On February 17, 2015 Coalition for a Better Wichita sponsored a forum for the ten candidates running for Wichita mayor. Jennifer Baysinger is the moderator.
Tag: Politics
Wichita mayoral candidate forum
In Kansas, you may display a political sign in your yard
Kansas law overrides neighborhood covenants that prohibit political yard signs before elections.
Some neighborhoods have restrictive covenants that prohibit homeowners from placing any signs in their yard except signs advertising homes for sale. But a 2008 Kansas law overrides these restrictive covenants to allow for the placement of small political yard signs starting 45 days before an election. Still, residents of covenant neighborhoods may want to observe their neighborhood’s restrictions.
For the August 5, 2014 primary election, the 45 day period in which signs are allowed started on June 21. (Although I could be off by a day. Sometimes lawyers count days in strange ways.)The bill was the product of then-Senator Phil Journey of Haysville. The bill passed unanimously in both the Kansas House and Senate.
According to the First Amendment Center, some 50 million people live in neighborhoods with homeowners associations. And laws like the 2008 Kansas law are not without controversy, despite the unanimous vote in the Kansas Legislature.
While the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that governmental entities like cities can’t stop homeowners from displaying political yard signs, a homeowners association is not a government. Instead, it is a group that people voluntarily enter. Generally, when prospective homeowners purchase a home in a neighborhood with restrictive covenants, they are asked to sign a document pledging to comply with the provisions in the covenants. If those covenants prohibit political yard signs, but a Kansas law says these covenants do not apply, what should a homeowner do? Should state law trump private contracts in cases like this?
Practically: Should you display signs in your yard?
While Kansas law makes it legal for those living in communities with covenants that prohibit political yard signs, residents may want to observe these convents. Here’s why: If neighbors are not aware of this new Kansas law and therefore wrongfully believe that the yard signs are not allowed in your neighborhood, they may think residents with signs in their yards are violating the covenants. By extension, this could reflect poorly on the candidates that are being promoted.
Those who are not aware of the law allowing yard signs are uninformed. Or, they may be aware of the law but disagree with it and wish their neighbors would not display political yard signs. These people, of course, may vote and influence others how to vote. Whether to display yard signs in a covenant neighborhood is a judgment that each person will have to make for themselves.
The Kansas statute
K.S.A. 58-3820. Restrictive covenants; political yard signs; limitations. (a) On and after the effective date of this act, any provision of a restrictive covenant which prohibits the display of political yard signs, which are less than six square feet, during a period commencing 45 days before an election and ending two days after the election is hereby declared to be against public policy and such provision shall be void and unenforceable.
(b) The provisions of this section shall apply to any restrictive covenant in existence on the effective date of this act.
Or, as described in the 2008 Summary of Legislation: “The bill invalidates any provision of a restrictive covenant prohibiting the display of political yard signs, which are less than six square feet, 45 days before an election or two days after the election.”
As lawmakers, Kansas judges should be selected democratically
While many believe that judges should not “legislate from the bench,” that is, make law themselves, the reality is that lawmaking is a judicial function. In a democracy, lawmakers should be elected under the principle of “one person, one vote.” But Kansas, which uses the Missouri Plan for judicial selection to its highest court, violates this principle. A 2012 paper by Kansas University School of Law Professor Stephen J. Ware explains the problem with the judicial selection process in Kansas. The paper is titled Originalism, Balanced Legal Realism and Judicial Selection: A Case Study and may be downloaded at no charge. The Kansas court that uses the method of judicial selection described in the paper — the Missouri Plan — is the Kansas Supreme Court. (Prior to July 1, 2103, the Kansas Court of Appeals also used the Missouri Plan for judicial selection.)
At issue is whether judges are simply arbitrators of the law, or do they actually participate in the lawmaking process. Ware explains: “This realist view that statutory interpretation often involves ‘substantial judicial discretion’ and therefore constitutes ‘judicial lawmaking, not lawfinding,’ had by the 1950s, ‘become deeply rooted.’”
