Voice For Liberty

Author: Bob Weeks

  • Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer’s Message to Wichitans

    Here’s a message someone sent to me. It’s from Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer. It describes some of the ways that government grew in Wichita during 2008. It also promotes the mayor’s plan for greater centralized planning and control over Wichita’s future.

    All this government expansion leads to less prosperity, making the mayor’s wish for a prosperous new year ring hollow.

    Wichitans,

    We made 2008 a wonderful year. We made investments to help stabilize and secure out aviation industry. We maintained competitive and affordable airfares. We retained and attracted new jobs. We took first steps to improve our parks and recreations system with the adoption of the Parks, Recreation and Open Space (PROS) Plan. We were also honored when Old Town was named A Great Neighborhood in America. As we enter the new year, I want to thank you for your support in our successes.

    2009 provides another opportunity for us to partner to achieve greater successes. I believe it’s time to transform downtown Wichita. We need to start by connecting Old Town, the Intrust Bank Arena area and riverfront development such as the Wichita WaterWalk. That’s just the beginning.

    As we embark on the planning process, I need your input because downtown is everybody’s neighborhood and because public engagement is key to success. The interest you have shown in helping to forward my vision for a new and revitalized downtown sends a unified message that downtown is “our neighborhood”. I need you to continue to share that vision in the coming months.

    The Wichita City Council recently decided to form a steering committee charged with collecting input from citizens. Their feedback will be used to create the vision and the next steps to build a better downtown. That committee will be appointed in early 2009 and will, soon after, begin holding public meetings.

    Please stay engaged and keep me informed about your ideas for downtown. Here’s wishing you a prosperous new year.

    Mayor Carl Brewer

  • Jonah Goldberg to Speak at Kansas Summit

    Here’s a message from Alan Cobb of Americans For Prosperity.

    I’m pleased to announce that Jonah Goldberg, syndicated columnist of National Review Online and best selling author of Liberal Fascism will be joining us on January 10th in Wichita.

    Register today for Kansas’ second Defending the American Dream Summit, America’s foremost free-market voices, top experts on grassroots mobilization, and Kansas’ largest gathering of grassroots leaders from across the state in a massive show of force for our shared belief in lower taxes and more limited government.

    Registration is $39, and includes breakfast, lunch and admission to our general session of speakers.

    Confirmed Speakers Include:

    Jonah Goldberg, Syndicated columnist, National Review Online, author of Liberal Fascism

    Mike O’Neal, Kansas Speaker of the House

    Greg Schneider, Author of the newly published Conservative Century and Senior Fellow — Flint Hills Center for Public Policy

    Susan Wagle, State Senator, former Speaker Pro-tem of the Kansas House

    Professor Steven Ware, Author of Selection to the Kansas Supreme Court

    Dave Trabert, President, Flint Hills Center for Public Policy, reforming the Kansas property tax

    Chris Steineger, Kansas State Senator

    Click here to register for this event.

  • Wichita school bond contributors: self-interest gone wild

    The campaign finance report filed by Citizens Alliance for Responsible Education (CARE), reporting on the campaign in favor of the bond issue to benefit USD 259, the Wichita public school district, contains information that should be of interest to Wichitans. (To download and read the report, visit this article: Wichita School Bond Finance Report Omits a Big Contribution.)

    For example, Kenton Cox of Schaefer Johnson Cox Frey Architecture contributed $13,800 in cash to CARE, and that firm made an in-kind contribution of $15,380, reported by the Wichita Eagle to be donated signs.

    Why would an architecture firm have such an intense interest in Wichita public schools? Why would Kenton Cox be concerned, given that he doesn’t even live in USD 259? Here’s a possible answer: the minutes of the December 8 meeting of the board report that Schaefer Johnson Cox Frey Architecture was awarded a contract for plan management services for the bond issue. The value of this contract, as reported by the Wichita Eagle, is one percent of the value of the bond issue, or $3.7 million. This firm will undoubtedly earn millions more for those projects on which it serves as architect.

