Pat Salerno’s recent about-face — accepting Wichita’s offer for the city manager position, signing a contract and then pulling out at the last minute — clearly violates the ethical guidelines of the professional organization to which he belongs, the International City/County Management Association.
According to one of the ICMA tenet guidelines, “Members who accept an appointment to a position should not fail to report for that position,” and “once a bona fide offer of a position has been accepted, that commitment should be honored.”
The ICMA also stresses to applicants, “Don’t say ‘yes’ unless you mean it.”
Simply giving one’s word is seen as a professional commitment, according to Martha Perego, ethics director for the ICMA. (Salerno negotiated and signed a contract.)
The ICMA makes some allowances for extraordinary circumstances in such cases, Perego told The Eagle editorial board, but “it has to be fairly compelling.” She wouldn’t comment specifically on the Salerno case. But she made clear that the ICMA takes its ethics rules seriously; in fact, the organization has a formal hearing process for publicly censuring and even removing members who violate its professional tenets.
This might be one way for Wichita to hold Salerno accountable for his unprofessional conduct. Randy
Wichita attorney Bradley Schlozman may be in deep trouble — and with good reason, if the allegations are true. The Justice Department is considering launching a grand jury investigation into whether Schlozman, a former U.S. attorney based in Kansas City, Mo., intentionally misled Congress when he gave conflicting statements about his role in filing a voter fraud lawsuit in Missouri, Associated Press reported. Scholzman also boasted about hiring conservative loyalists over better-qualified lawyers when he was acting assistant attorney for the Justice Department’s civil rights division.
It’s been inspiring to read recent Eagle articles about Wichita’s outstanding graduating seniors, such as Ngoc Trang Nguyen, who four years ago didn’t speak English and today is among Wichita East High School’s 14 class valedictorians.
The prescription for her success: “I work hard,†she told The Eagle. One teacher described her as “inquisitive, deliberate, persistent.â€
Her favorite saying: “Impossible is nothing.â€
She plans to major in biochemistry and dreams of finding a cure for hemophilia.
Or consider Claudia Nieuwoudt of the Independent School, who also spoke little English when she came to Wichita as an eighth-grader. Three years later, she received the highest possible score on the Advanced Placement English test. She loves to volunteer, from helping rebuild hurricane-shattered homes in Louisiana to working as a translator in a hospital emergency room.
Fluent in four languages, she hopes after attending medical school to work with Doctors Without Borders.
What great role models for anyone, not just our young people. Wichita has reason to be proud of its academic stars. They’re clearly going places.
One of the most surprising things about the $8.5 million gift to Wichita State University announced this week — the second-largest ever — is who gave it: Paul and Evelyn Cassat, an unassuming couple who never made more than $6 an hour in their lives.
But they were thrifty and believed in savings and smart investments — and over the years, it added up. And then some.
The Cassats were the fabled “millionaires next door†— solid, hardworking, traditional values people who quietly amassed a fortune and then gave back most of it, seeking to leave the world a little better place than they found it. Because of their integrity and selflessness, several WSU health clinics and programs will be better equipped to change lives.
Many Americans these days want to get rich quick — and spend it just as fast. But the Cassats showed the power of steady savings over time. Even better, they used their fortune to help others.
Talk about curb appeal. Union Station downtown, with its beautiful colonnaded facade, is up for sale. Like many former public buildings, this is an architectural and historical treasure that deserves not just preservation but a place at the heart of our civic life.
Steve Martens, whose real estate company is selling the property, sees a variety of possible uses for the 85,000-square-foot building, including retail, hotel and restaurant. What’s important is to find new life and a high use for such a historic building.
Originally the city’s train depot and most recently the home for Cox Communications, Union Station offers an exciting opportunity for a developer to build on the location’s proximity to the Old Town entertainment district and new arena.
This is a key piece in the downtown redevelopment puzzle. Here’s hoping someone has a vision to match the building’s great potential.Any takers out there, bloggers?
Air Force officials say European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co., parent company of Airbus, built a $100 million fuel boom on spec to demonstrate its technological know-how.
