Jeffrey Fluhr passed the first impressions test with flying colors Thursday morning at an introductory press conference at the WaterWalk. He’s smart, vibrant, articulate and has a game plan to pull downtown redevelopment together.
The Wichita Downtown Development Corporation’s new chief spoke with a near missionary zeal about listening to the community and crafting a downtown redevelopment strategic plan that every resident can own.
Including, he said, the city’s growing anti-tax crowd, opposers of everything from the downtown arena to the public-private partnership funding a lot of downtown’s growth. That group, he said, might have ideas to help further the city’s growth plans.
It will be interesting to see if Fluhr can invigorate a dialogue with the anti-taxers – or if he gets swept away in the “no way, no how, no taxes downtown” flood that seems to be developing.
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Interesting that Wichita Downtown Development Corporation’s former leader, Ed Wolverton, and the holdover Sedgwick County Commissioners, Winters, Norton and Unruh, were the chief culprits along with some fellow travelers, in bringing us their vaunted $500,000,000.13 ice hockey downtown arena that now threatens everything good we wanted for Wichita.
They should have listened to the public when the arena idea first lifted its head but they thought they knew best what was good for the people of Wichita and Sedgwick County.
I suspect Wichita is going to have to find some alternative use for the white elephant arena to try to offset the huge operational expenses that will soon arrive when the arena opens.
So Jeffrey Fluhr I hope this is more than just a stepping stone job for you like it has been for all the other out of town “hired gun bureaucrats” who have come to Wichita. They all come offering new band uniforms but like the MUSIC MAN SHOW, after they take the money, the band uniforms never seem to arrive.
Interesting question. I, for one, would happily discuss ideas with him. I have supported some things and opposed others. I have voted for school bonds and, based on what I understand, support KenMar and Central/Hillside TIFs. I helped establish the ‘reverse’ TIF that supported so much downtown by dealing with the Gilbert/Mosley pollution.
I opposed WaterWalk from the start. I gave detailed comments to City Council. My comments were deleted from the minutes with just a statement ‘bth spoke against the project.’ I don’t think that is the way to “invigorate a dialogue”
Fluhr has a long track record of trying to incorporate all opinions – not just favorable ones – in downtown planning. Hopefully, both proponents and opponents of the current downtown redevelopment strategy will take the time to talk – and listen – to him.
There are two camps of the so called “anit-tax” crowd. One group, such as Karl Peterjohn and a few others actually have respectable and philosophical standings behind their quest behind low taxes and reliance on privatization. These are people who really know their stuff, research and gather data and present it for case of debate.
The others, a very small group, have a vindictive nature behind their stance. Not only do they present false and nonfactual information, but they have no relevance to the debate for the future of downtown or our city. Basically squatters coming in from another part of the state and bringing their baggage of negativity with them. JWink is one of those. So I seriously doubt that Fluhr will ever give the time of day to the JWinks, because its a waste of time and unproductive.
bth and Bill Wilson are the exceptional and intelligent members of our community and rightly deserve to have their voices heard on the direction of downtown and the city of Wichita.
ictbest/Joe: Now that Ed Wolverton is long gone and Tom Winters will soon be gone, I presume you are now the de facto spokesman for the final two holdover Sedgwick county commissioners who pushed for the downtown white elephant arena, Tim Norton and Dave Unruh. Do they write your comments for you?
Somewhere you said renovating the Kansas Coliseum would have been paid for with bond financing. WRONG! WRONG AGAIN. You are echoing the BIG LIES previously told by the pro-arena people.
Most likely the $60 million dollars or so of Kansas Coliseum costs would have been paid with a sales tax just like the super expensive 1/2 billion dollar downtown arena. If we had done that, perhaps Wink Hartman and his staff would have contracted to operate the renovated Kansas Coliseum. I have been told that renovation would have made the Kansas Coliseum a sparkling jewell for southern Kansas, a beautiful arena with even more parking, more ingress and egress, more restrooms, wider corridors, etc.
It would be connected to the now closed dog racing track property for uses not even considered so far.
And we wouldn’t have needed some 90 additional police officers downtown to protect pedestrians as they walk up alleys, down dark streets, through railroad underpasses to and from the downtown arena.
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, WE COULD HAVE USED THE REMAINING MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO RESTORE DOWNTOWN WICHITA INTO A SPARKLING JEWELL THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A DESTINATION FOR PEOPLE FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD.
Whatever the past the Arene is a reality. I hope those behind it can make it work. BUT – they need to recognize that it passed only narrowly and that many who voted ‘Yea’ have said they would now vote ‘Nay’.