    Was this lucrative contract put up for bid? Was any other firm considered? Was there ever any doubt that Schaefer Johnson Cox Frey Architecture’s contributions to the bond issue campaign would be returned multiplied many-fold?

    (The board meeting minutes report that a summary of the agreement for plan management services is available in the appendix to the agenda. Just three weeks later, however, that material is no longer available on USD 259’s website. That’s a problem of a different kind with USD 259.)

    Then, what about all the other architect firms that contributed many thousands to the CARE campaign? Civic involvement or self-interest — hoping to be sent a few crumbs in the form of design contracts that Schaefer Johnson Cox Frey Architecture decides not to keep for itself?

    For the construction and engineering companies that contributed many thousands, the same questions apply.

    One analysis finds that 72% of the contributions, both in-kind and cash, was given by contractors, architects, engineering firms and others who directly stand to benefit from the new construction.

    Campaign finance reports for the groups that opposed the bond issue will show that real estate developers and owners contributed heavily to these campaigns. It’s likely that the Wichita Eagle — Rhonda Holman, probably — will editorialize about greedy developers, only wanting to increase their profits on the backs of schoolchildren.

    These developers, however, are looking out for two things: First, it’s really their tenants that pay the increased property taxes that the school bond will impose. Then, in turn, anyone who eats in these restaurants, or shops at these stores, or rents these apartments, will pay more. The misinformation that USD 259 and CARE spread — that the bond issue costs just a dollar a week for a typical homeowner — didn’t acknowledge these costs.

    Second, the property tax environment in Wichita and Kansas is such that development is discouraged. Some projects, as reported in the Wichita Eagle, have been canceled. What’s not seen by the news media and Wichitans are the projects that aren’t proposed or considered because of our high — and about to be made higher — property taxes. We’ll never see or hear about these.

    When considering who are the greedy and self-interested parties, look at the CARE campaign finance report and the education bureaucracy in charge of the Wichita public schools. Their names are there.

  • A reasoned look at wind power

    The Texas Public Policy Foundation has released a report titled Texas Wind Energy: Past, Present, and Future. It doesn’t have a catchy title, but the report is full of useful information about wind energy. Here’s a little bit from the executive summary:

    The distinction between wind and wind energy is critical. The wind itself is free, but wind energy is anything but. Cost estimates for wind-energy generation typically include only turbine construction and maintenance. Left out are many of wind energy’s costs—transmission, grid connection and management, and backup generation—that ultimately will be borne by Texas’ electric ratepayers. Direct subsidies, tax breaks, and increased production and ancillary costs associated with wind energy could cost Texas more than $4 billion per year and at least $60 billion through 2025.

    Wind, like every other energy resource, has its pros and cons, and there is no doubt that wind power should be part of Texas’ energy supply. Texas needs a variety of fuel sources, plus concerted efforts at conservation and efficiency, in order to meet its energy needs. However, wind energy should only be employed to the extent it passes economic cost-benefit muster. Instead of subsidizing private wind development and imposing billions of dollars in new transmission costs upon retail electric customers, Texas policymakers should step back and allow the energy marketplace to bring wind power online when the market is ready. Texas electricity consumers will reap the benefits of such a prudent path.

  • Attitudes towards global warming are changing

    Global warming alarmists — in this article Christopher Booker refers to them simply as “warmists” — have become “even shriller and more frantic” in light of evidence that climate change may not be proceeding they way they’ve been predicting.

    In his article in the Daily Telegraph (2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved), Booker makes these points:

    Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.

    First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare.

    Secondly, 2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a “scientific consensus” in favour of man-made global warming collapsed.

    Thirdly … All those grandiose projects for “emissions trading”, “carbon capture”, building tens of thousands more useless wind turbines, switching vast areas of farmland from producing food to “biofuels”, are being exposed as no more than enormously damaging and futile gestures, costing astronomic sums we no longer possess.

