Full of windows and usually on the edge of town, an airport terminal makes a lousy storm shelter. At Wichita Mid-Continent Airport, that should make it a high priority to plan and practice for tornado warnings. So it was alarming to learn that at least some of the 500 to 600 people at the airport during Sunday’s warning were mistakenly informed that the terminal’s basement was full. One of the passengers who was turned away credited security with getting people to other safe places. But before and after the new terminal opens in early 2015, Mid-Continent officials need to ensure they have the basement shelter ready and procedures in place to use it fully.
Remember the 850 dead fish. If that falls short as a rallying cry for upgrading Wichita’s sewer and water infrastructure, though, city leaders need only recall the sting of the $243,195 state fine for the 2012 sewage release that killed those fish in the Arkansas River. And the city got off easy this time, because KDHE let what would have been another $455,000 fine be spent instead on a citywide study of deferred sewer maintenance. The $11 million the city has banked for sewer repairs this year and next is great as far as it goes. But as Mayor Carl Brewer warned in his State of the City address this year, the city will need $2.1 billion over the next 30 years to maintain or replace the majority of its water, sewer and storm-drainage systems. Brewer and the rest of the City Council need to find the money and political will soon to tackle this long-term challenge, so more fish kills and fines can be avoided.
It’s good to see city and Sedgwick County officials communicating about a new law enforcement training center. A joint tour last week of the outdated facility at 37th Street North and Meridian underscored the need to act soon. The governments should try to stick to their earlier commitment to join the Kansas National Guard and build at the new Heartland Preparedness Center at K-96 and I-135, and try to scale back the original plan and $30 million shared cost to fit their current budget challenges. County Commission Chairman Jim Skelton’s (in photo) idea of a design to allow expansion makes sense. But officials need to get moving on the project.
Though Wichita’s low-turnout election last week barely qualified as news, Topeka voters made history by electing four women to the City Council. That means women now hold five of nine seats – their first majority in the council’s 28-year history. “I think a real theme of Topeka is freedom and offering an opportunity to anybody who is willing to step up,” re-elected council member Karen Hiller told the Topeka Capital-Journal. The election brought to mind both the historic election of an all-female Syracuse city council in 1887, just after Kansas amended the constitution to allow women to vote and hold municipal offices, and the city-county fight in Topeka in 2011 over paying for prosecution of domestic violence cases, which drew national headlines such as “Enjoy Hitting Your Spouse? Move to Topeka.” In contrast, Wichita has two women on its seven-member City Council; it reached a peak of three a few years ago.
“I would gracefully bow out.” – Rep. Mike Pompeo (in photo), R-Wichita, joking about what he would do if WSU men’s basketball coach Gregg Marshall ran for Congress
“It is those who make the most noise that sometimes succeed. I thought I’d made a lot of noise.” – Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., in the Washington Post, lamenting his failure to exempt small air traffic control towers from the sequester cuts
“Yes, I’d like to appoint myself mayor.” – Wichita City Council member Paul Gray, joking during the board appointments agenda item at his last meeting Tuesday
Wichita voters made good choices in Tuesday’s election. They wisely re-elected James Clendenin, Lavonta Williams and Janet Miller to the Wichita City Council. Also, Jeff Blubaugh appears to have defeated Joshua Blick in District 4, though provisional ballots won’t be counted until April 11. In the Wichita school board races, Michael Rodee won in District 5, while Joy Eakins has a slight lead over Scott B. Poor in District 2. The disappointments this election were the low turnout (only 6.19 percent in Sedgwick County) and some ugly campaigning and vandalism. Blick had his home and campaign signs defaced and a vehicle window smashed, and he obtained a protection-from-stalking order against former candidate Craig Gabel, who also is being investigated for possible campaign-finance violations.
