Voice For Liberty

Tag: Wichita news media

  • Letters to Wichita City Council and Sedgwick County Commission Regarding Downtown Wichita TIF District

    John Todd has prepared letters that we hope will influence local governments regarding the downtown Wichita TIF district. One, to the Wichita City Council, asks them to conduct a proper public hearing. A second letter to the Sedgwick County Commissioners asks them to not consider passing this TIF district until Wichita conducts a proper public hearing. A third is a letter to the Wichita Eagle explaining citizens’ concerns.

    If you’d like to sign these letters, please contact John Todd at john@johntodd.net. Here’s the one to the Wichita City Council:

    Mayor Carl Brewer
    Wichita City Council Members
    Wichita City Hall
    Wichita, Kansas

    Subject: Citizens request for a new and open City Council public hearing before implementing the Center City South Redevelopment TIF District, commonly known as the downtown Wichita arena TIF district.

    The December 2, 2008 public hearing as conducted by the Wichita City Council concerning the expansion of the Center City South Redevelopment TIF District was not a true and meaningful public hearing. Therefore, we ask that you withdraw the proposal until a proper public hearing can be held before the City Council. This issue needs to be sent to the District Advisory Boards (DAB) for their review. Wichita citizens in general and DAB boards both need all the details and a complete cost analysis for this TIF district scheme.

    Let me refer you to Randy Brown’s letter in the Eagle (see “Reopen TIF issue” Dec. 7), referring to Bob Weeks’ letter in the Eagle (see “TIF public hearing was bait and switch” Dec. 5) that hit the nail on the head by saying, “conducting the public’s business in secret causes citizens to lose respect for government officials and corrupts the process of democracy.” Brown further states, “… we (the people) had a mockery of the public hearing process rather than an open and transparent discussion of a contentious public issue. The Wichita officials involved should publicly apologize, and the issue should be reopened. And this time, the public should be properly notified.”

    The citizens of this community deserve open, honest, and transparent government. The Wichita City Council needs to hold a new and open public hearing on this issue before proceeding with the implementation of this project.

  • Randy Brown: Reopen Downtown Wichita Arena TIF Public Hearing

    In a letter in yesterday’s Wichita Eagle, Randy Brown comments on my recent op-ed piece in the same newspaper. He is senior fellow at the Elliott School of Communication at Wichita State University, and also the executive director of the Kansas Sunshine Coalition for Open Government. He’s done a lot to promote openness and transparency in government. His experience as an editorial writer for the Wichita Eagle shows in his use of vividly descriptive language like “under cover of Monday evening’s darkness” and “aggravated assault on its spirit.” I wish I could write like that.

    Here’s Randy’s letter:

    Reopen TIF issue

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

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

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

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

    Randy Brown
    Executive director
    Kansas Sunshine Coalition for Open Government
    Wichita

  • Wichita TIF District Reveals Lack of Confidence

    Yesterday, the Wichita Eagle’s Bill Wilson misses the point in his reporting and blogging on business issues.

    In his blog post Seed money for downtown’s future, he wrote this: “The Wichita City Council’s decision to approve tax increment financing for the arena neighborhood’s redevelopment was a welcome vote of confidence in the neighborhood’s future.”

    In his news story Arena TIF seen as ‘a vote of confidence’, we read the remarks of Jeff Fluhr, the new president of the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation: “It’s most definitely a vote of confidence in the future of the neighborhood.”

    Tell me, if real estate developers require an incentive to do something, what does that tell us about their level of confidence?

    It tells me that they have no confidence. They’d rather invest their capital elsewhere, and they’re doing that. It’s only when the city votes to give them money — and that’s what TIF districts do, contrary to Mr. Wilson’s misinformation — can they be “incentivized” to do what they won’t do with their own money.

  • Just Say It: We Need to Raise Taxes in Kansas

    Rhonda Holman’s Wichita Eagle editorial today (State budget pain must be shared) makes the case for raising Kansas taxes without directly saying so. It’s actually quite artful the way she dodges actually saying what she wants Kansas legislators to do.

    Using language like “Nobody ever wants to raise taxes …” and “Lawmakers also must not forget that they played a role in bringing Kansas to this point … without adding new revenue and by cutting taxes” she makes the case for tax hikes without actually saying the word. She did say this: “But cuts won’t be enough.” That’s pretty close, I guess.

    My question is this: Rhonda, why won’t you just say in plain language that you believe we need to raise taxes in Kansas? Just say it, if you believe it.

  • Newspapers are Dying; Journalism We Hope Is Not

    Last night I attended the weekly meeting of the Sedgwick County Pachyderm Club to hear guest speaker Davis “Buzz” Merritt, former editor of the Wichita Eagle. I’d read and reviewed his book Knightfall: Knight Ridder and How the Erosion of Newspaper Journalism Is Putting Democracy At Risk (my review is here).

