Spring weather. Expensive fuel. Bulging guts. Time for a walk.
But while there’s plenty of open spaces in Wichita, it’s not a great place for a stroll, according to Prevention Magazine, which published its nationwide walkability ratings recently. Wichita was near the bottom of the list in Kansas and the nation. That distinction is also published in the latest issue of the Kansas Government Journal, the publication of the League of Kansas Municipalities.
“Although it does have a decent Walk Score — 89 out of 100 — it has the third lowest ratio of parks per square mile in the state, a huge hindrance to walkers,” the rating explanation says.
Want to know more? Check out walk scores for any given address online, and see an Eagle story about plans to improve walking.
Kansas Republicans launched a new blog today called The Kansas Tunkline. And judging from the first few posts, Congressman Dennis Moore and Congresswoman Nancy Boyda aren’t going to like it. The most recent post after they announced the new blog ripped the Democratic superdelegates for not declaring who they’ll support in the presidential race. “Who will Boyda and Moore support—the most liberal Senator in the nation who claims half of their constituents are bitter? Or the woman who has voted to raise taxes 230 times?”
Of course, the Democrats have had their blog — Buffalo Blog — for about a year and a half. Their most recent post takes a shot at Congressman Todd Tiahrt for delaying debate on critical issues by asking for a re-vote on a resolution celebrating the role of mothers. “Tiahrt then joined 177 of his Republican friends and voted against their mothers, and ate up 28 minutes of their day in doing so.”
Nothing like more strong dialog in the Kansas political blogosphere.
For anyone who hasn’t had enough of the smoking ban talk, the city announced today it will re-broadcast the Wichita City Council’s two-hour discussion that led to a 4-3 vote in favor of a smoking ban in all businesses that allow people younger than age 18 to enter. The debate, which features about 15 speakers who waited hours to voice their support or opposition to the ban, will air on cable channel 7 tonight at 8 p.m. Then the city will put it on at 9 a.m. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and at 6 p.m. Saturday, Sunday.
You can also view it online. (It wouldn’t play in my Mozilla Firefox browser, but it worked on Internet Explorer.)
The two sides — for and against a smoking ban — have been sitting through the routine prayers and proclamations at City Council meetings for several months now just in case smoking comes up. And the pro and con folks have also filled up the public comment agenda — that slice of time the council dedicates to listening to just about anyone talk about just about anything at the beginning of their meeting.
Now it appears the Big Day has come. The Council is finally poised to discuss and vote on a smoking ban. And everyone seems to expect a showdown. Clean Air Wichita, for example, announced by e-mail that speakers from the American Lung Association, American Cancer Society, a local health care group and their leaders will be at the meeting. They oppose the ban because they say it doesn’t go far enough — they want something that bans smoking at all businesses, not just food service businesses.
The votes line-up in favor of the compromised ban — the critical four votes being Mayor Carl Brewer and council members Lavonta Williams, Sharon Fearey and Jeff Longwell. But all things political can change. Some of those most actively opposing the ban couldn’t be reached early Monday afternoon for this post about who’s showing up at the meeting. But if history is a guide, those opposing the ban will show up in force as well.
The council meeting starts at 9 a.m. The ban is number 12a on the agenda, meaning the discussion probably (no promises here) won’t start until after 9:30 a.m. — if not 10 or 10:30 a.m. The proposal would ban smoking anywhere that kids under age 18 are, which means most restaurants will be smoke-free unless they have a smoking room that, among other caveats, has its own ventilation. The bars, meanwhile, could just card folks at the door to make sure they’re older than 18 and post a sign outside to warn folks that the air may not be so pure inside.
The full proposed law can be found on page 269 of the PDF council agenda.
About four months ago, Mayor Carl Brewer accepted former city manager George Kolb’s resignation, citing “philosophical differences.” This week, he told www.newsobserver.com, that he would recommend Kolb for the city manager position in Durham, N.C., where Kolb is one of three finalists.
“He was passionate about his direction, and we were passionate about ours, and he decided to go his way, and we went our way,” Brewer told The News and Observer Monday.
Former Mayor Carlos Mayans was not so kind. “He’s a very charming person, but very, very divisive,” Mayans told the North Carolina newspaper.
As Durham, N.C. narrows its list of finalists for city manager, each of the candidates is being pressed to explain why they were ousted from their previous cities, according to today’s story in The News and Observer. During a Monday night forum designed to let community members there meet the three finalists for city manager, reporters pressed former Wichita city manager George Kolb to respond to criticisms about his communication with council members, confrontations with Sunflower Community Action and why he was forced to resign in January. (Kolb has since been working as a guest lecturer at Wichita State University.)
Kolb, no stranger to these questions, defended himself as he has in the past. He said he keeps council members informed, handled Sunflower appropriately and resigned because of “philosophical differences.” But he also used his community interview to boast the progress he felt he facilitated in Wichita.