A “‘balanced realism,’ to use Brian Tamanaha’s appealing label, recognizes both that judges’ policy preferences have little or no influence on many judicial decisions and that judges’ policy preferences have a significant influence on other judicial decisions. Empirical studies tend to support this balanced view.” In other words, there is some role for ideology in making judicial decisions. Politics, therefore, is involved. Ware quotes Charles Gardner Geyh: “In a post-realist age, the ideological orientation of judicial aspirants matters.” And the higher the court, the more this matters.
Since judges function as lawmakers, they ought to be selected by a democratic process. In the Kansas version of the Missouri Plan, a nominating commission dominated by lawyers selects three candidates to fill an opening on the Kansas Supreme Court. The governor then selects one of the three, and the process is over. A new judge is selected. This process gives members of the state’s bar tremendous power in selecting judges.
In the paper, Ware presents eleven examples of judges on the two highest Kansas courts engaging in lawmaking. In one, a workers’ compensation case, the employee would lose his appeal if the “clear” precedent was followed. Justice Carol A. Beier wrote the opinion. Ware explains:
But this is not, in fact, what Justice Beier and her colleagues on the Kansas Supreme Court did. Rather they did what Kansas Judges Greene and Russell say never happens. Justice Beier and her colleagues engaged in lawmaking. They changed the legal rule from one contrary to their ideologies to one consistent with their ideologies.
Justice Beier’s opinion doing this started by criticizing the old rule, while acknowledging that it was, in fact, the rule prior to her opinion by which the Supreme Court made new law. Here again is the above quote from Coleman, but now with the formerly omitted words restored and italicized: “The rule is clear, if a bit decrepit and unpopular: An injury from horseplay does not arise out of employment and is not compensable unless the employer was aware of the activity or it had become a habit at the workplace.”
Who decided that this rule is “decrepit and unpopular” and so should be changed? Was it the Kansas Legislature? No, it was the Kansas Supreme Court. It was judges, not legislators, who decided that this legal rule was bad policy. It was judges, not legislators, who changed the law to bring it in line with what the lawmaking judges thought was good policy.
Beier wrote in her opinion: “We are clearly convinced here that our old rule should be abandoned. Although appropriate for the time in which it arose, we are persuaded by the overwhelming weight of contrary authority in our sister states and current legal commentary.”
The result: New Kansas law, made by people selected through an undemocratic process.
In conclusion, Ware writes:
Non-lawyers who believe in the principle that lawmakers should be selected democratically need to know that judicial selection is lawmaker selection to be troubled by the Missouri Plan’s violation of this principle. Non-lawyers who do not know that judges inevitably make law may believe that the role of a judge consists only of its professional/technical side and, therefore, believe that judges should be selected entirely on their professional competence and ethics and that assessments of these factors are best left to lawyers. In short, a lawyer who omits lawmaking from a published statement about the judicial role is furthering a misimpression that helps empower lawyers at the expense of non-lawyers, in violation of basic democratic equality, the principle of one-person, one-vote.
Prospects for Kansas
In Kansas, the process for selecting judges to the Kansas Court of Appeals is governed by statute, and can be changed by the legislature and governor. In 2012 the House of Representatives passed a bill to reform the process, but it was blocked by Senate Judiciary Chair Tim Owens. He said “I think this is the first time I did not hear a bill because I thought it was so bad. This is a terrible, terrible bill that’s hated by the courts; it’s an attempt to take over control of the courts.”
Owens, who ranked as the least friendly senator to economic freedom in the 2012 edition of the Kansas Economic Freedom Index, lost his bid for re-election in the August primary election. Many of the other moderate Republicans who voted against reform also lost their primary election contest.
Owens, it should be noted, is an attorney, and is, therefore, a member of the privileged class that has outsize power in selecting judges.
