Staff at the RiverCity Company, which oversees the local revitalization effort: 12.

Staff at the Wichita Downtown Development Corp., the point organization for Wichita’s growth plan: 3, and sometimes 4.

One of the thoughts percolating through the Visioneering Wichita delegation Thursday was WDDC staffing. President Jeff Fluhr will need more bodies as the effort ramps up.

Philanthropy is going to be essential to get Wichita’s downtown program going. Chattanoogans talk a lot about “motivated local money.”

And one good starting point for a Wichitan who’d like to buy into downtown’s future would be to fund an increase in the WDDC staff.

A big part of the story is about dealers who are playing up Roger Penske’s plan to buy the brand, and General Motors gentle admonition to them not to so as to not take “the spotlight off the brand itself,” the article says.

You can read more about Davies and the story here.

Normally, they are met with a quick press of the handy-dandy delete key, never to be seen again. But I got one this morning that caught my eye for some reason. Maybe I’m a little loopy after a restless night, but I found it interesting nonetheless: the 35th anniversary of the Universal Product Code will be celebrated on Wednesday.

How do you celebrate such an event? With a giant UPC-adorned birthday cake, of course.

From the release:

One of the world’s best-known symbols, the U.P.C. comprises a row of 59 machine-readable black and white bars and 12 human-readable digits. Both the bars and the digits convey the same information: the identity of a specific product and its manufacturer.

Originally developed to help supermarkets speed up the checkout process, the first live use of a U.P.C. took place in a Marsh Supermarkets store in Troy, Ohio, on June 26, 1974, when a cashier scanned a package of Wrigley’s gum. It ushered in extraordinary economic and productivity gains for shoppers, retailers and manufacturers alike, with estimated annual cost savings of $17 billion in the grocery sector alone, according to one study.

So when you go to Wal-Mart or Target or wherever on Wednesday, be sure to wish the bar codes a happy birthday.

Of course, it’s probably also hard to attract shoppers if you don’t let them know you need them.

As difficult a time it is for so many businesses — including newspapers — I have to admit I’m thankful not to be in retail.

Paper petitions asking the company to spare the store, which opened on May 23, are available at Westlink retailers.

And an online petition is available at www.ipetitions.com/petition/westlinkstarbucks.

Participants are asked to sign either the paper or online petitions, but not both. The drive is being coordinated by Benchmark Real Estate Group, property managers for Westlink Shopping Center.

Longtime Wichita Realtor Jack Hunt, an avid fisherman who died Tuesday, was attempting to land the outdoors retailer in the weeks and months before his death, according to numerous reports this week. One source characterized the talks as “serious.”

The proposed location was some lakefront property Hunt owns just south of I-235, the site of a mobile home park destroyed by a tornado years ago.

But with Hunt gone and the fate of his real estate company up in the air, it’s unclear where those talks are headed. Bass Pro spokesman Brent Lawrence said the company doesn’t discuss new store deals until they are finalized.

Former Mayor Carlos Mayans reportedly led a city council drive five years ago to slash WaterWalk funding that drove Bass Pro from town. And now, the legendary outdoorsman after Bass Pro has died.

Perhaps Wichita and Bass Pro just weren’t meant to be.

Simple-sounding, but a moving target as 80 percent of all entrepreneurs fail, according to Wichita entrepreneurship guru Fran Jabara. But not the Steven family at Spangles, whose growth continues to shatter company records.

Dale and Craig Steven’s idea has stood the test of time: Fresh, quality food at a below-market price. WAY below market if you’ve dropped $15 or more on lunch recently in Wichita.

The idea is blended adroitly with a heavy dose of marketing that – love it or hate it – keeps Spangles at the front of consumer minds.

At a time when retailers in all sectors – especially casual dining restaurants -  are being pinched by out-of-control energy prices, only the strongest prosper. That strength in tough economic times is found in value, Jabara said.

I’ve got to take issue with that one: Anyone remember the Minnesota Guys? How about CORE?

The debate over whether the Wichita City Council should financially partner with downtown developers is a legitimate one. But again, I wonder why it’s just now surfacing when the city clearly has bought into other projects in the past. Admittedly, the terms of the city’s partnership with Warren are a little different, but beyond that …

And from where I sit, I don’t recall developers lining up to buy Wichita buildings and do downtown projects on their own. Cities partner with developers all the time, and a partnership with Bill Warren looks to me to be consistent with past precedent.

But if the Wild West World story teaches us anything, it’s not to count our overpriced stale corn dogs before they’re fried to the consistency of the asphalt under our feet.

It’s pretty clear, I think, that Alan Ginsburg’s AHG Group agreed to buy the park Wednesday with an eye toward gaming, and a willingness to put a bunch of entertainment pieces like an amusement park in place while gambling winds its way through the local political maze. So maybe one can conclude that Wichita isn’t an entertainment loser.

Or maybe not.

The sale contract hasn’t been filed and signed with U.S. Bankruptcy Court, as of this writing. That’s because the deal Thomas Etheredge assembled is a complicated mess, thanks to the one thing he did consistently as he built the park – look for the cheapest route possible. It’s not easy to sell a parking lot to a savvy real estate buyer on “payments only” terms.

No real reason to doubt Ginsburg’s interest. But don’t put all your chips on the Floridians quite yet. This deal isn’t going to be over until the final buzzer.

It’s inevitable. Retailers trying to sell gas on razor-thin margins found themselves turned into loss-leader retailers by credit company surcharges. Often as high as 3 percent of the sale, the credit card charges erase any profits retailers make.

Sad news. Personally, I wish the credit card companies would make their cash elsewhere. And with their evolution into national payday loan companies, complete with outrageous interest rates, that’s exactly what they’re doing.

Speaking of profiteering, chew on this little gem: Wall Street doesn’t want Congress to crack down on the speculation that many experts believe is responsible for the runup in oil prices.

I wonder if this little forecast from one of the foxes that went down to the congressional henhouse Wednesday might have something to do with that concern.