Boeing, meanwhile, promised a new boom but didn’t build a prototype.
It was that kind of aggressive one-upmanship from EADS/Northrop Grumman that apparently made the difference with Air Force officials, according to a New York Times story.
“Northrop Grumman brought their A game,†Sue C. Payton, assistant secretary of the Air Force, told Congress last week.
Questions remain, though, whether the playing field was fair.
It’s good that the Wichita City Council is taking a fresh look at reviving passenger rail transportation to Wichita. Council members asked city staff to look at a resolution supporting a north-south extension of Amtrak’s Heartland Flyer route from Oklahoma City through Wichita to Kansas City, Mo.
With rising gas prices and airline delays, Wichita should have more transportation options, and rail could be a popular option along this busy corridor.
It’s worth a close study. Could the old Union Station depot in Old Town actually be put back to use?
As Black History Month came to an end, state Sen. David Haley, D-Kansas City, took a few minutes to pay homage to African-Americans elected to state office in Kansas, including his father, former state Sen. George Haley. Doing so also meant celebrating a number of Wichitans, from former Sens. Curtis McClinton and U.L “Rip†Gooch (in photo) to current Sen. Donald Betts. “Since 1964, with the exception of two years fulfilling an unexpired term, a senator of color has represented part of Sedgwick County until this day, almost 45 years later,†Haley observed. And “the longest elected tenure of a black statesman to date,†he said, was that of Wichita’s Billy McCray, whose House and Senate service spanned 1967-84. Haley also noted that to win, every African-American elected in Kansas has relied upon votes of some white constituents. “To me, this underscores the character of Kansas and what Kansans really believe in: that it is more about what each person can bring to the Legislature and their content instead of their race and culture.â€
Sedgwick County plans to reveal soon which company bought naming rights to the new downtown arena.
Why stop there, though? The city needs to get a piece of the naming rights action.
My Friday column offers up some other branding opportunities, including the Days Inn Wichita Public Library, Weber Grill Keeper of the Plains, and Hooters Cowtown.
Bloggers, give me your own ideas for renaming possibilities.
Wichitans dismayed by how long it’s taking to make Kellogg a freeway can no longer feel better by pointing to Boston’s Big Dig.
Properly known as the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel Project, the Big Dig highway project, budgeted at $2.6 billion in 1982, finally will see active construction end on Dec. 31, at a cost of $14.8 billion, plus a corruption scandal and the life of one motorist. “It never should have taken so long. It never should have been so expensive,†said former Gov. Michael Dukakis.
Many would say the same about Kellogg construction, which was approved in 1990, was once expected to cost $156.6 million and remains unfinished. The current phase alone, from the Kansas Turnpike to just west of Armour, is expected to cost a little more than $150 million and be finished by the end of 2009, according to Mike Jacobs, special projects engineer for the city.What’s taking so long? “It’s really the funding stream to be able to pay for it. It’s not the construction or the design,†Jacobs told The Eagle editorial board. A local sales tax funds Kellogg construction, which also has benefited from state and federal money over the years.
Next up for design: the eastern stretch from Cypress to 127th Street East, just west of the K-96 interchange; the western portion another two miles out to 135th Street West. “I would hope to have those designs finished in about three years,†he said.
But there is no completion date or final price tag for Kellogg, which means more work zones and public investment ahead.
Many Wichitans have a love-hate relationship with downtown: They wish Wichita’s downtown offered more things to do, but also fewer parking tickets and traffic hassles. A healthy core means a healthy city, though — a view held by 86 percent of respondents to the Wichita Downtown Development Corp.’s latest survey, up 10 points in two years. Slowly but surely, the group’s surveys are showing that people in the community recognize the new life in downtown and realize there is more to come. One result that Sedgwick County officials can hope is reversible, if parking is addressed properly — that 42 percent said the downtown arena project was not good for the community.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Pat Salerno’s recent about-face — accepting Wichita’s offer for the city manager position, signing a contract and then pulling out at the last minute — clearly violates the ethical guidelines of the professional organization to which he belongs, the International City/County Management Association.
