The naysayers have closed the gap on fluoridation of Wichita’s water, making Tuesday’s ballot question a toss-up. That’s judging from the latest SurveyUSA poll, conducted Oct. 25-29 and sponsored by KWCH, Channel 12. It found 44 percent planning to vote “no” and 43 percent planning to vote “yes,” with 13 percent uncertain on the issue. Opposition especially has grown among women and senior citizens. In SurveyUSA polls in August and late September, support for the “no” side was at 31 and 40 percent, respectively.
The Overland Park City Council is rethinking its decision last month to allow the open carry of guns. The council approved open carry after an opinion by Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s office that cities “may not completely prohibit the open carry of a loaded firearm on one’s person.” Wichita also removed its restrictions on open carry. The change didn’t go over well in Overland Park. “The public has not been pleased,” council member Jim Hix told the Kansas City Star. The council is now considering restrictions on open carry that would mirror the state’s concealed-carry gun law.
The proposed Bowllagio mixed-use development at Kellogg and Maize Road is back on the Wichita City Council agenda after two years, with developer Jay Maxwell asking for the local public incentive of pay-as-you-go tax-increment financing. The project is no longer seeking state approval of sales-tax-and-revenue bonds. The promoters argued in 2010 that the development would be a regional draw for bowling events and a boost for tourism, persuading the council to set up a community improvement district in which a higher sales-tax could be charged and its proceeds used to help pay development costs. It would be great to see the problematic floodplain site, now an unsightly collection of dirt mounds and weeds, finally put to productive use. The big question for council members, as they decide whether to schedule a Nov. 20 public hearing, is whether Bowllagio is worthy of another TIF district, where increased tax revenue can be used to pay for eligible public improvement costs. Other TIF districts have underperformed in recent years, and the Sedgwick County Commission has resisted going along with them. It’s going to be especially tough to justify such a public incentive if the owners of other area bowling alleys are as united in fierce and vocal opposition to the project as they were two years ago.
The latest SurveyUSA poll regarding Wichita’s water fluoridation ballot vote found the proponents’ side still leading but uncertainty growing. In the poll of 549 likely voters last week, 47 percent said they planned to vote “yes,” compared with 35 percent who said they’d vote “no” and 18 percent who weren’t certain how they’d vote. In late September’s poll, also sponsored by KWCH, Channel 12, 46 percent were “yes” voters, with 40 percent planning to vote “no” and 14 percent undecided. In August, 62 percent of Wichitans polled said they would vote for adding fluoride, with 31 percent against and 7 percent undecided. Those looking for more debate on the issue will get it this week, when the Sedgwick County Commission hears from speakers at its Wednesday meeting and KPTS, Channel 8, airs a debate from 8 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday. The League of Women Voters also will hold a forum on fluoridation at noon Oct. 23 at the Central Library.
“First they came for Wichita, then Overland Park and now, the Dot,” wrote Kansas City Star columnist Mary Sanchez, about the libertarians who want the unified city-county government in Wyandotte County to join Overland Park and Wichita in repealing local bans on the open carry of firearms that seem to conflict with state law. Sanchez observed: “Other state legislatures have handled open carry with a higher sense of fairness to all instead of rolling over for a belly rub by gun-rights activists.” For example, Oklahoma’s new open-carry law, which goes into effect Nov. 1, will require those who choose to carry guns openly to have gone through training and a background check. But, Sanchez wrote, “Kansas has ‘permissive open carry.’ No permits, with their extensive background checks, are required and no safety training – the very things that reasonable people would expect.”
Good for the Sedgwick County Commission for suspending its rules on public comment to enable people to speak for or against water fluoridation at next week’s meeting. Though the Nov. 6 ballot question concerns the city of Wichita, the fluoridation issue affects public health in the county and is relevant to the work of the County Commission, which doubles as the county’s board of health. The county’s key role in community health and wellness also justified the Sedgwick County Health Department’s recent release of a fluoridation information sheet, which contains basic information that the vast majority of medical and dental professionals would regard as factual and noncontroversial.
State Senate candidate and Wichita City Council member Michael O’Donnell may blame his church’s new liability for back taxes on “a political agenda from the Wisconsin atheists,” as he put it. But the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s challenge to the tax-exempt status of O’Donnell’s home has been justified by the Sedgwick County Appraiser’s Office, which ruled last week that the former Grace Baptist Church parsonage is subject to property taxes from 2010 onward. As a foundation attorney said, “Sedgwick County taxpayers should not have to pay more taxes because a church and its leaders have falsely claimed an exemption.” And given that O’Donnell wants to be a state lawmaker, he should be more respectful of what the law says. He showed a similar disdain early this year, when he dismissed an ethics complaint against him as “a political hit job” – though the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission later fined him $500.