Sometimes legislators are simply uninformed or misinformed on judicial selection. An example is Jean Schodorf, who lost a re-election bid in August. In an interview, she was quoted as saying “We thwarted changes to judicial selection that would have allowed the governor to have the final say in all judicial selections.”
Contrary to Schodorf, the bill that the senate voted on, and the one that Owens killed the year before, called for Court of Appeals judges to be appointed by the governor, with the consent of the senate. It’s actually the senate that has the final say.
Newspaper editorial writers across Kansas are mostly opposed to judicial selection reform. An example is Rhonda Holman of the Wichita Eagle, who in 2010 wrote: “Some critics may have a beef with past court decisions, perhaps even a legitimate one — which is no surprise, given that judicial decisions pick winners and losers. But they also may be motivated by politics — which is a problem, given that the judiciary is supposed to be fair, impartial and independent. In the absence of a strong case for change, Kansas should stick with what works.”
With the change in the composition of the Kansas Senate, the climate became favorable for reform of the way judges are selected for the Kansas Court of Appeals. In 2013 legislation reforming judicial selection for this court was passed and signed into law, taking effect on July 1, 2013. Now these justices are selected by appointment of the governor with confirmation by the senate. The law governing how judges for the Kansas Supreme Court are selected is part of the Kansas Constitution, and would require an amendment to alter the process. That requires a two-thirds vote in both chambers of the Kansas Legislature, and then a simple majority vote of the people.
By the way: For those who criticize the support for judicial selection reform as pure power politics, since Kansas has a conservative governor, remember this: When Professor Ware sounded the need for reform and convinced me of the need, our governor was the liberal Kathleen Sebelius. There was also a liberal senate at that time, one which would undoubtedly have rubberstamped any nominee Sebelius might have sent for confirmation.
Originalism, Balanced Legal Realism and Judicial Selection: A Case Study
By Stephen J. WareAbstract: The “balanced realist” view that judging inevitably involves lawmaking is widely accepted, even among originalists, such as Justice Scalia, Randy Barnett and Steven Calabresi. Yet many lawyers are still reluctant to acknowledge publicly the inevitability of judicial lawmaking. This reluctance is especially common in debates over the Missouri Plan, a method of judicial selection that divides the power to appoint judges between the governor and the bar.
The Missouri Plan is one of three widely-used methods of selecting state court judges. The other two are: (1) direct election of judges by the citizenry, and (2) appointment of judges by democratically elected officials, typically the governor and legislature, with little or no role for the bar. Each of these two methods of judicial selection respects a democratic society’s basic equality among citizens — the principle of one-person, one-vote. In contrast, the Missouri Plan violates this principle by making a lawyer’s vote worth more than another citizen’s vote.
This Article provides a case study of the clash between the inevitability of judicial lawmaking and the reluctance of lawyers to acknowledge this inevitability while defending their disproportionate power under the Missouri Plan. The Article documents efforts by lawyers in one state, Kansas, to defend their version of the Missouri Plan by attempting to conceal from the public the fact that Kansas judges, like judges in the other 49 states, inevitably make law. The case study then shows examples of Kansas judges making law. The Article concludes that honesty requires lawyers participating in the debate over judicial selection in the United States to forthrightly acknowledge that judges make law. Lawyers who seek to defend the power advantage the Missouri Plan gives them over other citizens can honestly acknowledge that this is a power advantage in the selection of lawmakers and then explain why they believe a departure from the principle of one-person, one-vote is justified in the selection of these particular lawmakers.
The complete paper may be downloaded at no charge here.
Kansas spring elections should be moved
Moving spring elections to fall of even-numbered years would produce more votes on local offices like city council and school board.
Before each election, observers such as newspaper editorialists and others urge citizens to get registered and to vote. After the election — especially spring elections in Kansas — the same parties lament the usually low voter turnout.
