On Century II, Wichita City Hall won the first round, but the public issue remains, writes John Todd.
A special to the Wichita Eagle by John Todd.
The Wichita City Council’s lawsuit against the Save Century II committee and the 17,265 Wichitans who had signed our petition won a first-round legal victory in state district court Aug. 28. The effort to have a binding vote by Wichita voters at an upcoming election was rejected by the court. This is a setback for Wichitans seeking to resolve this issue at the ballot box in November.
This courtroom defeat demonstrates that the provision in the Kansas Constitution’s Bill of Rights, which says, “all political power in this state is inherent in the people,” has disappeared when it comes to this petition in district court. However, a district court decision is not the final word — not in the court of public opinion, or in Kansas appellate courtrooms. City Hall won the first round, but the public issue remains.
Continue reading at the Wichita Eaglehere or link to archived article here.
News of a Sedgwick County Commissioner’s trip to Africa has raised some controversy, and something like this has been tried before.
The Wichita Eagle reported this regarding Sedgwick County Commissioner Lacy Cruse’s visit to the West Africa country Ghana: “She said she focused her efforts on economic opportunities related to aviation and education. She said she talked to Ghana’s minister of aviation about potentially establishing an aviation school and setting up an aviation maintenance shop at the Tamale International Airport in Ghana. She didn’t make any formal deals on behalf of the county or any local companies. She said forming a trade relationship with Ghana isn’t something that can happen overnight.” 1
Something like this has been tried before, and not too long ago. In 2011, Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer and a delegation traveled to Ghana on a trade mission, seeking business opportunities for Wichita companies. The aircraft industry was prominently mentioned.
The host country, however, may have misunderstood the mission of the visitors from Wichita. A news release on the Official Portal of the Government of Ghana published after the visit included this: “[District Chief Executive (DCE) of Lower Manya Krobo District, Mr Isaac Abgo Tetteh] announced that the Mayor has pledged to furnish Nene Sakitey II with an Aircraft for his private use.” 2
I had thought that perhaps this promise of an airplane to the overlord was a case of something being lost or mangled in translation, but then I realized that English is the official language of Ghana.
There was a follow-up visit in 2014. The Wichita Eagle reported the goals of then-Mayor Brewer: “Brewer’s particular interest on the trip is building business relationships overseas that could lead to opportunities for small and midsize aviation businesses in Wichita.” 3
The trips weren’t very successful in stimulating aviation exports. With the exception of 2011, the Census Bureau reports little in the way of aviation-related exports to Ghana. The data includes the entire State of Kansas.
Government of Ghana Official Portal. Wichita City to Partner Manya Krobo For Development. November 25, 2011. “An unprecedented visit by the Mayor of Wichita City, Kansas State USA, Mr Carl Brewer, his Deputy, Mrs Lavonta Williams and the Council of Elders were welcomed by the overlord of Manya Krobo Traditional Area, Nene Sakitey II at the Palace. At a grand durbar organised in honour of the Mayor and his delegation, the District Chief Executive (DCE) of Lower Manya Krobo District, Mr Isaac Abgo Tetteh, urged the people of Manya Krobo to set an initiative in order to get a push from the Mayor for the realisation of the sister city project by the city of Wichita and the Manya Krobo municipality. Mr Tetteh also announced at the gathering that, the sister city concept is to assist Lower Manya to attain the standard of a city by helping in the direction of education and other infrastructural development. He announced that the Mayor has pledged to furnish Nene Sakitey II with an Aircraft for his private use.” Image available here. ↩
Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell says there is no corruption involving him, but this is only because of loose and sloppy Kansas and Wichita laws.
In an advertisement in the November 3, 2019 Wichita Eagle,Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell defended himself against charges of corruption. Referring to a recent investigation by the Sedgwick County District Attorney, the ad states:
In 2018 and 2017, Bennett found I was 100% compliant. In 2016 he found only one instance where I was $21.33 over the annual $500 threshold allowed for “goods and services” received from local companies.
Here’s what the District Attorney found in his investigation:
Given the failure of Kansas Statutes Annotated 75-4301a to define “good or services,” the Mayor explained to an investigator with the Office of the District Attorney that he did not believe a round of golf constituted “goods or services.” He further explained that charitable golf outings where the entire expenditure went to charity (situations where the golf course donated their greens fees to the charity) led him to the conclusion that, because the charity received the entire donation, the golfers (including him) derived no financial benefit. As such, he did not believe it necessary to report these outings on his substantial interest form. 1
This reasoning by Longwell is hairsplitting to the extreme. What’s important is that Longwell accepted gifts from people he later steered a large city contract to. However large or small the gifts, this is wrong.