With a little more than a month to go until Wichitans decide whether to fluoridate the water system, the opponents appear to be gaining on proponents. In August, 62 percent of Wichitans polled by SurveyUSA said they would vote for adding fluoride, with 31 percent against and 7 percent undecided. In last week’s follow-up SurveyUSA poll, also sponsored by KWCH, Channel 12, only 46 percent said they were sure to vote “yes,” with 40 percent planning to vote “no” and 14 percent undecided. Support is strongest among self-described liberals (61 percent) and those who’ve spent at least four years in college (60 percent) and earn more than $80,000 a year (57 percent); opposition is strongest among self-described conservatives (51 percent) and those whose education ended with high school (53 percent).
The absence of gunfire in Old Town has been a welcome change after four straight weekends of reports of shots fired. Police are treating the trouble with the seriousness it deserves and stepping up their presence in the nightlife district. Their attention is especially focused on the key hours of 12:30 to 2:30 a.m. on weekends, around the time the bars close, and in one block of North Mosley. Police, city officials and business owners will hold another meeting Friday to work toward a long-term plan for Old Town security. Deputy Police Chief Tom Stolz told The Eagle editorial board Thursday that changes in how police enforce the curfew, address loitering and handle traffic may be part of the strategy, along with some “tweaking” of ordinances. But he also stressed that “statistically, nothing has changed over the last two or three years in Old Town – it’s a safe area” – but that “we have some very specific times and geography to talk about.” A poll by SurveyUSA, sponsored by KWCH, Channel 12, showed why it’s important to be aggressive about the issue: 82 percent of those polled Tuesday said they’d heard of the string of shootings, and 62 percent said they’d be less likely to visit Old Town because of them. According to KAKE, Channel 10, the shootings also have inspired a tasteless T-shirt.
Tom Stolz, deputy chief for the Wichita Police Department and the acting director of Wichita Transit, didn’t say anything the other night about the city’s bus system that hasn’t been said by many, many others. Still, his take on the system was strikingly blunt: “Our transit system is extremely cumbersome. It is unreliable. If you had to depend on our transit system to get you to work or to the doctor, don’t count on it. It is terrible for a city this size.” Stolz, speaking at a meeting of Wichita Independent Neighborhoods, also spoke the truth in saying the community needs to decide what bus system it wants. “Are we going to stay with this same model, which is hit and miss, or are we going to try and upgrade?” he asked. One thing Wichita won’t be doing this year is asking voters to increase the sales tax to improve the bus system, something the city’s transit advisory board had recommended. As of Oct. 30, Wichita Transit will have a new boss, Steve Spade, who has been the transit director for Chapel Hill, N.C.
The City Council of Portland, Ore., is expected to vote Wednesday to fluoridate that community’s water. If so, that will end Portland’s status as the largest city in the U.S. lacking naturally occurring fluoride not to have embraced fluoridation of its water system. (San Jose, Calif., decided to fluoridate late last year, but hasn’t implemented fluoridation yet.) According to the American Dental Association, the other unfluoridated cities larger than Wichita are Albuquerque, Tucson and Fresno, Calif. Wichita’s question will go to voters on Nov. 6. “It’s about health equity, it’s about social justice,” Portland Mayor Sam Adams told the New York Times. “Fluoride is means to an end. I hope that folks, whether they agree with me or not, understand that my intentions are to help those Portlanders that have no voice in this process.” The Oregonian reported that Multnomah County’s five public dental health clinics see dozens of patients a day whose oral health would be helped by fluoridated water, and recounted how a dental hygienist took one look into the cavity-free mouth of a 9-year-old and asked, “You don’t live in Portland, do you?” (She lived nearby, in fluoridated Beaverton.)
The Affordable Care Act, better known by the pejorative “Obamacare,” doesn’t get credit for much in political circles, with Republicans talking nearly unanimously about repeal and Democrats barely talking about it at all. So it’s worth noting that the law is mentioned among the factors behind the recommendation that the rates for the city ‘s employee health insurance plan decrease 5 percent for 2013, after increases of 10.9 and 15.5 percent in 2011 and 2012, respectively. The city, which is self-insured, also went through a “competitive, cost-effective proposal process” to find new companies to manage its health plan – Coventry Health Care of Kansas (for medical benefits) and Catamaran (prescription benefits). The 2013 contracts and rates are on the Tuesday agenda of the Wichita City Council.