There is a pattern that could be used if we want more voters in city and school elections. That pattern is that in Sedgwick County, on average, people vote in fall elections at nearly 2.5 times the rate of voting in spring elections.
I’ve gathered statistics for elections in Sedgwick County, and these numbers show that voter turnout in spring elections is much lower than in fall elections. (For these statistics I count the August primary as part of the fall election cycle.) Since 2000, turnout for fall elections, both primary and general, has been 44 percent. Over the same period, spring elections turnout has been 18 percent. There were two special elections during this period, one in spring, and one in the fall cycle. I did not include them in these statistics.Remarkably, a special Wichita citywide election in February 2012 with just one question on the ballot had voter turnout of 13.7 percent. One year earlier, in April 2011, the spring general election had four of six city council districts contested and a citywide mayoral election. Turnout was 12.8 percent, less than for a single-question election.
The problem of low voter participation in off-cycle elections is not limited to Sedgwick County or Kansas. In her paper “Election Timing and the Electoral Influence of Interest Groups,” Sarah F. Anzia writes “A well developed literature has shown that the timing of elections matters a great deal for voter turnout. … When cities and school districts hold elections at times other than state and national elections, voter turnout is far lower than when those elections are held at the same time as presidential or gubernatorial elections.”
Since this paper, Anzia has written, and University of Chicago Press published, a book on this topic: Timing and Turnout: How Off-Cycle Elections Favor Organized Groups.
In the paper, Anzia explains that when voter participation is low, it opens the door for special interest groups to dominate the election: “When an election is separated from other elections that attract higher turnout, many eligible voters abstain, but interest group members that have a large stake in the election outcome turn out at high rates regardless of the increase in the cost of voting. Moreover, interest groups’ efforts to strategically mobilize supportive voters have a greater impact on election outcomes when overall turnout is low. Consequently, the electoral influence of interest groups is greater in off-cycle elections than in on-cycle elections. As a result, the policy made by officials elected in off-cycle elections should be more favorable to dominant interest groups than policy made by officials elected in on-cycle elections.” (Election Timing and the Electoral Influence of Interest Groups, Sarah F. Anzia, Stanford University, Journal of Politics, April 2011, Vol. 73 Issue 2, p 412-427, version online here.)
Ray Merrick on the gotcha factor
The Kansas House of Representatives, led by its Speaker, decides to retain the ability to cast votes in secret.
On the Joseph Ashby Show Kansas House of Representatives Speaker Ray Merrick appeared to discuss several issues, one being an issue regarding legislative procedure in Kansas. In particular, there is a movement to have all votes by members recorded, including those in committee. Ashby asked “Can we record all those committee votes and have that available online?”
In a response that held a chuckle by Merrick — you can tell he isn’t comfortable with this topic — the Speaker said that his chairs run their committees, and they have the ability to record the votes in their committees, if they desire. But he said there are a lot of “gotchas.”
The speaker also said that every vote on the House floor is recorded. He clarified that as “final action” votes that are all recorded. It’s good that he made that clarification, as there are many voice votes on the floor of the House that are not recorded, and no one knows who voted each way. Most are inconsequential, but many are not.
The move to have all votes recorded is popularly known as the “Rubin Rule,” promoted by Representative John Rubin.
What is troubling is the admission by Merrick that if all votes are recorded there could be “gotchas.” As Speaker of the House, he is the one person who can lead reform of the legislative process. And it needs reform.
The gotchas referred to are votes that may be taken for reasons other than genuine legislative intent. There may be votes that are for show only. There may be votes that are simply preening for advertisements, either positive or negative ads. Legislators may vote in a way other than what they really believe. None of this is good.
The gotcha votes are a symptom of a larger problem. When legislative proceedings are complicated, when votes don’t really mean what they seem to mean, when citizens can’t easily understand the proceedings, we lose confidence in government. The understanding of legislative process remains in the hands of politicians, staff, and lobbyists, plus a few journalists who try to explain it.