It may have gotten lost amid all the excitement about the NCAA basketball tournament, but there is an important election Tuesday. In Wichita, four City Council races are on the ballot, and there are two contested Wichita school board races. Those elected to these governing bodies will face difficult challenges, deciding how the city government promotes economic development and how the school district responds to reduced state funding. Visit The Eagle’s online voter guide to read the candidates’ stances on issues. The Eagle editorial board’s endorsements are at Kansas.com/opinion. And be sure to vote either in advance from 8 a.m. to noon Monday at the Sedgwick County Election Office or Tuesday at your polling place.
A Reuters article examines the impact on Wichita of President Obama’s bad-mouthing of business jets and push for a seven-year depreciation schedule for private-plane buyers. “I’m certainly disappointed that he would do something of this nature. As long as you’re doing something to threaten my aviation industry … I’ll continue to speak out against it,” Mayor Carl Brewer told Reuters, which noted Brewer is a Democrat who has Obama’s portrait on his wall. Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Wichita, said: “It’s so frustrating. All the aviation manufacturers want is for him to stop talking down their industry. Don’t write them a check, don’t give them a tax credit, don’t hand them a subsidy. Stop bashing them.”
Wichita City Council member Paul Gray used an agenda item on swimming pool improvements at last week’s meeting to blast the Americans With Disabilities Act. Gray, a contractor who works in commercial construction, said he appreciated the sensitivity of such issues and has friends and relatives with disabilities, but that making facilities ADA-compliant can add $15,000-$20,000 to a $80,000 project and prove too much for mom-and-pop businesses. “Some little bureaucrat sits in a room and draws a picture and says, ‘This is the rules everybody has to follow,’ but they far exceed the requirements of people that are handicapped,” Gray said. “We treat the world as if everybody is blind and in a wheelchair, and that is not the circumstance. We are driving our economy into the ground with stuff like this.” Gray voted for the item, as did reluctant fellow council member Pete Meitzner. Hearing Gray’s rant about the 23-year-old ADA, it was hard to believe he was talking about what then-Sen. Bob Dole called “fair and balanced legislation that carefully blends the rights of people with disabilities … with the legitimate needs of the American business community.”
Good for area members of the House Appropriations Committee for fighting off an attempt to defund the Kansas Affordable Airfares Program. The $5 million in funding recommended by Gov. Sam Brownback had been stripped out of the budget by the House Transportation and Public Safety Budget Committee. Rep. Virgil Peck, R-Tyro, complained that the program was supposed to last only five years and questioned whether it was providing a good return on investment, according to Dale Goter, Wichita’s government relations director. But Reps. David Crum, R-Augusta, Mark Hutton, R-Wichita, and Marc Rhoades, R-Newton, successfully restored the funding, arguing that it was particularly crucial to attracting and retaining Southwest Airlines. The funding likely will continue to be a target, however, as lawmakers try to close the state budget gap.
Local officials across the state are frustrated by all the legislation in Topeka that would impose new mandates and restrictions on local governments. Wichita City Council member Peter Meitzner told the Topeka Capital-Journal that there were six or seven bills in Topeka that would have a direct impact on how a city operates – such as restriction on how cities and counties raise property-tax revenue, where they can ban guns, and whether they can spend their tax dollars on sustainable development. There also are a number of bills that would place new mandates on local school boards. What’s ironic is that these bills are being proposed by limited-government conservatives (some of them from Sedgwick County). “The Legislature and individual legislators hate it when the feds mandate for them – unfunded or not – things they have to do,” said Rich Eckert, Shawnee County’s attorney. “However, they have very little compunction about turning around and doing the same thing to local units of government in Kansas. And I don’t understand that.”
What a relief that Tuesday’s primary election in Sedgwick County escaped the inexcusable problems of last year’s primary and general elections. Election Commissioner Tabitha Lehman even had full results available 90 minutes after the polls closed, a feat surely aided by the puny 4.69 percent turnout. The timely results were a vast improvement over Nov. 6, when it took nearly four hours to get any returns and more than six hours to get final totals. The 4,000 or so voters set up a worthy April 2 general election contest in District 4 between Joshua Blick and Jeff Blubaugh and overwhelmingly endorsed able incumbents Janet Miller in District 6 and James Clendenin in District 3 over weak challengers. The poll workers, volunteers and voters who participated deserve praise for doing their civic duty amid snowy conditions.
