that.” 1
Let’s look at “how good the deal is.” The money Longwell referenced is called a “management fee.” More commonly, a payment like this is called “rent.” It’s paid to the city by the new baseball team annually. Here’s the contract language: “Beginning with the first year of the Initial Term, the Team will pay annual fees of Three Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars ($350,000) per year, with an increase to be determined every five years based on the average increase in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers over the previous five years.” 2
I’m not sure how to model the calculation described in this agreement, but one attempt showed that inflation would have to be nearly four percent per year in order to reach an annual payment of $600,000 at the time of last adjustment. For reference, the average inflation rate for the last ten years is about 1.6 percent.
But the inflation rate doesn’t really matter, as the purpose of a payment that increases with inflation is so that its value remains constant in real dollars. So whatever the annual management fee years from now, it should be worth, in real terms, its value today, which is $350,000.
Click for larger.Then: No matter what the management fee paid by the new team, some of it goes to the Wingnuts, the old team. Nearby is a table from the agreement between the city and the Wingnuts. 3 The $2,200,000 the city needs to pay is more than the first six years of management fees the new team will pay.
One more thing: In order the get these management fees, the city had to build a stadium costing some $75 million. The management fees, after the Wingnuts are paid off, represent a rate of return of one-half of one percent.
The mayor mentioned that a benefit would be “all of the growth that it’s going to bring that river corridor.” For now, that growth exists as plans only. I hope the river corridor is a commercial success, but the city’s experience in development is mixed.
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Notes
Here are an interactive map and table of results of the Wichita mayoral primary election, August 6, 2019. Click here to access.
The City of Wichita and Mayor Jeff Longwell shouldn’t be using flimsy evidence that is contrary to actual economic data.
Earlier this year Wichita city officials promoted an article that praised the Wichita economy. 1 A tweet came from the official @CityofWichita Twitter account and reads “We have been named one of the top two recession-proof cities in the nation by @Livability. Wichita was praised for its ability to withstand turbulence in the national economy, steady job growth and the state’s low income-to-debt ratio.” 2
Now Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell is using this in his campaign to be reelected mayor.
The problem is that this claim of Wichita being recession-proof isn’t true. I explain in more detail in Wichita, a recession-proof city.
Here are two charts of actual economic data. The first chart shows the change in real gross domestic product for the Wichita metropolitan statistical area and the nation.
Notice that since the Great Recession ended in 2009, there have been three separate years in which Wichita GDP declined. Since a recession is defined as a period of declining GDP, Wichita is obviously not recession-proof.
As for the “ability to withstand turbulence in the national economy,” these three years of shrinking Wichita GDP were years when the national economy expanded.
As for “steady job growth,” here is a chart of annual job growth for the Wichita metropolitan statistical area and the nation.
Since the end of the Great Recession, there have been two years in which Wichita lost jobs while the nation was gaining jobs. This happened most recently in 2017, while Longwell was mayor. Since the end of the Great Recession, Wichita has created jobs at a much slower pace than the nation. Wichita has been doing better last year and this year, although recent months have shown a loss of jobs. 3
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Notes
Mistakes on Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell’s Facebook campaign page are troubling.
On the Facebook campaign page for Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell, we can read this in the “About” section:
“Since 2015, Mayor Longwell has boldly lead Wichita into it’s bright, better future. Undeterred by status quo or fear of change, he’s helped poise Wichita to grab its limitless opportunity and prepare to take its place among the top cities in America.” 1
I see three errors or mistakes. First, an explanation from Professor Paul Brians:
lead / led
When you’re hit over the head, the instrument could be a “lead” pipe. But when it’s a verb, “lead” is the present and “led” is the past tense. The problem is that the past tense is pronounced exactly like the above-mentioned plumbing material (“plumb” comes from a word meaning “lead”), so people confuse the two. In a sentence like “She led us to the scene of the crime,” always use the three-letter spelling. 2
Then, an everyday error along with two correct uses of the same word:
Its, without an apostrophe, is the possessive of the pronoun it. It’s, with an apostrophe, is a contraction of it is or it has. If you’re not sure which spelling to use, try replacing it with it is or it has. If neither of those phrases works in its place, then its is the word you’re looking for. 3
Finally, poise is used in an incorrect, or at least uncommon, way. A better word would be positioned, as in he’s helped positioned Wichita.
(It had been worse. At one time this Facebook page said Longwell was elected mayor in 2014. 4 That was fixed after someone called attention to it.)
Is this important? Absolutely. Either the mayor or his campaign surrogates made several mistakes in the basic use of language, mistakes that we expect high school students to recognize.
Errors like these that stand for months indicate carelessness. Didn’t the mayor or someone with the campaign proofread this paragraph? Were they not capable of recognizing these mistakes? Didn’t any of the mayor’s supporters call attention to this?