We see the “omnibus” bills, which cover many topics. A vote for or against such a bill means very little, because there may some things legislators agree with, and some they don’t. But the entire package is forced upon them. Maneuvers like this allow Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, on the campaign trail, to say that his opponent Paul Davis voted against increasing school funding. This is true, but only because the bill contained other subjects. Everyone knows that Paul Davis wanted more school spending. But he couldn’t — at least he didn’t — vote in favor of that because the spending legislation was mixed with other legislation that he didn’t support.
We are left with the realization that we don’t conduct politics in a straightforward manner, where what politicians do and say actually reflects their values, and that anyone can see these values. Today the tradition continues. The Kansas House of Representatives failed to pass an amendment offered by Rubin to require recorded votes on all but trivial matters. As a result, it will be easy to know how your representative voted on the state fish of Kansas, but on important matters like school choice, you may never know.
On roll call, the vote was: Yeas 51; Nays 67; Present but not voting: 0; Absent or not voting: 7. Those with leadership positions are in boldface.
Yeas: Anthimides, Becker, Bollier, Bradford, Bridges, Bruchman, Couture-Lovelady, Campbell, Carmichael, B. Carpenter, Clark, Clayton, DeGraaf, Dierks, Doll, Esau, Ewy, Finch, Finney, Gallagher, Garber, Grosserode, Hedke, Hibbard, Highberger, Hildabrand, Hill, Hineman, Houser, Houston, Jennings, K. Jones, Kiegerl, Lusk, Macheers, O’Brien, L. Osterman, Ousley, Peck, Read, Rhoades, Rooker, Rubin, Scapa, Sloan, Sutton, Swanson, Trimmer, Ward, Whipple, Whitmer.
Nays: Alcala, Alford, Ballard, Barker, Barton, Billinger, Boldra, Brunk, Burroughs, Carlin, W. Carpenter, Claeys, Concannon, Corbet, Curtis, Dannebohm, Davis, Estes, Francis, Frownfelter, Gonzalez, Hawkins, Hemsley, Henderson, Henry, Highland, Hoffman, Huebert, Hutchins, Hutton, Johnson, D. Jones, Kahrs, Kelly, Kleeb, Kuether, Lane, Lunn, Lusker, Mason, Mast, McPherson, Merrick, Patton, Pauls, Phillips, Powell, Proehl, Ruiz, Ryckman, Ryckman Sr., Schroeder, Schwab, Schwartz, Seiwert, Smith, Suellentrop, Thimesch, Thompson, Tietze, Todd, Vickrey, Victors, Waymaster, Williams, Wilson, Wolfe Moore.
Present but not voting: None.
Absent or not voting: Dove, Edmonds, Goico, Kelley, Moxley, Sawyer, Winn.
WichitaLiberty.TV: Wichita city government and upcoming elections
In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: We’ll take a look at how city government and council meetings operate. Then, there are city elections coming up. How can you get involved? How can you decide which candidates to support? View below, or click here to view at YouTube. Episode 71, broadcast January 18, 2015.
Wichita Eagle labels hold a clue
How Wichita Eagle news stories label outside organizations is a window into the ideology of the paper’s newsroom.
A Wichita Eagle op-ed references a report released by two think tanks, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and Kansas Center for Economic Growth. (Kansas tax system among the most regressive, January 18, 2015.)
Here’s what readers can learn about the mindset of the Wichita Eagle. These organizations were named. Named and referenced without labels, adjectives, or qualifications that give readers clues about the ideology of the organizations.
