Eleven people including Mayor Carl Brewer, Vice Mayor Sue Schlapp, two Wichita Police Department officials and others such as Kansas World Trade Center president Karyn Page and state Sen. Carolyn McGinn, R-Sedgwick (as one of two “experts in agriculture”) — that’s quite a crowd that will be going on a Wichita Area Sister Cities visit to China Oct. 15-21, largely on the taxpayers’ tab. Yet the Wichita City Council approved the expenditure, including $16,600 for 10 plane tickets, without discussion Tuesday. Make no mistake: the Sister Cities program and the relationships it has established have been a boon for Wichita. No doubt this visit will reap benefits, too. But shouldn’t such an expense rate one question from the council bench, if only to reassure the viewers at home that someone is watching the till?
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23 Comments
It’s not the first time Schlapp has robbed the taxpayers, it won’t be the last.
Yeah, my question would be, how they’d get round trip tickets so cheap.
Sounds like they’re not going coach!
Hope they are only one way tickets??
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Mary_Caruso
Posted September 29, 2008 at 7:11 am | Permalink
Sounds like they’re not going coach!
——————-
Who would want to go coach on such a humongous long flight?
If coach is good enough for the common people, it’s good enough for them.
If they ever run for pres. they can put the trip on their resume under ‘Foreign Poilcy’ experience!
The city council does not care about having discussion of the peoples money in the light of day.
Why do they need 11 people?
Hey, Dungflower, when are you going to admit that you LIED when you posted that the Democratic candidate for School Board didn’t get endorsed by the groups that he listed as endorsements?
Just wondering.
And since then he’s gotten more endorsements.
Your guy, heh, not so much . . .
“Kansas World Trade Center”
Guffawwwwwwww! Kansas has a world trade center? Heheheh. HAHAHAHAHAHAH.
“state Sen. Carolyn McGinn, R-Sedgwick (as one of two “experts in agriculture”)”
ROFLMQAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WTF does she know about real agriculture? I mean, really….
McGinn does share the kansas dept of agriculture myopic views on water though. Maybe she has an in with democratic wonderboy adrian polansky? Or ken grotewhiel?
Yeah. Real qualifications. Kinda like sebelius for sec. of ag under obama.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
CapASS – I have no idea what you are talking about.
I’m not sure about flying 11 Kansans to China being much more than a perk, but $16,000 seems pretty reasonable… if you really needed to send eleven people.
Perhaps you haven’t priced travel to Asia lately. It’s a long way and it burns a lot of fuel and fuel’s been pricey lately.
You’re in air for 14 hours or so and that means they’ve gotta feed ya a few time to prevent cannibalism.
There’s no way 16 grand would pay for 11 round-trip First Class tickets. As a bulk order, the airline might have bumped them to Business Class. It happens all the time, like collecting frequent-flier miles when you book the trip.
I don’t care too much for these kind of stories unless there’s clear evidence that nothing substantive was achieved by the trip. There’s certainly a good likelihood that’s the case. (Were all participants principles in the discussions? Or did they bring their spouses?)
How many jobs in Kansas were created when you Mrs Phatkatt visited the Great Wall, congressman?
Why are two WPD officials going? refesher course on Chinese interogation tatics, how to combat protests?
On the serious side even the Eagle admits that the trip will have benefits and that those would be likely greater than the 16,000 spent on tickets, Although considering the 5 million annually given to airtran as a handout, the very least the city should have got some tickets comped
“Make no mistake: the Sister Cities program and the relationships it has established have been a boon for Wichita.”
You wrote this Ronda, now elaborate on this!
How is this suppose to be a boon for Wichita?
Wiseman, maybe it will be a boon for Wichita to get some of the dollars held by the Chinese coming our way (with a bit of a positive effect on the balance of payments problem)? I, too, would like some elaboration on the Chamber of Commerce talking point Rhonda posted.
Like palin, Rhonda will have to “get back with ya” on that….
cracks me up..the liar capn accusing others of lying. Capn claims that his magic “ignore” feature prevents him from seeing anything written by people he has ‘on ignore’. Problem is, there is no ignore feature on this blog.
capn is a liar.
excellent question, wiseman…WHAT benefits are there of this “sister city” program? Can anyone show one dollar of increased direct benefit because of it? Well, let’s see…there was that French “intern” a year ago who went to a lot of lunches.
“Who would want to go coach on such a humongous long flight?”
No one…but they’re spending tax payers money, so they should. I’ve spent 22 hrs flying coach, if I can do it, they can.
I am somewhat surprised that some are unaware or refute the commerce benefits we have been receiving from our sister cities programs. While I don’t expect others to be able to regularly attend city council meetings as I do, the information is available on the web from the green sheets supporting council agenda items, the international trade site and news reports.