Sedgwick County Manager William Buchanan has proved his ability and professionalism over 18 years of outstanding service. He has earned the respect of the business community, labor leaders and his peers around the country. If Commission Chairman Kelly Parks and Vice Chairwoman Gwen Welshimer are unhappy with Buchanan’s proposed 2010 budget, including his recommendation to close the Kansas Coliseum and its pavilions as of February, they should work with him toward changes. They should not vote to fire him, which apparently is the subject of a County Commission executive session Wednesday.
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12 Comments
18 years is too long. Get’s in with the good ole boys. A piece of the old furniture. Set in his ways.
Time for new ideas and new blood.
Move on.
Kelly Parks “has been involved in politics for more than 30 years.”
Move on next election from this guy! His latest promotion of a failed group not qualified to put on shows at the Coliseum pavilions.
Gwen Welshemier spent 12 years as a Legislator before winning Sedgwick County election. 3 years doing this. Too much face time standing next to former Mayor of Park City, Dee Stuart.
Close the Coliseum completely next year, it saves money. It’s beyond being useful long term than that.
Where is business that should take over when the pavilions close? If it’s profitable to put those shows on, then some business has to step up and create a new place to do them.
There is need for those events, like dog shows and horse shows. It’s lack of progressive thinking, County governments held onto the Coliseum, too long.
“Where is business that should take over when the pavilions close? If it’s profitable to put those shows on, then some business has to step up and create a new place to do them.”
Like business stepped up to build your downtown Arena?
I’m sure they will reconsider such a dumb move. Fire Buchanan and you perturb a lot of folks, including the business community; you deal with the time and expense of hiring an unknown, and then you have to ’splain to the voters why you did it.
I think Buchanan called them recommendations for a reason – doesn’t mean they are written in stone.
Buchanan and his two supporters, Tim Norton and Dave Unruh, have flat out ignored the citizens of Sedgwick County for two long now. They consider Sedgwick County government their private little fiefdom.
These three plus some other “music men selling non-existent band uniforms” have totally botched up the Coliseum and downtown Arena to the point there is no acceptable way out of this financial quagmire.
In the meantime, downtown Wichita continues to decline and depreciate with no bottom of the pit in sight.
Buchanan needs to go quickly.
And bring in a new county manager with new ideas who can work with the new city manager Layton and new school superintendent Allison to bring new ideas to Wichita that actually work for the citizens.
Prediction: Karl Peterjohn will bend to his corporate sponsors and vote to retain Buchanan. He will, however, castigate him as a gesture toward his allies Parks and Welshimer.
So, outlander, do you live in Wichita or Sedgwick County?? Just wondering…
Here’s an alternative view:
http://tinyurl.com/kvpd3t
Thanks for the insight, Wichita_Lib, lot of insight and savvy in that post.
Interesting viewpoint, Wichita_Liberal, but ultimately Week’s justifications for his position are, to put it kindly, dumb adherence to an uncompromising ideology.
1) We should get rid of Buchanan simply because he has been in office for 18 years. People who are in office should be recycled every 5 years of so. Rigggght. We should get rid of people while they are still learning their job so we can start training someone else to do the job. [FE]After all, it doesn’t take long to learn the job of managing public services for a mixed metropolitan and rural country of 485,000 people, now does it? [/FE] The fact is, it is good practice at the professional level to have someone in a position who knows their job, and who has learned the intimate details of that job through experience. Somehow, however, when it comes to the public sector we should make changes every 5 years just for making changes why? Well, probably because hardcore free marketeer libertarians have a horror of stability in the public sector. Don’t allow someone to get comfortable with their job in the public sector. The logical result of applying this ideology, however, is to create a public sector that is as incompetent. Self fulfilling prophecies are avoidable prophecies.
2) We should get rid of Buchanan because he is not doing his job well because two county commissioners say it is “difficult to get information from him”. Gee, I wonder who those two commissioners might be? Weeks is just spreading rumor here from sources who are hardly disinterested, and let’s face it, Kelly and Welswhimer have not been all that good about sharing information themselves.
3) We should get rid of Buchanan because he is “pro-business”, but pro-business is not pro-free markets. Basically, this is just Weeks in libertarian fantasy land here where he and his fellow extreme free marketeers pretend that our economy doesn’t require significant underpinnings from the public sector.
In the end, the link from Wichita_Liberal is interesting, but it is interesting ideological hogwash. I am no fan of Buchanan, but the individuals who want to get rid of him are clearly incompetents who are throwing tantrums because they have not been getting their way (or more accurately, they haven’t been getting their way without political pain). The disturbing thing is, they have an ideological ally of people like Weeks in the council with them. Hopefully, however, Peterjohn will side with his “pro-business” allies rather than his fellow hard core gut the public sector ideologues.
I suspect from reading Weeks’ diatribe that Buchanan is on his way out. I hed predicted that Peterjohn would swing to keep Buchanan but seeing this makes me draw the opposite conclusion. Weeks is a very close ally to both Peterjohn and Parks. I agree with Agnathathat Weeks’ rant is ideological hogwash – but what do you expect from the Parks crowd? Remember – these ate the same guys who want to do County business with that fly-by-night Heritage outfit.