    His talk was based on the Knightfall book, which is to say it paints a somewhat grim picture of the present state of newspapers and newspaper journalism. It’s important to distinguish between the type of journalism that newspapers do, as compared to journalism from other sources such as television. Newspaper journalism doesn’t necessarily have to be delivered in the traditional newspaper printed on the fibers of dead trees, but it’s important to democracy that this form of journalism survives.

    One point I learned last night is that not all of the operations of a newspaper have to be carried over to the Internet. Only 25% does, says Mr. Merritt. The remaining, I believe, is costs such as printing and distribution that won’t apply to an Internet-based delivery model.

    Those costs of printing and distribution are large. In the late 1990s, when the Wichita Eagle needed to increase its profit contribution to its parent corporation from 20% to 22.5%, it accomplished that goal by canceling the distribution of 10,000 daily newspapers to western Kansas. This was a profitable business move, but hardly one that advanced journalism.

    It’s well-known that young people don’t read newspapers very much, and that’s one source of newspapers’ problems. I asked if maybe young people don’t appreciate and value the type of journalism that newspapers practice. Mr. Merritt replied that he believes they do value it, if it affects them.

    A few in the audience expressed how reading on the computer screen is not pleasant. I would suggest to these people to check their equipment and its adjustments. For CRT monitors (the old-fashioned tube-style monitors), there’s a setting usually known as “refresh rate” which if set incorrectly, causes flicker. That’s definitely annoying and can cause headaches. Many people also have old monitors that are simply too small, or are set to use such a low resolution, that not much material can be seen on the screen at one time. For LCD panel users, there are also adjustments that are critical for a good viewing experience. With good equipment, which doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive, the experience of reading on the computer can be much improved.

  • On the Wichita Eagle editorial board, partisanship reigns

    The Wichita Eagle’s Rhonda Holman, writing for the editorial board in today’s lead editorial (Where do city, county stand on bond?) makes a few points that illustrate the highly partisan nature of this board.

    Here’s the first example. She complains about lack of transparency in knowing who is contributing to the campaigns for the Wichita school bond issue, writing “It’s frustrating that USD 259 voters must make a decision on the bond issue without knowing who funded the pro- and anti-campaigns. The three groups behind the campaigns could release their donor lists and amounts on their own prior to Election Day …”

    As reported recently by this writer in the post Wichita Eagle Political Contributions: This Year? the Eagle contributed to the pro-bond campaign in the year 2000, and never disclosed that fact to its readers.

    If Rhoda Holman is really interested in promoting transparency of campaign funding, her newspaper could start by stating whether it has made a contribution this year. She could reveal her own personal contribution too, or state that she hasn’t contributed.

    Then, Ms. Holman complains that a candidate for local office benefits from a campaign mailer mailed on the candidate’s behalf by a third party. She doesn’t like the fact that the organization that sent the mailing won’t have to disclose who paid for it, because it’s an educational effort, not an endorsement.

    The reason why it’s an educational effort is because it stops short of saying “vote for ____.” But if the voters get that message anyway, Ms. Holman says “mission accomplished.”

    Now if this situation sounds familiar, it should. This is very much the situation with the campaign surrounding the proposed Wichita school bond. In this case, USD 259 (the Wichita school district) undertakes an educational effort that has precisely the same characteristics of the effort that Ms. Holman complains about. But she conveniently overlooks this.

    There’s one difference, however. We know exactly who is funding the poorly-disguised campaign on behalf of the Wichita school district: taxpayers.

  • Wichita Eagle’s Bob Lutz and the Wichita School Bond Issue

    In his column Cochran has succeeded in spreading anti-bond message, Wichita Eagle sports columnist Bob Lutz argues for the passage of the Wichita school bond issue. This is the same Bob Lutz who, on learning that the Wichita school board might cut some spending on athletic facilities from the bond issue, became “flustered now about how to vote.” (Will Bob Lutz Follow Jeff Davis on the Wichita School Bond Issue?)

    Here’s a huge leap in faith and logic that Lutz makes in his column:

    When I am hit up to pay more taxes, the first question I ask myself is this: Will this better my community.

    To that end, this is a no-brainer. Nothing is more important than our schools.

    What he says that’s true is that schools are important. But they don’t necessarily have to be our schools — that is, schools owned and operated by USD 259, the Wichita school district, and its current board and administration. There are many successful alternatives, which as illustrated in the screening of Flunked the Movie, often cost much less than current public school spending. These alternatives such as charter schools are popular in many places across the country. They’re generally not available so that Kansas schoolchildren may benefit, as our state’s charter school law is so weak and so stacked in favor of those who oppose choice that charter schools are rarely proposed.

    But the biggest leap Lutz makes is the unquestioned and unfounded assumption that more investment in the USD 259 monopoly is what’s best for our community.

    Cochran’s group paid a lot of money to host the screening of Flunked. It paid for Steven Maggi, the producer of the movie, to be in Wichita. I don’t know if Cochran personally invited Lutz to see the movie, but it was advertised and promoted in Lutz’s newspaper. Why, Mr. Lutz, didn’t you attend this movie?