In a Huffington Post article, Michael O’Donnell disagreed with state Sen. Jean Schodorf, R-Wichita, about whether moderates are still welcome in the Republican Party – and took another shot at the person he defeated in the August GOP primary. “There is plenty of room in the Republican Party for those who are ideologically moderate,” O’Donnell said. But he contended that Schodorf is “not a moderate by any stretch of the imagination.” He said that Schodorf, who had been a Republican her entire life before deciding last week to leave the party, “is far left” and that “her decision to leave substantiates that.” If O’Donnell, a Wichita City Council member, was trying to encourage moderates to stay in the GOP, he didn’t do a good job.
It’s encouraging that plans by the city of Wichita and Sedgwick County to consolidate their code enforcement offices are moving forward. The County Commission and City Council recently passed a resolution creating a merged Metropolitan Area Building and Construction Department. The idea is to create a one-stop shop for area builders and tradespeople. But it can be complicated to merge city and county functions, particularly when there are different codes and union issues. Though there are still many steps to go – including establishing new trade boards and hiring a director of the new department – city and county officials and staff are making good progress.
It’s good that the city is taking steps to curb the illegal placement of signs on public property, utility poles or in the right of way between a city sidewalk and the street. Workers in the Office of Central Inspection remove as many of the signs as they can, but they can’t keep up – especially during a campaign season. The City Council voted Tuesday to allow trained volunteers to help remove illegal signs. It also voted to authorize fines starting at $50 and rising to as much as $1,000 per sign for repeat violations. That may be appropriate in some cases, but the city needs to not go overboard issuing fines.
A $50,000 budget cut will be difficult for Old Cowtown Museum to absorb, but at least it wasn’t $100,000, as the city initially proposed. That proposal seemed arbitrary and was not handled well, as Cowtown’s board president first learned about it by reading The Eagle. Good for City Manager Robert Layton for finding some additional funding and reducing the cut, though it still seems unfair that Cowtown was singled out for a large funding reduction. Here is hoping that increased attendance and fund raising will help Cowtown make up some of the cut.
Illegal fireworks were visible high above many Wichita neighborhoods over the July Fourth period, as hundreds of complaints were called in and an estimated $210,000 in related property damage occurred. Given all that, it was laughable to learn that only one person received a fireworks citation – though surely not laughable for the business owner, who could end up paying a fine and court costs. Wichita fire crews work hard over the holiday, but Wichita’s fireworks ordinance isn’t working.
Leaders in the cities of Derby and Eastborough, two of Wichita’s largest customers for water, have passed unanimous resolutions endorsing water fluoridation in Wichita. Nearly 500 local dentists, physicians and other health providers and about 50 state and local organizations support the campaigns by Wichitans for Healthy Teeth and the Kansas Health Foundation seeking to boost the city water’s natural fluoride level of 0.33 parts per million to the optimum 0.7 parts per million. A recent SurveyUSA poll, sponsored by KWCH, Channel 12, found that 54 percent of Wichitans surveyed support adding fluoride to the city’s water. Yet Mayor Carl Brewer has said fluoridation isn’t “that big on anyone’s radar at this point” and other City Council members seem similarly uninterested in addressing it anytime soon. But 12 years into the 21st century, shouldn’t Wichita’s leaders see some urgency in the city’s failure to get in on one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century?
Some Wichita officials and business owners want the city to prevent people from openly carrying firearms without a permit. Wichita used to prohibit this, but a state law blocked local control. One concern is that, unlike conceal-carry, there is no requirement that a person take a weapons safety and training course. “Buy a gun, buy a holster, out the door without any experience,” one local gun-shop manager complained. “It’s a big mistake.” Wichita police also worry that open-carry could make it more difficult for them to tell the good guys from the bad guys. On the other hand, as our editorial today notes, it’s unlikely that many people will openly carry guns. And there haven’t been reports of problems with open-carry elsewhere in the state.
Congratulations to the volunteers who worked so hard and for so many years to achieve Saturday’s public dedication of the Vietnamese American Community Memorial along the Arkansas River. The project, a proud addition to the riverfront featuring lead artist Babs Mellor’s vision of an American soldier and a South Vietnamese soldier, had to overcome some hard feelings a few years ago related to its proximity to Veterans Memorial Park. It now stands nearby as a poignant and enduring tribute to the unique partnership of the South Vietnamese military and the U.S. military in fighting the communists during the Vietnam War. It also will stand as evidence of the generosity of the local South Vietnamese community, which has enriched Wichita in the decades since.