Isn’t anyone worried about the impression of Wichita this creates?
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Notes
A city hall news event sought to counter a news story that highlighted problems with Wichita’s water supply, but it seemed more like a political campaign event.
In yesterday’s press briefing, Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell addressed concerns raised in a recent Wichita Eagle article regarding Wichita water infrastructure. 1
Longwell pushed back against the article’s reporting, perhaps the most concerning being: “Wichita’s entire water system has a ‘significant risk’ of failure and lacks redundancy, meaning if a major asset fails, it can’t be fixed without shutting the whole plant down.” The article also reported, “Deferred maintenance has piled up over the years.”
The mayor presented an infographic produced by the city showing steps the city has taken since 2011 to maintain existing water infrastructure and prepare for the future. (Curiously, this is available on the city’s Facebook page but not at wichita.gov, the city’s website.) According to him, the city has been managing the city’s water needs effectively.
This, however contradicts a statement the city council issued in 2015, when Longwell was mayor. As part of the Wichita-Sedgwick County Community Investments Plan, the city council concluded: “Decades of under-investment and deferred maintenance in Wichita’s water, sewer and stormwater infrastructure requires the City to be aggressive in protecting what assets it already has (especially replacing aging pipe infrastructure) and making future water and sewer facility enhancements to meet required treatment and discharge standards.” 2
(Of course, we could conclude that the statement and plan from 2015 doesn’t have any real meaning, which if true, causes me to wonder why we undertake these exercises.)
The mayor also addressed the 2014 proposed Wichita city sales tax, $250 million of which was earmarked for a water project. The mayor correctly explained that that money was not to repair existing infrastructure or build a new main water processing plant. Instead, it was to expand the Aquifer Storage and Recovery system and build an additional pipeline from it to the city. That would have provided what the city called “drought protection.”
It’s important for Longwell to explain that the 2014 sales tax, if it had passed, would not have addressed the issues with the current water plant. This is important because Longwell voted against the sales tax. If today’s voters thought the 2014 sales tax would have fixed the water plant and saw that Longwell voted against it, that might be a negative factor against Longwell.
Which brings us to the final point. The press conference was a thinly disguised campaign event for the mayor, conducted using city facilities and staff, complete with a cartoon-like infographic. If the information is important, the city should present it plainly, not in a cumbersome graphic spread three panels wide that the mayor can post on Facebook and Twitter.
Wichita Eagle reporting on this event is at Wichita on track for new water plant in 5 years, city says.
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Notes
It is unfortunate that Wichita city and metro populations are falling. It is unimaginable that our city’s top leader is not aware of the latest population trends.
In May, Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell told viewers of the KPTS Television program Call the Mayor that he was not aware of the latest United States Census Bureau estimates of population for Wichita. (A transcript of this portion of the program is below.)
Mayor Longwell said he wasn’t aware of the estimate, telling the audience, “census estimates are different than the census.” Absolutely correct. The census, which is an attempt to count the population, happens only once every ten years, while census estimates for population are produced annually. With only decennial data, we wouldn’t know much about recent developments.
Estimates are important. We use them in numerous circumstances when producing a count would be expensive. Mayor Longwell said he hasn’t seen estimates for population, but he knows the unemployment rate for Wichita. That is also an estimate produced by a different branch of the federal government. The city uses many estimates. The “City Overview” section of the budget document starts with: “Wichita, the largest city in Kansas with a population 389,965 …” The footnote gives the source of the data as “2015 Census population estimates.”
On Call the Mayor, Longwell said, “our population in Wichita has grown from 2000 by nearly 40,000 people.” Interestingly, if the mayor doesn’t want to use estimates, he should have said the City of Wichita population grew by about 30,000, as that is the difference between the 2010 and 2000 census counts. Based on the estimate of city population for 2018, growth has been almost 37,000.
One of the reasons the Wichita unemployment rate is low is because of a declining labor force. As can be seen in the nearby chart, the unemployment rate (green line) has fallen — and by a lot — since the end of the last recession in 2009. (Click here for an interactive version of the chart.) But the unemployment rate depends on two things, one being the labor force as the denominator of a fraction, or ratio. If the denominator (labor force) falls at a greater rate than the numerator, the unemployment rate will fall. That is what has happened in Wichita.
For example, on January 1, 2010, the labor force in Wichita was 320,287 and the number of unemployed persons was 28,523, resulting in an unemployment rate of 8.9 percent. The number of employed persons was 291,764.
Then, on April 1, 2019, the labor force in Wichita was 311,114 (falling by 9,173 or 2.9 percent) and the number of unemployed persons was 11,576 (falling by 16,947 or 59.4 percent), resulting in an unemployment rate of 3.7 percent. The number of employed persons was 299,538 (rising by 7,774 or 2.7 percent).