In his conclusion, the District Attorney wrote:
And while I am confident, having exhaustively researched the issue, that, as an act of entertainment, golf qualifies as “goods or services” under Kansas law, it is also true that Kansas Statutes Annotated 75-4301a, et seq., governing Substantial Interest Form filings, offers little guidance. I am not filing a class B misdemeanor under these facts.
It seems that sloppy Kansas laws are the problem, along with a mayor willing to exploit that weakness.
Does the city have any laws or regulations on this matter? Here’s an excerpt from the Wichita city code as passed in 2008 (full section below):
“[Council members] shall refrain from making decisions involving business associates, customers, clients, friends and competitors.”
We also have statutory language that reads “business associates, customers, clients, friends and competitors.” But the city attorney, in a question involving former mayor Carl Brewer, felt that these terms are not defined, and therefore the mayor and city council members need not be concerned about compliance with this law. 2
Today, city hall ethics, at least in the mayor’s chair, have not improved. It’s reasonable to conclude that people who pay the mayor to play in expensive golf tournaments are his friends. People who pay for dinner for the mayor and his wife and describe it as a social gathering (as the district attorney found) are friends. Or, maybe they just want something from the mayor and see an ersatz social relationship as a means to an end. But as we’ve learned recently, the current city attorney says council members “are left to police themselves on that city law,” according to Wichita Eagle reporting. 3
Is it true, as the mayor’s ad screams in capital letters?
THERE IS NO CORRUPTION LIKE YOU’VE BEEN LED TO BELIEVE
There is none, but only because of sloppy Kansas and Wichita laws. But under any commonsense definition, yes, there is corruption. It is not necessary for an act to be illegal to be corrupt; that it is dishonest or fraudulent conduct is enough.
Should Longwell be re-elected, can we expect reform? I don’t think it’s likely that someone will support laws criminalizing their own past behavior.
Wichita city code
Sec. 2.04.050. — Code of ethics for council members.
Council members occupy positions of public trust. All business transactions of such elected officials dealing in any manner with public funds, either directly or indirectly, must be subject to the scrutiny of public opinion both as to the legality and to the propriety of such transactions. In addition to the matters of pecuniary interest, council members shall refrain from making use of special knowledge or information before it is made available to the general public; shall refrain from making decisions involving business associates, customers, clients, friends and competitors; shall refrain from repeated and continued violation of city council rules; shall refrain from appointing immediate family members, business associates, clients or employees to municipal boards and commissions; shall refrain from influencing the employment of municipal employees; shall refrain from requesting the fixing of traffic tickets and all other municipal code citations; shall refrain from seeking the employment of immediate family members in any municipal operation; shall refrain from using their influence as members of the governing body in attempts to secure contracts, zoning or other favorable municipal action for friends, customers, clients, immediate family members or business associates; and shall comply with all lawful actions, directives and orders of duly constituted municipal officials as such may be issued in the normal and lawful discharge of the duties of these municipal officials.
Council members shall conduct themselves so as to bring credit upon the city as a whole and so as to set an example of good ethical conduct for all citizens of the community. Council members shall bear in mind at all times their responsibility to the entire electorate, and shall refrain from actions benefiting special groups at the expense of the city as a whole and shall do everything in their power to ensure equal and impartial law enforcement throughout the city at large without respect to race, creed, color or the economic or the social position of individual citizens.
There are eight major lessons for Wichita voters when they cast their ballots on or before November 5, 2019, concerning the revelations of favoritism involving the mayor, apparently a majority of the city council, and a number of Wichita businesses and businessmen concerning a proposed massive city water plant contract that is close to half a billion dollars.
The Wichita Eagle’s detailed reporting on this proposed contract, Mayor Longwell’s role deserves scrutiny at several different levels.
Let me begin with full disclosure. Both Mayor Longwell and I are registered Republicans, and also GOP precinct committeemen in our respective west Wichita precincts. The mayor is now one of the most prominent Republican mayors in the entire country. In 2012, then-city council member Longwell ran against me in the Republican primary for the Sedgwick County Commission. He lost. Subsequently, in 2015, Jeff Longwell defeated Sam Williams in the non-partisan general election for Wichita mayor.