It’s disappointing that Frontier Airlines is halting its flights between Wichita and Denver beginning Nov. 16. The airline, which received a $500,000 annual subsidy through the Kansas Affordable Airfares Program in partnership with Wichita and Sedgwick County, helped curb airfares of flights headed west. Since Frontier began service in October 2007, traffic to the top Western markets is up 23 percent and fares are down 29 percent. Without any competitor, will United Airlines now jack up its fares for flights from Wichita through Denver? Airfares soared and passenger rates fell when Vanguard Airlines dropped its Wichita service in 1997.
Kansas City TV station KSHB, an NBC affiliate, aired an investigative story Monday about the Kansas Affordable Airfares Program, claiming the state “is paying for empty seats on airplanes from Kansas’ largest airport with little oversight.” It described how since 2006, the state has spent $5 million a year to subsidize low-fare air service, mostly for AirTran Airways and Frontier Airlines at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport. It claimed that “AirTran’s flights were relatively empty compared to other airlines flying in and out of Wichita,” citing federal data showing Delta and American Eagle flights at 74 percent capacity during the first three months of 2012, while AirTran’s were 44 percent capacity. The story highlighted a critical 2011 state audit of the airfares subsidy. It also quoted state Sen. Chris Steineger, R-Kansas City, as saying that the program’s proponents “oversold” its statewide benefits and calling it “a matter of bad priorities” that the airfares subsidy survived deep cuts to the state budget. Among the key points that went unmentioned in the story, though: that Gov. Sam Brownback has endorsed continued state support for the program, understanding its value to business and economic development regionally, and that the long-standing program helped win the commitment of Southwest Airlines to serve Wichita as it takes over AirTran. The Sedgwick County Commission approved the latest agreement with AirTran at Wednesday’s meeting.
It’s good news that Sedgwick County’s special telephone number for the Fourth of July worked as planned and prevented the 911 emergency line from being tied up. Last year, because of all the people calling 911 to complain about fireworks, callers got a busy signal when they tried to report actual emergencies. The special number handled 377 calls Wednesday. In fact, it worked so well that the county may use the special line again on New Year’s Eve. That doesn’t mean there were no problems on July 4. Fireworks are the suspected cause of several house fires, and the number of illegal fireworks shot off throughout Wichita showed again that the city’s fireworks ordinance isn’t taken seriously – by the public or by law enforcement.
It was encouraging last week to see Wichita’s bid board unanimously decline Dondlinger and Sons’ appeal in the airport terminal contract dispute, which centers on whether the local company and Indianapolis partner Hunt Construction Group met the rules requiring a good faith effort to land enough disadvantaged subcontractors. Obviously, the construction partners were frustrated to see their low bid of $99.4 million lose out to Wichita-based Key Construction and Detroit-based Wallbridge, which won the contract with their second-lowest bid of $101.5 million, and Dondlinger and Hunt can still try to make their case to the City Council and perhaps the courts. But it’s important that Wichita Mid-Continent Airport’s long-delayed terminal project get going, and not do anything to jeopardize its federal funding. The bid board’s move was a step closer to the goal of getting the terminal built and open for business.
The agenda for today’s Wichita City Council meeting includes the donation of a floating boat dock to be installed on the Arkansas River behind the Gander Mountain store. The improvements, in the works since late 2010 in consultation with Wichita State University’s rowing staff, will be funded by Gander Mountain, WaterWalk and the GreenWay Alliance; the Arkansas River Coalition will install the dock, which will have four stalls for kayaks. The dock, which the proposed agreement with the city calls a “valuable recreational amenity for the community,” stands to help citizens better access, use and appreciate the river. May this welcome partnership lead to others that will similarly benefit Wichita’s quality of life.
The naysayers have closed the gap on fluoridation of Wichita’s water, making Tuesday’s ballot question a toss-up. That’s judging from the latest SurveyUSA poll, conducted Oct. 25-29 and sponsored by KWCH, Channel 12. It found 44 percent planning to vote “no” and 43 percent planning to vote “yes,” with 13 percent uncertain on the issue. Opposition especially has grown among women and senior citizens. In SurveyUSA polls in August and late September, support for the “no” side was at 31 and 40 percent, respectively.
