At the Tuesday December 16, 2008 meeting of the Wichita City Council, Mayor Carl Brewer expressed his displeasure with the way city staff handled its investigation of a developer the city was preparing to do business with. The problem, it seems, is largely one of communications. City staff didn’t present the council members with relevant information. The process, according to mayor Brewer, “made a complete mockery of the entire process and everything we actually do.”
The mayor’s fault-finding is quite selective. The December 2, 2008 meeting of the council was marked by something that, in its own way, is worse. That’s when the council, having published notice of a public hearing, substantially changed the plan that was the subject of the hearing. That, to borrow a phrase from the mayor, made a complete mockery of the public hearing. Why wasn’t the mayor upset about that?
Previous coverage:
Wichita Public Hearing Action Not Evidence of Leadership
Problems with Open Government in Wichita
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