Finally Exposing Improper City Contract Conduct
The Wichita Eagle deserves credit for researching city records following an expensive KORA records request. The paper also deserves credit for reporting the story about favoritism, cronyism, and how public-private partnerships” actually have been operating as part of the proposed new water plant at city hall.
However, this story implicitly treats this type of conduct as new. In reality, there is an extensive history of similar conduct going back for years at city hall. That raises the question, why now?
News Hole
The huge volume of space the Wichita Eagle initially provided to cover this front page, above the fold story on a Sunday paper is remarkable. It was extremely large. I doubt that the 1969 moon landing, the 9-11-2001 Islamist terrorist attacks, or pick any of the presidential campaign election results since the 1960s had as much space with as many words above the fold on the front page, and followed with two full pages inside the Sunday paper, and editorial commentary as this city hall story. As a percentage of the total news hole in the paper, a higher percentage was probably contained within this edition of the paper.
I believe that you would probably need to go back to the JFK assassination for coverage that may have included more space than this Sunday, September 29, 2019 story received.
This is quite a contrast in local news coverage from past examples of city contracts that were handled in a similar way over many years. Let’s look at why this might have occurred.
Weakened Local News Media
The news organizations in Wichita have been decimated by digitization. The digital world has dramatically changed the environment for print and broadcasting, whether it is radio or TV. All of these organizations are smaller, have reduced staffs, and lack the ability to do extensive and expensive research needed to provide any sort of investigative reporting. That is why the Eagle’s reporting on this story is remarkable since the room for news in this shrunken paper is a small fraction of what it was 10 or even just five years ago.
The Eagle’s reporting is also notable because its parent company, McClatchy Corporation (MCN), is in severe financial distress, with a corporate capital base hovering around $20 million while the firm’s indebtedness is many times larger. Recently, the Eagle announced that it was discontinuing daily publication, and will be printed six times weekly beginning in November.
McClatchy Corporation stock is now under $3 a share despite having a reverse stock-split that dramatically reduced the number of shares (1 for 10) in this financially distressed firm. To raise cash, McClatchy recently sold their Kansas City Star building. The details of this transaction that included a 15-year leaseback, indicate a company suffering severe financial difficulties.
Despite these cash flow problems, the resources needed to write this story were provided. The Wichita broadcast news media is now following, and reporting this story too.
However, this type of reporting could have occurred years ago and wasn’t. Why not?
Vote for the Leftist With A Chance
The very liberal Wichita Eagle editorial page is nothing new. When Knight-Ridder owned the eagle, the paper did an in-your-face endorsement of the liberal Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election to its readers in Republican-voting Kansas.
Now the Eagle knew that their endorsement would not matter. Kansas had not voted for a Democrat for president since 1964, or before that, 1936 when Kansas’ favorite son, Alf Landon, was defeated by FDR. Despite this, they endorsed a Massachusetts leftist who went on to lose in a national landslide, as well as a Kansas landslide in this state. Even if a Republican loses a national election, Kansans overwhelming voted for Bob Dole every time his name appeared on the national election ballot.
State and local newspaper endorsements are different. This is where the Eagle’s endorsements have had more influence in races where voters may not know as much about the candidates. This is more of a factor in primaries where even less is known about candidates and their positions, than in general elections.
Now the Eagle’s defenders will take exception to this claim about liberal endorsements. Eagle defenders will claim that the paper has endorsed some Republicans, and occasionally even a conservative. It is true, this has occasionally occurred but only under a narrow set of circumstances. These non-liberal endorsements only occur when it was clear that the conservative was likely to win, and usually would win big regardless of who or how the paper endorsed. The Eagle’s editorial endorsement policy is usually to endorse the most liberal candidate with a reasonable chance to win, and has been in place for more than 40 years I’ve lived in Wichita.
As the paper’s financial and news resources have weakened, the ability to endorse has diminished with their diminishing circulation but still has substantial influence in low-turnout elections that especially include primaries, and down-ballot races.