If, for example, the current labor force was the same size as on January 1, 2010, and we have the same number of employed people as we do today, there would be 20,749 unemployed people, and the unemployment rate would be 6.5 percent instead of 3.7 percent. (We don’t know what would have happened had the labor force not fallen, but this is an example of how the arithmetic works.)
It is unfortunate that the city and metro populations are falling. It is unimaginable that our city’s top leader is not aware of the latest population trends. These numbers are easy to find. Until recently, they would be reported in local news media.
But the city has an economic development staff that ought to be aware of these numbers. There is the Greater Wichita Partnership, responsible for shepherding economic development. There is a city manager, assistant city manager, six city council members, and a fleet of bureaucrats. Didn’t any of these people know the population has declined? If not, why not?
And if any knew the population was declining and didn’t tell the mayor, well, that’s another problem.
Host: We have a Facebook question from Bob. Could you please comment on the recent US Census Bureau population estimates for the city of Wichita and Wichita metro stat area for the year ending July 1, 2018. It’s very specific but the latest on the census for Wichita.
Longwell: So the census estimates are different than the census and so I’m not I haven’t seen the census estimate data specifically. I know the region … Wichita is becoming a destination for health care and so you’re starting to see many people in rural Kansas migrate to big cities and we’re no different. I know that our population in Wichita has grown from 2000 by nearly 40,000 people and so we will continue to see that growth and right now we need more people. We need people to fill these jobs that are in Wichita. Our unemployment’s at historic low right now.
To view the program on YouTube starting at the point of this question, click here.
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Notes
He had an opportunity to learn the true history of Naftzger Park in downtown Wichita. But Mayor Jeff Longwell didn’t learn, or maybe he doesn’t care.
In March, Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell answered a question about Naftzger Park, telling viewers of the KPTS Television program Call the Mayor that:
“Actually what we found out is when our city fathers put in that park years ago they put the park in on private development land and so the development’s actually not on Naftzger Park. Naftzger Park used to be planted on private development land and so they had to change the boundaries of the park.”
The mayor blamed past city administrations for not being to read a survey. (Click here to view the video starting with this question.)
Chase M. Billingham, who is assistant professor of sociology at Wichita State University, has researched the history of this part of downtown. 1 He submitted a piece to the Wichita Eagle shortly after that episode of Call the Mayor aired. He wrote:
This claim — that the public park was erroneously built on privately owned land — has been one of the most common arguments offered by city officials in favor of their strategy to bulldoze Naftzger Park and rebuild it on a new footprint. This argument has been voiced repeatedly by elected officials and city staff during City Council meetings and public hearings. As the developers of the Spaghetti Works property have begun to build a new mixed-use development there, the city has maintained that it must fix that previous error and restore the developers’ property rights by relinquishing Naftzger Park’s eastern edge.
The claim that Naftzger Park was built on private land is wrong, however, and it epitomizes the disregard for history and due diligence that has characterized much of the city’s disjointed effort to overhaul this key public downtown space.
Billingham then explained the documented history of land ownership in the area, with the upshot being this: “As a result, small areas on the eastern edge of the park did, indeed, sit on privately owned land. But it was not because the park was built on private land; instead, it was because Wichita sold parts of its own public park to private owners for far less than it had paid for the land just a few years earlier.” (emphasis added)
Concluding, he wrote:
When city officials argue that destroying and rebuilding Naftzger Park was necessary, in part, because their predecessors mistakenly built the public park on private land, they are not being truthful. Among other questions surrounding the demolition of that important public space, then, Wichitans deserve to know why their leaders were so eager to relinquish the public access to this land that they had been entitled to for decades.
Why is this incident from March relevant today, two months later? Because on the May 30, 2019 edition of the monthly show Call the Mayor, Longwell repeated the same falsehood.
I’m reluctant to call someone a liar, as a lie means “a false statement deliberately presented as being true” or “something meant to deceive.” But as Billingham wrote, Wichita city officials, including Longwell, are not telling the truth.
Mayor Longwell, along with other Wichita city officials, had an opportunity to learn the truth in both the online and print editions of the largest newspaper in Kansas. If they did not agree with Billingham’s research and conclusion, there are many ways to have a public dialog on the matter. For example, the city has a popular website and social media presences, with the city’s Facebook page being liked by 27,230 people. 2 The city has a communications staff, including a strategic communications director, marketing services director, assistant director of strategic communications, and communications and special events manager. 3 There is a city manager, assistant city manager, six city council members, and a fleet of bureaucrats.
Don’t any of these people care about the truth? Don’t they want to help the mayor of the city present accurate and truthful information?
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