That wouldn’t be remarkable except for noticing the contrast in how the Eagle labels conservative and libertarian organizations, most notably Kansas Policy Institute. A quick use of Google finds these mentions of KPI in recent Eagle pieces:
- “Dave Trabert, president of the Kansas Policy Institute and an outspoken advocate for conservative education reforms”
- “The Kansas Policy Institute, a free-market think tank linked to Koch Industries”
- “The Kansas Policy Institute, a conservative think tank”
- “Dave Trabert, president of the Kansas Policy Institute, a conservative think tank in Wichita”
- “The Kansas Policy Institute, a conservative think tank based in Wichita”
- “The Kansas Policy Institute, a conservative Wichita nonprofit organization”
- “parallel recommendations from the Kansas Policy Institute, a conservative small-government think tank”
Always, a reference to Kansas Policy Institute includes a description of the organization’s politics. This is not inaccurate, as KPI is conservative and free-market.
Contrast with these recent excerpts from Eagle stories:
- “Duane Goossen is a senior fellow at the Kansas Center for Economic Growth”
- “said Annie McKay, director of the Kansas Center for Economic Growth”
- “The Kansas Center for Economic Growth recently surveyed districts and analyzed data from the Kansas State Department of Education”
- “A study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy that Laffer disputes”
- “said Matt Gardner, executive director of the liberal-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy”
- “according to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which is based in Washington, D.C.”
- “Wednesday’s report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy says”
You can see that one time the Eagle slipped and labeled ITEP as “liberal-leaning.” That’s actually a gentle characterization of ITEP, which in reality lies quite far on the left end of the political spectrum, as does Kansas Center for Economic Growth. But the use of a label shows that someone, at one time, was aware of ITEP’s politics.
So why does the Eagle routinely label Kansas Policy Institute, but never or rarely label Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and Kansas Center for Economic Growth?
We know the editorial page of the Eagle is liberal, favoring progressive policies of more taxes and larger government over economic freedom almost without exception. We see too that the newsroom shares the same view, as shown by the sampling of references above. Labeling a source as conservative, free-market, and linked to Koch Industries is not meant by the Eagle to be a compliment.
A note: The two outfits the op-ed relied upon produce much content that is demonstrably wrong. The Tax Foundation has found many serious problems with the report that is the subject of the Eagle op-ed. See Comments on Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States (Second Edition). For KCEG, see Kansas school teacher cuts, student ratios.
The Overcriminalization of America
The Overcriminalization of America
How to reduce poverty and improve race relations by rethinking our justice system
By Charles G. Koch and Mark V. HoldenAs Americans, we like to believe the rule of law in our country is respected and fairly applied, and that only those who commit crimes of fraud or violence are punished and imprisoned. But the reality is often different. It is surprisingly easy for otherwise law-abiding citizens to run afoul of the overwhelming number of federal and state criminal laws. This proliferation is sometimes referred to as “overcriminalization,” which affects us all but most profoundly harms our disadvantaged citizens.
Overcriminalization has led to the mass incarceration of those ensnared by our criminal justice system, even though such imprisonment does not always enhance public safety. Indeed, more than half of federal inmates are nonviolent drug offenders. Enforcing so many victimless crimes inevitably leads to conflict between our citizens and law enforcement. As we have seen all too often, it can place our police officers in harm’s way, leading to tragic consequences for all involved.
Continue reading at Politico.
Wichita city hall falls short in taxpayer protection
An incentives agreement the Wichita city council passed on first reading is missing several items that city policy requires. How the council and city staff handle the second reading of this ordinance will let us know for whose interests city hall works: citizens, or cronies.
This week I presented the Wichita City Council my concerns about an inadequate developer agreement for a TIF district development project, the Mosley Avenue Project.
My presentation centered on the lack of an agreement by the developer to forgo appeals of the tax valuation of the property. The applicant had done this in the past, and it caused a shortfall of TIF revenue that the city had to makeup. The city manager had said that taxpayers would be protected in future deals, but the city did not include this protection in the Mosely agreement.
The omission of this taxpayer protection was not all that was missing. The Downtown Development Incentives Policy, revised by the council on June 10, 2014, calls for several items to be supplied when seeking incentives, including tax increment financing, which was the incentive requested for the Mosely project. As I show below, many significant items related to taxpayer protection were missing.