Voice for Liberty Records It
Former Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer with major campaign donor Dave Wells of Key Construction. Evidently, Wichita city code did not prohibit Brewer from voting to give millions in contracts and subsidy to Key.The Voice for Liberty website at wichitaliberty.org pictured former Mayor Carl Brewer, a liberal Democrat, holding a big fish while standing next to a prominent local businessman David Wells of Key Construction Company. Next to this picture Weeks included a Brewer letter on city hall letterhead praising Key Construction Company and identifying it as the special construction company with city hall connections.
Bob Weeks and Voice for Liberty did everything possible to call out this situation. Interest in the local news media, from the Wichita Eagle to the broadcasters can be described in one word: crickets. Nada, nothing, ain’t going to go there was the Wichita news media reaction. But there are more city hall purchase contract shenanigans, and it is more recent.
Wichita Eagle Skews
In July 2012 the city council voted to give a large, nine-figure construction contract to a Michigan company with their select Wichita partners to replace the Wichita Airport terminal. The Michigan company and their local partners, including Key Construction, weren’t the low bidders. The lowest bidder was a Wichita construction company.
The Michigan company partnered with Key Construction and won the city council vote on this contract. Then-city council member Jeff Longwell voted to give this large contract to the Michigan/Key construction group.
The day before the city council and Longwell voted the Michigan construction company’s top management and many of their spouses made maximum donations allowed by law to the Longwell for County Commission Campaign. The day after Longwell voted to give them this $100 million-plus contract more maximum legal level donations rolled into the Longwell campaign from the Michigan company’s management and their spouses.
This all became public record when these were reported on campaign finance reports about 10 days before the election. Naturally, my campaign responded to this outrageous misconduct. Interest from the news media in general, and the Wichita Eagle, which had endorsed the less conservative candidate in this race, Longwell, had no interest in reporting on these outrageous events on their front or editorial pages.
The Wichita Eagle advertisement. Click for larger.My county commission campaign tried to buy a newspaper ad in the Eagle and publicize this outrageous financial misconduct at city hall. The Wichita Eagle’s advertising staff did everything they could to assist my campaign in this ad purchase. However, the rest of the Eagle editorial, management, and news staff attempted to censor my text, and prevent my ad from running in the form it was being used in our other campaign efforts. Eventually, my campaign did run an ad, but without all of the language that we wanted to use, in exposing this financial misconduct on the city’s airport construction contract.
This story did get to some voters, but only because my county commission campaign successfully mailed this information into voters’ hands, although roughly 40 percent of the voters had already cast ballots before my campaign material could be distributed. I beat Councilman Longwell with over 56% of the vote in the August 2012 GOP county commission primary contest.
However, when Sam Williams tried to raise this issue in the 2015 mayor’s race, it was treated as ancient history and not reported. Sadly, this history of cronyism at city hall wasn’t reported prior to the primary, and I believe that this would have made Lyndy Wells advance to the general election ballot. Most recently, this is especially true in the way the city has handled the destruction of Lawrence Dumont Stadium, and the sale of approximately 4 acres for $1 an acre around the stadium for the ownership group of an out of state, minor league baseball club. Special city favors for special people within the public-private partnership paradigm is the way municipal government operates here.
More Wichita Eagle Skews
This wasn’t the only example of city hall financial transgressions and shenanigans. In 2013 the city was involved in the city-owned land sale for the west bank apartment project, the same sort of financial shenanigans occurred. The city went with their politically favored firm, and Jeff Longwell voted with the majority to go his business buddies, in another example of this “public-private partnership.”
Sadly, Mayor Longwell continues to defend the “public-private partnerships” model for city development in this latest example of how Wichita city hall operates. This did not receive Wichita Eagle coverage like the most recent example that occurred with 3 weeks away from advanced voting in the 2019 mayor’s race begins, and roughly 5 weeks before the November 5 election day.
For many Wichitans, “public-private partnerships” is just a politically correct phrase describing cronyism, for ethically conflicted projects, for the special favors for special people environment in Wichita’s city government. Profits are privatized while loses land in taxpayer’s laps. This is what happens without clearly specified bidding, and without procedures for selecting, and protecting the low, winning bidders who meet clear project specifications.
City Purchases and City Scandals
Government scandals aren’t limited to city hall. Purchasing scandals have occurred at all levels of government.
After I joined the Sedgwick County commission in 2009, I was informed about past purchasing scandals in Sedgwick County government. These had all occurred in the last century. This occurred as I began officially reviewing county financial operations. County staff was proud of the protections and safeguards built into the county’s bidding and bid board process.