Though it hasn’t generated much attention, there is an election Tuesday. In Wichita, voters in the southeast, southwest and north-central areas of the city will choose which two candidates for City Council advance to the April 2 general election. Turnout likely will be low, so every vote could have a significant impact. And there are important issues in this election, including the role of government in economic development and the future of the city’s public bus system. For more information about the candidates, visit The Eagle’s online voter guide or The Eagle editorial board’s endorsements.
The Metropolitan Area Planning Commission made the right decision Thursday in denying a request by Kansans for Life to change zoning to prevent South Wind Women’s Center from opening in the building that previously housed George Tiller’s abortion clinic (in photo). The property reportedly has been zoned for medical purposes since 1937, and that’s how it was advertised when South Wind purchased it. Though many citizens oppose abortion, it is a legal procedure. And it struck many other citizens as ironic and insincere for anti-abortion groups to argue that the zoning should be changed to protect the neighborhood from disturbances created by those same groups.
It looks like Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett will have the official say in whether Craig Gabel (in photo) is breaking any law by putting Mike’s Steak House coupons on his palm card for Wichita City Council, as well as in a campaign flier in the Wichita Post newspaper. He owns both the restaurant and the newspaper. But Gabel’s latest gambit speaks for itself to District 4 voters. A candidate should run on his merits, not try to entice voters with a $5.99 chicken fry deal or half off any meal with the purchase of a drink.
The Wichita City Council heard impassioned pleas Tuesday not to cut funding for neighborhood city halls and Project Access in the face of federal grant cuts. It’s sobering to realize that such painful debates are just the start, and will be replicated before local governing bodies nationwide, if Congress doesn’t avoid the mandatory, across-the-board sequestration cuts scheduled to go into effect March 1 – or even if it does by approving deep but targeted reductions in federal spending. A lot of important and effective programs at the local level have been fueled by federal dollars, and counties, cities and school districts will have to scramble to adapt. The money may evaporate, but the needs won’t. Whatever Congress does will put local leaders to the test.
Because their next meeting isn’t until Feb. 5, Wichita City Council members need to make it a priority Tuesday to fill the open District 4 seat, which Michael O’Donnell exited last month to join the Kansas Senate. Last week council members had two chances to hear from the three capable men still seeking the temporary appointment – real-estate agent Jeff Blubaugh and former council members Stan Reeser and Paul Gray – but deferred the vote. Citizens in the southwest Wichita district deserve council representation without further delay, and it would be unacceptable if the council’s indecision left the seat empty until after the April election.
Wichita City Manager Robert Layton surely deserved some kind of raise after his four years on the job, and the City Council was right to give him one Tuesday. Layton, who had deferred any salary hikes during the downturn, has done a fine job of delivering services despite a tough budget and tackling big issues such as Project Downtown, trash and the water utility’s finances. But the city should have been more transparent about the size of that raise, 8 percent, or $15,170 atop his previous salary of $189,625. As it was, documents about the raise were released by the city only late Monday afternoon, limiting public debate before the council’s unanimous approval.