    It’s a good thing that Lutz views the school bond issue decision as a “no-brainer.” Considering his unfounded leaps of logic and unwillingness to look outside the existing education orthodoxy for solutions, it’s a type of decision he’s certainly qualified to make.

  • Wichita Eagle Political Contributions: This Year?

    A Wichita Eagle editorial argues for voluntary disclosure of ballot issue campaign donations, stating: “The groups on both sides of USD 259’s bond election should voluntarily disclose their donations before Nov. 4, rather than hide behind the state’s ridiculous disclosure laws applying to ballot questions.” (“Bond groups should declare donors,” August 28, 2008.)

    If the Eagle’s really interested in openness and transparency regarding political campaign contributions, they could start by revealing their own. In 2000, as part of the campaign for the Wichita school bond, the Wichita Eagle donated $1,000 to Citizens Alliance for Responsible Education, or CARE. That’s the same group that’s backing the bond issue this year.

    That contribution, made on March 6, 2000, wasn’t disclosed in campaign finance reports until November 21, 2000. No one I’ve talked to remembers the Eagle voluntarily disclosing this contribution in either news coverage or editorials.

    A few things have changed at the Eagle since then. There’s a different publisher in charge. There’s even a different owner, as at the time of this contribution the Wichita Eagle was owned by Knight-Ridder. Here’s a sentence from the Knight-Ridder Code of Business Ethics, dated May 2002: “But it is very important to avoid situations that might raise a perception of bias in the context of newspapers’ or other news-gathering units’ responsibilities to report and comment upon such activities.” (You can read the full code at American Society of Newspaper Editors.)

    Whether this contribution had an effect on the Eagle’s news coverage and editorials is unknown. That’s why codes of ethics mention the perception of bias. When a business makes a substantial monetary contribution to a cause and then editorializes about that same cause, that creates a very real possibility of bias. Many would say there’s more than the perception of bias — there’s actual bias.

    This is reinforced by what the ethics code of the Society of Professional Journalists has to say under the heading “Act Independently:”

    Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.

    Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.

    Under the heading “Be Accountable:”

    Abide by the same high standards to which they hold others.

    Given the Eagle’s past history, here’s what we need to know this year: Has the Wichita Eagle made contributions to any political campaigns, especially to the group supporting the Wichita school bond issue?

    If the Eagle would disclose this, they’d be following their own editorial advice. They’d be holding themselves to the same standards they want others to follow.

  • The Facts the Wichita Eagle’s Mark McCormick Overlooks — Or Twists

    In a recent column (Facts hurt bond issue opponents’ arguments), the Wichita Eagle’s Mark McCormick shows that he’s as adept at overlooking facts and reason and twisting an argument as is anyone.

    For example, McCormick takes some bond opponents to task because they admitted they haven’t been to schools to observe overcrowding. But if opponents don’t disagree that some schools are overcrowded, why should this matter? This is an example of McCormick using an ad hominem attack, meaning he’s attacking the messenger rather than the message and the facts.

    Then, McCormick makes the case that bond issue opponents don’t care enough about Wichita’s schoolchildren to spend an “estimated $1 a week on them.” This argument, derived from the school district’s estimate that the bond issue will cost the owner of a $100,000 home about $42.55 per year, is disingenuous. Bond issue supporters treat this as though it was the total cost of the bond issue, but it leaves out huge costs that someone will pay. A better realization of the cost of the bond issue is to take the annual cost to retire the bond (some $30,000,000, and rising as long-term interest rates rise) and divide it by the number of people living in USD 259. The result — about $95 — represents the true cost of the bond issue. It captures all the increased taxes that businesses and utilities will ask their customers to pay. For a family of four living in that $100,000 house, it’s $380 per year in increased tax burden.

    McCormick also doesn’t want to mention the tremendous resources that USD 259 already has at its disposal. It’s likely that per-student spending this year will exceed $13,000. Spending by USD 259 amounts to $1,927 per year for each person living in the district. That much has to be raised each year in taxation — federal, state, and local — to pay for USD 259’s spending.

    It’s also disingenuous — in fact, it’s a lie — for McCormick to claim that bond opponent don’t care about kids. Just because we may not subscribe to McCormick’s belief that a government monopoly is the best way to educate children, and just because we don’t go along with everything that USD 259 wants, that doesn’t mean that we don’t value education and that we don’t value Wichita’s schoolchildren and their future.

    If McCormick had attended the showing of Flunked the Movie, he would have seen examples of how small reforms in the way schools do things can make big differences. These schools that are successfully teaching children that the public schools failed are not shiny and new. Their classrooms are crowded in some cases. One school doesn’t even have computers for the students.

    But these schools don’t subscribe to the educationist orthodoxy that rules the Wichita school district, and apparently, the thinking of Mark McCormick and the rest of the Wichita Eagle editorial board. It is this thinking and mindset that is the greatest danger to the future of schoolchildren in Wichita.