The council approved the project on first reading, noting that the development agreement would be finalized in time for second reading.
This is insufficient. The second reading of an ordinance is usually handled as part of the consent agenda. This is a grouping of items that are voted on as a group, in bulk. There is no discussion unless a council member specifically requests. The practice of the city is that the text of the ordinances on second reading is not made available in the agenda packet, even though changes may have been made between first reading and second reading. That will certainly be the case with this ordinance, as many things are missing from the development agreement.
It’s not clear why there is a first reading and a second reading of an ordinance. It may be so that details may be corrected. Or, perhaps council members would like to have a chance to reconsider their first vote. City code seems to give no guidance as to how much change to an ordinance is allowable between first and second reading.
The problem we face in Wichita is that the approval of a development plan in a TIF district has a mandated public hearing. It is not optional. But the motion passed by the council this week closed the public hearing. Yet, the city will need to make substantial changes to the ordinance and development agreement if it intends to follow the downtown incentives policy that it created. But the public will have no chance to comment on the new material. If past city practice is followed, the new material will not be made available to the public, and perhaps not to council members.
This is a conflict that I do not believe can be resolved unless the city reopens the public hearing for consideration of the revised ordinance and developer agreement on first reading. Anything else disrespects procedures that are designed to benefit and protect the public.
Except. As with many city council policies, there are loopholes. As outlined below, the council can simply vote to waive the requirements of the downtown incentives policy. That gives the council an easy out. But that makes another mockery of the city’s policies, if the council waives them whenever they are inconvenient.
When I presented the defect in the development agreement to the council I asked: Is this lack of taxpayer protection an oversight, or is it by design? There was no answer.
I did not ask this question, but didn’t any city council member notice the omission of significant items needed to comply with its own policies? What about the city manager? Economic development director? City attorney?
More importantly, who in city hall looking out for the interests of taxpayers? Could the generous campaign contributions of Burk and his wife be a factor in this missing taxpayer protection? Or the generous contributions of Key Construction and its executives? (Key Construction is frequently used by Burk.) This is one more incident illustrating the need for campaign finance reform in Wichita.
Missing items
Section D of the incentives policy states “parties requesting Downtown Development Incentives must submit the information listed below.” Significant missing items included the following:
CEDBR Fiscal Impact Model
The idea behind the city’s use of economic development incentives is that the city receives more than it spends or forgoes in future tax revenue. An analysis performed by the Center for Economic Development and Business Research (CEDBR) at Wichita State University is used to make this decision. This appears to have not been done for this project.Guarantee for a proportional share of public revenue shortfall
This was not present in the developer agreement.Economic analysis confirms that the project is infeasible “but for” public investment
This was not present in the developer agreement.Minimum private to public capital investment ratio of 2 to 1
Information necessary to make this judgment was not included in the agenda presentation.Pro Forma
The incentives policy states: “Pro Forma — The project pro forma will be evaluated on the following criteria:
a. Rate of private investment return
b. Rents/prices consistent with performance of comparables
c. Projected rate of absorption consistent with performance of comparables
d. Long-term project solvency”
It appears that this analysis was not performed.“Gap” Financing Requirement
The downtown incentives policy states: “Approval of Downtown Development Incentives will require a financial analysis demonstrating that the project would not otherwise be possible without the use of the requested development incentive (“gap” analysis). Parties requesting Downtown Development Incentives will be required to provide the City pro forma cash flow analyses and sources and uses of funds in sufficient detail to demonstrate that reasonably available conventional debt and equity financing sources are not available to fund the entire cost of the project and still provide the developer a reasonable market rate of return on investment.”There is no evidence that this analysis was performed and made available to the council.
Waiver
The incentives policy contains a loophole. If the council believes it is “inappropriate to evaluate a particular request for Downtown Development Incentives” using the policy, it may vote to waive the requirements.