“My name is Michael O’Donnell.… You may know me better as the villain I play in The Wichita Eagle.” – the Wichita City Council member and state senator-elect (in photo), opening his controversial remarks to the Sedgwick County Commission about the proposed Bowllagio tax-increment financing district
“In our state, Republicans vote together 98 percent of the time. If you are not with them a 100 percent of the time, you’re gone.” – outgoing Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton, in the Huffington Post
“Tim Huelskamp for Speaker!” – headline on a post by conservative Arizona blogger David Hall
“That’s why we get the big bucks. Let’s do our job.” – Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler, telling Politico he’s ready to work through Christmas because of the fiscal cliff
Businessman Sheldon Kamen’s work on the USD 259 school board and Wichita City Council, including as mayor in 1988-89, made him a Wichitan of uncommon influence for two decades, and found him often in the thick of tough issues. Kamen, who died Wednesday at age 80, especially will be remembered for his roles in the ‘90s city-county trash wars, the early days of downtown revitalization and in transportation decisions, including the Kellogg freeway. His many letters to the editor over the years included a tongue-in-cheek acceptance of a “Dragger of the Foot” award from The Eagle editorial board, with Kamen writing: “I particularly want to thank my parents, who instilled in me a sense of responsibility to be used when spending other people’s money.” In a response to another editorial criticism, he wrote: “Evangelists might get visions from thunderbolts, but political leaders need to define and study those visions that will affect an entire city.” The editorial board had good words for him, too, over the years, noting in a 1995 endorsement that “he requests in his unfailingly polite manner for dollars-and-cents justification on behalf of the taxpayers.”
Good for the four Sedgwick County commissioners who voted Wednesday to approve an agreement with the Kansas Department of Transportation and the city of Wichita to rebuild the dangerous interchange at Kellogg and I-235 – including Commissioner Richard Ranzau, whose opposition had helped stall the deal for a week. With the county on record as covering the local match for 10 percent of the first phase of the project, area commuters are assured the interchange won’t remain a white-knuckle ride forever.
Merging the inspection and code enforcement departments of the city of Wichita and Sedgwick County has proved no quick or simple task, as exemplified by the 263 pages that the new Wichita/Sedgwick County Unified Building and Trade Code takes up in Tuesday’s Wichita City Council agenda. The diligence and problem solving over the past year have been impressive, with plenty of input from builders, building trades groups and other stakeholders. With 31-year Wichita Police Department veteran Tom Stolz (in photo) as its recently named director, the new Metropolitan Area Building and Construction Department promises to be a benefit to the community and its economy. Like the Wichita-Sedgwick County Metropolitan Area Planning Department, it also will provide a model for more functional city-county consolidation.
State Sen.-elect Michael O’Donnell is doing the right thing in resigning from the Wichita City Council effective Dec. 31, which will allow District 4 voters to elect someone in April to serve the remaining two years of the term. But Mayor Carl Brewer and his fellow council members also should choose an interim member to begin serving in January, so that southwest Wichita has uninterrupted representation on the council. Let’s hope that the next duly elected District 4 representative will prove willing to serve on the City Council longer than 14 months before seeking another political office.
The historic drought is one reason that Wichita water rate increases won’t be as steep as anticipated in 2013. The dry summers have meant more irrigation and higher revenues for the underfunded water utility. So the Wichita City Council was able to approve increases last week of 3 to 7 percent, instead of the projected hikes of 10 to 15 percent. The 2013 rate plan also includes a two-year delay in growth-related capital projects, which seems appropriate given the slowed place of home construction and the city’s budget challenges. It addresses the unfairness of charging residential users more for water so that business and wholesale clients can pay less. And it was good to hear council members discussing how to help those who can’t pay their utilities. City officials should not expect citizen gratitude for the higher water rates, but they are doing a good job of getting the water utility’s finances under control.
It is great news – both for business and leisure travelers – that Southwest Airlines has committed to operating five daily flights from Wichita Mid-Continent Airport, starting June 2. The discount carrier will have two daily flights to Dallas, two to Chicago and one to Las Vegas. The only unfortunate news in the announcement Monday was that Wichita will lose its three daily AirTran Airways flights to Atlanta. But the Southwest flights to three major markets will more than make up for this loss.
Full of windows and usually on the edge of town, an airport terminal makes a lousy storm shelter. At Wichita Mid-Continent Airport, that should make it a high priority to plan and practice for tornado warnings. So it was alarming to learn that at least some of the 500 to 600 people at the airport during Sunday’s warning were mistakenly informed that the terminal’s basement was full. One of the passengers who was turned away credited security with getting people to other safe places. But before and after the new terminal opens in early 2015, Mid-Continent officials need to ensure they have the basement shelter ready and procedures in place to use it fully.