That is why almost all county bids were handled as routine, often consent agenda items. That’s how the county had created its bid board, and how there was a major effort to protect taxpayers. This transparent process treated all potential bidders fairly, whether they were local, or not; whether they knew or didn’t know county officials; and it was an open, transparent process. The city needs to move to a clear, transparent, and fair model like the county has enjoyed for several decades.
Conclusion With a Warning for the Future
Financial shenanigans have a long history in Wichita city hall. Lack of detailed news coverage of these shenanigans is a hidden story that this non-reporter is going to try and disclose for if nothing else, the historical record now. This is sad that this history has to be provided by a frustrated, non-media, Wichitan who, while I did enjoy an elevated county courthouse observation position for eight years, could only observe these city crony cases from the other side of Central Ave.
Additional details about these crony stories mentioned here are contained in the Voice for Liberty archives. This information is accessible to everyone on this site. Even the news media.
Now, this most recent example of city cronyism has received a large amount of well-deserved, and in fact remarkable, huge coverage by the Wichita Eagle. While I am a major critic of the Eagle, I will state that this paper deserves credit for breaking this story.
This must be placed in the context and contrast with often the lack of interest in the past, especially if the Eagle’s politically favored officials were involved. The major news story is not the continuing cronyism at Wichita city hall but the fact that cronyism was exposed, received major negative news attention, and now continuing news coverage.
Sadly, I expect that the bottom line is that little or nothing to change the public-private cronyism model that is encased in political concrete in city hall. This model also seems to be encased in Wichita media concrete too. Sadly, this defective economic model enhancing cronyism is likely to prevail regardless of who wins in the mayor’s election contest, or the other city council elections, November 5.
Postscript
The cronyism in Wichita and news media flaws that are discussed above are relevant but tiny compared with the egregious corruption nationally in our country. The outrages from the Clinton Crime Foundation, the recent revelations concerning the Biden overseas money schemes, the misuse of government FISA surveillance in the Russian collusion hoax, outline national abuses and governmental scandals that far exceed local government’s defects in Wichita.
My sources for these national assertions include but are not limited to the financial revelations about misconduct by both Democrats and Republicans in Peter Schweizer’s outstanding books: Secret Empire,Clinton Cash, and Extortion, are excellent. News media flaws nationally are documented by the .
Are We Rome? by Lawrence Reed is a brief, pamphlet sized outline (see Foundation for Economic Education) of our national financial and governmental challenges. Those who want to explore our national fiscal and institutional problems, I would recommend Dinesh D’Souza’s and Mark Levin’s numerous books. If we don’t get this right, Mark Steyn’s After America: Get Ready for Armageddon moves from a yellow warning light to a hideous, Venezuelan reality.
Fighting the good fight within government will be tough. Scott Walker’s Unintimidated: A Governor’s Story and a Nation’s Challenge describes the Wisconsin battle in exquisite detail. It is a valuable, but cautionary reality defenders of liberty can find incisive examples of the challenges ahead. Levin’s proposed constitutional amendments in the Liberty Amendments is also valuable reading.
Sadly, there aren’t any books like this for Kansas, let alone Wichita. Greg Jarrett has left Wichita and gone national with his excellent books. This essay is a report for the legacy of those interested in local government in the early 21st century. This also provides a report for anyone interested in the governmental legacy left for our heirs who will follow us in south-central Kansas.
When pursuing a large Wichita city contract, did the winning company lobby all council members, or primarily Mayor Jeff Longwell?
The role of Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell in the awarding of the contract for the new Wichita water plant has been in the news. A recent Wichita Eagle article showed how the mayor steered the award to a company other than the company recommended by the city’s selection committee. 1
Central to the story is the relationship between the mayor and the company he favored. There was, according to Eagle reporting, a close relationship including a cash gift that was not disclosed 2 and some eerily chummy emails. 3
The mayor, however, downplayed his role. In a response from Longwell posted on the city’s Facebook page, he said he is part of a team: “A team that deliberately keeps each other in check. We question and challenge each step, and that is an intentional process designed to ensure we have the best deal for our city.” 4
Some council members agree. In the Eagle article, two council members were interviewed, Brandon Johnson (district 1, northeast Wichita) and James Clendenin (district 3, southeast and south Wichita):
Johnson and Clendenin both downplayed Longwell’s role in awarding the contract, saying the mayor is just one vote.