The Arena has, in many ways, poisoned the well. It was one of the factor in the failure of the Casino vote. Many of the Arena backers were involved with the Casino push and the growing distrust of them translated into ‘No’ votes. While these were not the only votes against the Casino (obviously the ‘moral objectors’ were important) they provided the margin. That is how an initial 70% approval for the Casino turned into a 45% defeat – and it was predicted in detail.
Now we face a school bond issue which I consider important to see passed. Unfortunately it, too, shares high-profile backers with the Arena. I fear that this will bring it down. I sincerely hope I am wrong on this – 259 schools direly need the money.
Like Fahnestock I live outside of 259. However I work and shop inside the districtso the tax increase will pass on to me just like it will to Fahnestock. If I lived there I would vote for it just as I have voted for ours in 265. Let’s hope it passes.
JWink’s citation of The Music Man is inaccurate; at the end of The Music Man the high-school students do get their uniforms.
“That group, he said, might have ideas to help further the city’s growth plans”
He better realize that there is no such thing as “That group” – there are many DIFFERENT groups and individuals who have questioned various public spending projects. Looking at the Arena TIF proposal it was the County Commission (Arena SUPPORTERS) who questioned its wisdom.
The key to obtaining approval for projects will be coalition-building. This must be done if we are going to have the support for downtown that Brewer and others want. And they have failed miserably in building such a coalition.
bth, I could not agree more. Coalition-building is a clear path to broader public confidence. We tend to struggle in Wichita bringing together diverse interests to bring a coalition, largely because we struggle shaping a message.
I’m not an arena opponent; quite the contrary, I think that the selection of SMG as a manager is a guarantee that we’ll be pleasantly surprised at its success. And I think the public dialogue on the arena project was better than we’re accustomed to in Wichita.
With that said, though, Fluhr brings a breath of fresh air to a city that tends to force-feed major economic decisions to the populace. I think it can be argued that some of today’s anti-tax sentiment is fueled by that force-feeding.
Again, I think there’s a place for a public-private partnership in the economic redevelopment of downtown, and in Wichita’s economic development as a whole. Rejecting such out-of-hand is both short-sighted and extremely dangerous to Wichita’s future. If you’re upset over government’s role in the new Cessna plant or in the construction of the Jabara tech ed center, then you need to closely examine the alternative: The departure from Wichita of our plane makers.
It must be a transparent partnership, though, and it must be a partnership formed out of community dialogue. If city and county government, and Fluhr, fail at that, there’s a collision coming down the road that fails all of us.
I think the next 18 months will be real interesting. The Arena opening in early 2010 will say a lot and a lot will be riding on a strong opening act. Let’s hope SMG gets something good.
A sort of aside – something I have noticed that bugs me a bit. C-II has numerous sellouts – routinely brings in about 2000 or so people. However, I don’t see many reastuarants within walking distance – pretty much only the struggling Broadview. Any thoughts why?
We should all remember that Peterjohn will not necessarily be walking into that Commission seat. He has a credible opponent in Marcey Gregory, Mayor of Goddard. If the voters want to move Wichita forward, she will win. If they want to stand still with a guy who’s been nothing but a “no” vote for lots of things (like bth says, some of the things he’s against have been valuable) then so be it. But we are at a critical point on many issues — downtown redevelopment included — and it seems to me we need to elect reasonable people to balance the need for fiscal accountability with growing this community. Fluhr brings us a real opportunity to come together and discuss valuable options — I, for one hope that he’ll be talking with Gregory as an elected official on the Commission and not Peterjohn.
Arena neighborhood development is a curious animal. I believe it’s clearly been hurt by the lack of a leader at City Hall and in the WDDC office. Those positions both will be filled.
And I hear rumblings that the state’s work release center has been a significant wet blanket in early efforts to move property around the arena.
Also note that Marcey Gregory is a business owner. So, she understands what it takes to run a business in the downtown area. I don’t know that Peterjohn has even had a real private-sector job; much less run a business.
Bill – the area I am talking about is not near the Arena but near C-II. We have had a successful venue there (albeit smaller scale) but haev not seen ancillary development. With ROUTINE 2000 attendence one would think there would be some such development.
I’m not sure that’s enough irregular attendance to pull that off, bth, given the business models that a handful of local restaurateurs I know operate under.
Bill – you may be correct. However, I would note that, unlike the arena, C-II pulls 2000+ weekly or better. Thus my claim that 300,000 is more than 300,000: 1500*200 nights (C-II) has much more impact than 15,000*20 nights (Arena – THEY HOPE).
In other words – if irregular attendence cannot support ancillary business when it is weekly then how can monthly (at best) crowds do the same?
MTW alone fills C-II about 30 times a season. Add WGO, Symphony, etc and there should be a fairly constant stream. And, I would add, an affluent demographic.