City shouldn’t be cut out of airport deals

The Wichita City Council recently directed city staff to do all it could to resolve a dispute about the only minority-owned business at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport, a bakery that was to be displaced for a Starbucks. It’s hard to believe council members had this in mind — a contract with Host Marriott, which handles airport concessions, that would deny the bakery owners the right to appeal to the City Council if there are future disputes over their new bagel shop franchise. Host Marriott should not be able to bar the council contractually from having a say about anything at the airport, which the council governs.
Posted by Rhonda Holman

3 Comments

  1. mrcontroversy
    Posted September 2, 2006 at 4:31 am | Permalink

    This one ought to be a no-brainer–even for the City Council.

  2. Joe Williams
    Posted September 2, 2006 at 7:14 am | Permalink

    This is a touchy issue. The city has contracted with Host Marriott, and therefore anybody that wants to sublet from Host Marriott, they have to go through them. That makes sense to me, regardless if the facility (airport) is city owned.

    She is a minority, so this becomes a political and emotional issue, which it shouldn’t be. The City Council shouldn’t be involved in business disputes between their contracted company and who the contracted company deals with. All that would do is bogged down the system.

    It would be like if the city on a road project awarded a contract to a paving company. That paving company then would have some of the work subcontracted. The subcontractor gets upset at the contract company then files a grievence to the City Council to allow what ever dispute they have to be worked out.

    I’m sorry! The City Council duty isn’t to judge those things that exisit between businesses.

    If she wasn’t a minority, this wouldn’t be a story at all.

    I think that we as a society in America have done great things to level the playing field for minority owned businesses, but we also have to understand that special treatment for this status will eventually cease. It’s a gradual weaning off, but it is coming, but we cannot keep this special status forever and everybody should realize that. Everything that deals with minorities today are setup temporarily to help combat from past discrimination. We will get to a point when that is over with in our society.

    What Host Marriott is doing is making a business decision. They know a Starbucks will make more money for them than a bagel shop. Most of the subleases are set up, not only for lease space, but percentage of sales.

    If Sara loses her space, I think she will be back when the new airport terminal gets built. She would get a lot of support in our community and many people will step up and help her financially to get it going again. But right now, our exisiting terminal doesn’t have the space to accomidate.

  3. Paul F. Rosell
    Posted September 2, 2006 at 3:08 pm | Permalink

    Does anyone ever PLAN a meal at the Wichita airport?Whenever I fly in or out, or take someone there or pick them up, I make other plans for food.It is hard to plan around the Airport vendors.They are frequently closed or understaffed.I don’t trust the airport so we eat before we get there — even if that means sitting in the lobby with time on our hands afterwards, it beats flying on an empty stomach!