“You give the mayor too much credit,” Johnson said.
“Yeah, this idea that the mayor of the city of Wichita has enough power to make any decision he would like is something that I think is a misconception,” Clendenin said.
What, then, is the power of the mayor to lead or steer the council in his preferred direction?
The answer to this question holds the answer: Did the winning company (Wichita Water Partners) lobby, flatter, or gift any Wichita City Council members with anything approaching the consideration directed to Mayor Jeff Longwell?
“Before Longwell cast the deciding vote, the president of one of the Water Partners’ companies paid for Longwell to enter a $1,000-per-person charity golf tournament. … Nor did Longwell disclose the $1,000 entry fee on a state ethics form for local officials that he filed in February.” ↩
“They frequently referred to each other in emails by nicknames — Your Eminence, His Highness, Homecoming Queen, Eye Candy, Jethro and Wine Delivery Guy, after Young, the president of PEC, offered to drop off to Longwell leftover wine from a previous dinner party.” ↩
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.
Ballpark facility use and management agreement between the city of Wichita, Kansas and Yes2No, LLC, a Massachuetts limited liability company authorized to do business in Kansas. October 12, 2018. ↩
Agenda for September 11, 2018: “The total settlement amount of $2,200,000 will be paid over time by annual payments from 2018 to 2026 from the first six (6) years of management agreement payments paid by the new AAA baseball team.” ↩
In 2014 Wichita voters rejected a sales tax which would have provided $250 million to spend on a water project. What were the city’s concerns?
A recent Wichita Eagle article has ignited some revising of history regarding Wichita’s water infrastructure. 1 The article is grim, starting with, “Next time water comes out of your tap, don’t take it for granted. Wichita’s only water treatment plant could fail at any moment.” The article reports on the poor condition of Wichita’s existing water infrastructure, particularly the central water plant.
Wichita recently dealt with spending on a water project. That was in 2014, when the city asked voters to decide on a one cent per dollar sales tax for five years. Of the estimated $400 million the tax would raise, $250 million was earmarked towards water infrastructure. Since voters did not endorse the tax, some have blamed voters for the city’s current problems regarding water infrastructure.
Here, for example, is a social media exchange on Monday. The first person wrote, referring to Wichita Public Works Director Alan King, “Mr King is only now sounding a warning when he knew 8 years ago there was a problem?”
A second person responded: “Wrong Wrong Wrong. King has been yelling about this since he got here. Remember the temporary sales tax for the water where the citizens obeyed the Billionaire and his million dollars that said we can take the risk?”
To understand the errors in the second person’s comment, we need to understand the meaning of “for the water” and “the risk.” City documents have the answer.
A Wichita city white paper from May 2014 cites a community survey, concluding, “Wichitans have ranked a reliable water supply as their most important priority.” 2 The city interpreted citizens’ concerns are requiring protection from drought: “Protecting water sources during periods of drought is an important part of long-term water supply planning.” The paper presented “two options meet the goal of providing water for community growth and drought protection.” One option was using water from El Dorado Reservoir, and the second was expanding the ASR system. This paper does not mention the condition of existing water infrastructure.
On May 27, 2014 City Manager Robert Layton presented to the city council a “Strategic Plan Follow Up,” providing information about the possible uses of the proposed city sales tax. 3 For water issues, the only consideration was drought protection.
In July 2014, the city prepared a document titled “Strategic Plan Implementation Timetable.” 4 Regarding water, the activity needed was:
1. Develop a plan that addresses:
A. New water sources
B. Conservation strategies
C. Reuse opportunities for industry
D. Emphasize water as a priority with the State and Congressional delegation
E. Work with area communities to ensure water is also a priority for them
The long-term objective for water was: “Secure sufficient capacity from two identified options to provide water that supports the long-term growth of Wichita while protecting water users from future droughts. Implement cost-effective conservation strategies that complement water source capacity.”
Under measurements of success there were these items:
Year of final protection in a 1% drought without additional conservation efforts (target is 2030).
Variance in firm yield compared to demand in 2060 (target is 0%).
Volume of water treated (target is 20.8 billion gallons per year).
Annual water reductions from conservation programs (target is 0.35%).
Water conservation program cost to achieve water reduction goal (target is $300,000 annually).
None of this material mentions the condition of existing water infrastructure.
