Writing in National Review, Denis Boyles says:
In the first study to measure the result of pouring all that money on the noggins of schoolkids, the University of Kansas’s Center for Applied Economics has released a study poetically entitled, “The Relationship between School Funding and Student Achievement in Kansas Public Schools.” The verdict? So far, the funding has produced “little evidence of improving student outcomes as measured by test scores.”
It’s thought that Mark Twain said “Never pick a fight with a person who buys ink by the barrel.” These are the barrels (actually palettes) of ink at the Wichita Eagle.
This week I attended an open house event held by the Wichita Eagle. As part of the event, I took a quick tour of their plant. This photo shows rolls of newsprint in the basement of the building, waiting to be turned into newspapers. Ink distribution systems are in the background.
How long will this go on, news being delivered on paper? A few weeks ago I attended a talk given by Davis Merritt, former editor of the Eagle (see Newspapers are Dying; Journalism We Hope Is Not). He said that in five years, newspapers won’t be using paper anymore. Views like this seem to be common and recent events seem to point this way. Soon, the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News will provide home delivery on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays only. I’ve been told that the Eagle either has or soon will stop same-day delivery to Topeka.
But who really knows? I mentioned Merritt’s remarks to a high-level manager at the Eagle, and she said he’s been saying that for 20 years.
At the December 16, 2008 meeting of the Wichita City Council, Sharon Fearey expressed her displeasure with reporting done by the Wichita Eagle.
In this clip, she mentions the Wichita Eagle reporting of the history of Grant Gaudreau. Fearey implies that the Eagle knew that he had been removed from the Renaissance Square project over a month ago. But just two weeks ago, Allen Bell, development director for the City of Wichita, referred to Gaudreau as “principal developer.” So Fearey’s accounting of the facts isn’t even close to Bell’s.
Is there a communications breakdown at city hall? It seems obvious.
Mustering all the sarcasm she can, Sharon Fearey says “Thank you, Wichita Eagle.”
Speaking from the bench at the December 16, 2008 meeting of the Wichita City Council, she’s referring to reporting that newspaper did that uncovered problems in the past of the person referred to as the principal developer of a project.
Wichita city council member Fearey simply does not understand the concerns of the citizens of Wichita. Combined with her tasteless joke a few weeks ago (see Sharon Fearey’s Bad Joke for video), Wichitans can be thankful that term limits are bringing an end to her time on the city council.
I and most of the citizens of Wichita are truly thankful for the reporting the Wichita Eagle has done on this matter.
In an op-ed piece in Sunday’s Wichita Eagle, Interim Wichita City Manager Scott Moore makes the case that “the [Wichita city] council’s Dec. 2 vote demonstrated leadership and an ability to respond decisively to urgent community matters after appropriate public deliberations.” (Scott Moore: TIF Parking Change Showed Leadership, December 15, 2008)
Mr. Moore explains the problems with the public hearing that was held on December 2: “However, because of the holiday closure, the revisions did not reach council members until Monday afternoon, Dec. 1, the day before the public hearing. Better staff follow-up during the holiday break would have provided better public notification.”
The revisions referred to are the addition of up to $10 million in TIF funding for parking. To add some precision to Mr. Moore’s accounting, these revisions appeared on the city’s website sometime after 4:30 p.m. This was on the same day that the first version appeared. If someone fetches a document at noon, should they also have to check again later that day to see if the document has been updated? I didn’t. It appears that Wichita Eagle reporters and other news media didn’t either. Why would they?
As Mr. Moore explains earlier in his piece: “Nonetheless, city staff should have revised all documents appropriately so that the correct items could have been submitted to the council and the media and posted at the Web site www.wichita.gov for the public.” Also: “Although the process could have been conducted more openly …”
Mr. Moore and Wichita Eagle editorial writer Rhonda Holman agree that there were defects in the public hearing. (See The Process Should Be Most Important for analysis.) But Mr. Moore goes farther and actually praises Wichita city leaders for their leadership.
This is not leadership. Leaders own their mistakes and accept their consequences. Mr. Moore acknowledges city officials made mistakes, but he and other city officials and council members will not accept ownership. They will not accept the consequences of their mistakes.
Leadership at the December 2, 2008 meeting would have meant city staff or council members apologizing to the public for the last-minute changes to the plan and the defective notice. Leadership would have required a council member making a motion to delay the public hearing until citizens receive proper notice of the actual contents of the plan. Leadership would have required unanimous consent to this motion.
Except for council member Jim Skelton’s questioning, none of these leadership actions took place. Therefore, I must disagree with Mr. Moore’s characterization of city staff and council members as leaders.
On the KPTS television public affairs program Kansas Week yesterday, Wichita Eagle reporter Dion Lefler talks about problems he uncovered with a developer the City of Wichita wants to partner with. I chime in a little.
Related coverage:
Wichita TIF Developer’s Ownership Restructuring not Very Reassuring
Wichita Eagle: 35 suits in developer’s past
No Diligence in Wichita City Hall
Wichita’s Faulty Due Diligence
Sharon Fearey’s Bad Joke
On the KPTS television public affairs program Kansas Week yesterday, I spoke about some problems with a public hearing regarding a controversial matter in Wichita.
Related:
Wichita TIF Public Hearing Was Bait and Switch
Randy Brown: Reopen Downtown Wichita Arena TIF Public Hearing
Letters to Wichita City Council and Sedgwick County Commission Regarding Downtown Wichita TIF District
A television news story from yesterday in Wichita went like this:
Television news anchor: “Some may think that using food stamps is a drain on the economy, but the truth is that’s really not right. Local organizers say using food assistance can help boost the economy during these tough times. One dollar of food assistance relief equals about three dollars. Kansas is only using about half of the money assigned to it by the federal government. Using this money helps to pay everyone: from truckers and farmers, to workers in the grocery stores.”
Dr. Anita Raghavan, Campaign to End Childhood Hunger: “It’s kind of saying ‘Hey, do your American duty. Apply for food stamps.’”
The notion that government spending can stimulate the economy is erroneous and dangerous. Here’s what the economist Walter E. Williams had to say earlier this year in his article Stimulus Package Nonsense:
There are three ways government can get the money for a stimulus package. It can tax, borrow or inflate the currency by printing money. If government taxes to hand out money, one person is stimulated at the expense of another who pays the tax, who is unstimulated and has less money to spend. If government borrows the money, it’s the same story. This time the unstimulated person is the lender who has less money to spend. If government prints money, creditors, and then everyone else, are unstimulated. As my colleague Russell Roberts said in a NPR broadcast, “It’s like taking a bucket of water from the deep end of a pool and dumping it into the shallow end. Funny thing — the water in the shallow end doesn’t get any deeper.”
If people are hungry — and no doubt many families are — there are better ways than government welfare to help them. There are many private charities that are much more efficient than government in helping people. Plus, since people donate to these charities voluntarily, it’s an example of free people cooperating voluntarily in free markets. That’s how wealth is created.
It turns out that this is how happiness is created, too. Arthur C. Brooks has done research into economics and happiness. I quote him in my post How Government Makes Us Unhappy: “Givers of charity earn substantial mental and physical health rewards, even more than do the recipients of charity — empirical evidence that it is indeed more blessed to give than to receive.”