Prompted by community member questions, Kolb said minority contractors obtained about 10 percent more city business under his watch, which appears to be true — or close to it — based on the most recent city-generated reports. He also highlighted the city’s partnership with private philanthropists to build the Boys and Girls Club on 21st Street. (Kolb said it’s a model for the nation, but he didn’t mention that President Bush liked the idea so much he came out to see it.) And he said if he gets the job in Durham, he will hold himself and city staff accountable. “People ought to be held accountable for what they say they’re going to do,” he told the crowd.
Kolb, who said he felt has been mis-characterized in past Eagle articles, also seemed to acknowledge that being city manager is a job done under intense pressure, and that it’s not always pretty. “Sometimes these things can be boring,” he said of the community forum. “We’re not professional actors. We’re not professors who stand before a class, although some of them can be boring too.”
Wichita is in the running for the American Planning Association’s 10 “Great Neighborhoods.”
Wondering why? Check out the city’s video, one of their more extensive productions. You’ll hear a bit of developer David Burk, a bit of former Mayor Bob Knight and some old school footage showing what Old Town used to look like.
The winners won’t be announced until October — AKA National Community Planning Month.
On Tuesday, the Wichita City Council will vote on whether to endorse a plan to end chronic homelessness, a resolution supporting the expansion of Amtrak passenger rail service through the city and a $54,000 contract to market the Old Cowtown Museum. And there’s also a contract on the agenda that would sell a city-owned downtown parking lot to Cargill Meat Solutions for $1.
Homelessness: This move wouldn’t commit the city to any spending, but it would let Interim City Manager Ed Flentje work with County Manager Bill Buchanan to develop yet more recommendations on what local governments should do to help people who are on the streets.
Amtrak: It has been 28 years since Wichita had passenger rail service, and now many are calling for an extension of existing rail lines through Wichita. That would provide train service from Fort Worth to Kansas City. This resolution wouldn’t authorize any spending, but it would formally encourage the project.
Cowtown: The museum is set to re-open May 9, and the city wants to hire and advertising firm to get the word out via a marketing campaign. The gig would go to Jajo, Inc., a Wichita company that would use e-mail, radio and other tactics to “generate buzz” and bring people into the struggling museum.
Cargill: The parking lot is located near First and Water streets downtown, which is near one of Cargill’s buildings. The company has been expanding downtown, and it is adding more and more employees.
Are plastic bags man’s best friend, the environment’s worst enemy or something in between? A story on National Public Radio this morning says that more and more cities are banning the bags. (Wichita is not one of them. And, at least in The Eagle’s electronic archives dating back to 1984, such a ban hasn’t been discussed by local governments.) But The Eagle’s Annie Calovich reported last year that some local stores have started selling reusable bags. Those include Food for Thought, GreenAcres and the Wichita Whole Foods stores.
Dillons also sells reusable polypropylene bags and offers a drop-off box to recycle plastic bags in all their Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri stores, said Dillons spokeswoman Sheila Lowrie. The store sells reusable bags for 99 cents (or an insulated one for $2.99), and they give a 5 cent credit each time a customer uses one. (The bags are on sale through April 16 — four for $5 for the simple bags, and two for $4 on the insulated ones.) The recycled plastic bags are turned into plastic pellets that are then used to make more plastic bags, Lowrie said. She said the bags are selling well. “Our customers are really embracing it.”
Just over a week ago, the City Council voted to use grant money that would have helped fund citywide wireless Internet on a “point-to-point” system that can only be used by city employees. That effectively kills one of Mayor Carl Brewer’s campaign initiatives — at least for now. And it comes nearly a year after council members declined to accept blueprints offered by Azulstar and several other companies involved in spreading Internet access across entire cities.
Now, a new article in The New York Times says that many cities that embarked on widespread wireless Internet have found themselves backing out or frustrated.
“Prices for Internet service on the broader market also began dropping to a level that, while above what many poor people could afford, was below what municipal Wi-Fi providers were offering, so the companies had to lower their rates even further, making investment in infrastructure even more risky.” — Terry Phillis, Philadelphia’s chief information officer, said in The New York Times article.
Following that trend are Azulstar’s problems in Rio Rancho, New Mexico that gave cold feet to Wichita’s council members who loved the idea of mostly-free web access. The company also had problems in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Azulstar was the company Wichita’s tech department recommended, and Azulstar provided piles of research that showed how such a system could work here. But even the city’s tech gurus approached cautiously, based on interviews that happened before the council voted.
Municipal wireless offers one of the most promoted ways to bridge the so-called digital divide that leaves some of us connected to nearly endless information and others left to find information by more traditional means. Libraries seem to be the answer for many people who lack a connection now. But what’s ahead? Did Wichita save some troubles — or miss an opportunity?
Spring weather. Expensive fuel. Bulging guts. Time for a walk.