In September 2014 the city published a document titled “Water Supply Plan: The Proposed 1-cent Sales Tax.” 5 under “Plan Summary,” the document states: “Sales tax revenue would fund a new water supply, through Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) improvements. This new supply would reduce the impact of any future drought and would support job growth.”
Later, the document says the plan does the following:
Pulls more water from the Little Arkansas River
Constructs new storage basins
Further utilizes existing treatment plant capacity
Stores treated water underground where it doesn’t evaporate
Builds an additional pipeline
The document clarifies that the “additional pipeline” is a “parallel pipeline” from the ASR plant to the central water plant.
Information from the City of Wichita. Click for larger.
An information sheet prepared for citizens said the same and warned of the costs of borrowing to pay for these facilities. 6
A lengthier presentation prepared for voters by the city held this:
THE NEED
Demand for water is expected to increase by more than seven billion gallons per year by 2060. A new water supply is needed to meet this demand. If the community should experience a significant drought, residents would face severe water restrictions.” 7
From these city documents, we can understand the error in the second commenter’s remarks. In the context of 2014, taxing and spending “for the water” meant expansion of supply, not maintenance of existing assets.
Further, in 2014 “the risk” that was to be addressed was the risk of water use restrictions in case of an extended drought. The risk of basic water plant infrastructure failing was not considered or addressed in the city’s plan for spending $250 million on a water project.
“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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Notes
Billingham is also the author of a fascinating history of the area, but it was published in an academic journal that is not freely available online. See Billingham, C. M. (2017) “Waiting for Bobos: Displacement and Impeded Gentrification in a Midwestern City”, City & Community, 16(2), pp. 145–168. doi: 10.1111/cico.12235. ↩
The praise for retired Sedgwick County Commissioner Dave Unruh can’t be based on our region’s accomplishments under his guidance. That is, if people are informed and truthful.
He easily won re-election because his constituents and the rest of us knew he was dedicated to strengthening our community, region and the state.
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In economic development Commissioner Unruh was chairman in 2006 when the board voted to build a world-class technical-education facility to ensure we remained competitive for new jobs. The National Center for Aviation Training is home to the growing WSU Tech. He also championed smart economic development programs that generated additional tax dollars and regional cooperation through REAP and other efforts.
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In his perseverance to get things done and his belief in our future, he’s made a difference.
On Sunday, the Wichita Eagle published a drawing by cartoonist Richard Crowson which lauded Unruh’s championing of the Intrust Bank Arena, Sedgwick County Zoo, Exploration Place, and mental health services. Responding on his Facebook profile, Commissioner Michael O’Donnell wrote this for public consumption:
“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in” I believe this Greek proverb sums up the leadership of Dave Unruh as much as this stupendous Wichita Eagle cartoon. Our community has been blessed by the selfless and indelible leadership of Dave Unruh. I believe he was the most consequential local leader in our region for the last 2 decades and those of us fortunate enough to live in Sedgwick County are able to sit under the countless trees which Dave planted for us and our families for generations to come.
There’s another way to look at the Dave Unruh legacy in Sedgwick County, and that is through the lens of data. A shiny downtown area is nice, but not as nice as a prospering economy. Here are some figures.
In 2001, the year when Unruh assumed office in its first month, the median household income in Sedgwick County was higher than that of both Kansas and the United States. By 2017, Unruh’s last full year on the commission, Sedgwick County had fallen behind both, and by significant margins.
In 2001, the poverty rate in Sedgwick County was lower than that for the nation. By 2017, the situation was reversed: The Sedgwick County poverty rate is now higher, and significantly higher.
Looking at other measures of prosperity, we see Sedgwick County falling behind during the time Unruh was in office. Gross domestic product, personal income, per capita personal income, population, total employment, wage and salary employment, and manufacturing employment: In all these measures Sedgwick County underperformed the nation, and usually the State of Kansas. (GDP is available only for the Wichita metropolitan area, which is dominated by Sedgwick County.)
By himself, Dave Unruh isn’t responsible for this economic performance. Many others contributed at Wichita City Hall and the Kansas Capitol, as well as some of Unruh’s colleagues on the Sedgwick County Commission. Unruh and they supported the interventionist, corporatist model of economic development, and it hasn’t worked. That’s why it’s surprising to see so much praise for Unruh. It’s sad, too, because if business leaders and politicians really believe the “Unruh way” is the way that works, the outlook for our region is bleak.