    In Kansas we’re considering taking very expensive actions to mitigate carbon emissions. (See coverage of Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group (KEEP), for example.) These actions, in the global scheme of things (and it’s not called “global warming” for nothing), are less than the proverbial drop in the bucket. At the same time, we delay doing things that we need, like the expansion of the Holcomb Station coal-fired electricity generating plant. Let’s hope that 2009 brings a reasoned and measured response to the hysteria generated by the “warmists.”

  • Wichita school bond finance report omits a big contribution

    Yesterday, Citizens Alliance for Responsible Education (CARE) filed their campaign finance report. This group was in favor of the bond issue to benefit USD 259, the Wichita public school district.

    There are some interesting details in this report, but there’s one glaring omission: there’s no mention of the campaign contribution made by the taxpayers of USD 259.

    The administration of USD 259 says they spent nothing on a campaign to pass the bond issue. They say what they did was merely an educational and informational campaign. But what USD 259 did had all the characteristics of a political campaign except the explicit appeal to vote “yes.” Anyone who saw the materials produced by USD 259 got the message loud and clear: vote yes for this bond.

    The assertion that USD 259 ran an educational and informational campaign is ridiculous. The campaign materials contained nothing that was negative or even neutral towards the bond issue. Is that because no such facts exist? Of course not. An honest informational campaign would have given consideration to them. But that’s not what the Wichita school district wanted to provide.

    Now I can understand architecture firms like Schaefer Johnson Cox Frey Architecture and construction companies making contributions to the bond issue campaign and not wanting negative or neutral information provided. These firms promoted the bond issue solely out of self-interest. They’ll design and construct buildings whether they’re useful or not.

    But schools — their mission being education instead of politics and self-interest — should be different. Schools should seek to teach the truth, and the only way to do that is to provide balance. That’s not what the Wichita school district provided the public during the bond issue campaign.

    We’ll probably never be able to learn how much USD 259 spent promoting the bond issue. In the future, when taxpayer-funded entities like USD 259 run informational campaigns, we’ll need a method for balanced information to get to the voters.

    Click here to download CARE’s campaign finance report.

  • Why don’t we have these in Wichita?

    Just 12 years later, economically disadvantaged students — defined as those eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches — in secondary charter schools are twice as likely to score at advanced or proficient levels on math and reading tests as their peers in traditional public schools, based on federally mandated national tests.

    Wow. That sounds like something we could use in Wichita. Charter schools, wherever they are allowed to exist, often produce results like those described above. Why?

    Autonomy is the linchpin of the charters’ success. Independence lets charters control their own academic programs, enabling them to respond quickly and effectively to the needs of their students. It allows schools to specialize in certain subjects and to hire teachers who will do the best job for the children. This freedom to innovate enabled charters to pioneer longer school days, weeks and years and to find new ways for parents to get involved.

    Charters schools are criticized by the existing education establishment because some fail. The difference between charters and regular public schools is that charter schools, when they fail, go out of existence. That doesn’t happen with regular public schools.

    Do we have charter schools in Wichita? No. There are very few in Kansas. Our state’s charter school law is so stacked in favor of the existing public school monopoly that it’s rare for anyone to attempt to form a charter school. The existing education bureaucracy doesn’t want them, and they can block their formation.

    Read The Key To Better Schools in the Washington Post for more.

  • Global warming rope-a-dope

    Walter Williams reports that the science behind global warming is not as solid as alarmists and zealots present it to be.

    The scientists, not environmental activists, include Ivar Giaever, Nobel Laureate in physics, who said, “I am a skeptic. … Global warming has become a new religion.” Kiminori Itoh, an environmental physical chemist, said warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history. … When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” … Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh, said, “Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly [from promoting warming fears], without having their professional careers ruined.”

    The problem is, as Williams says: “The global warming scare has provided a field day for politicians and others who wish to control our lives. After all, only the imagination limits the kind of laws and restrictions that can be written in the name of saving the planet.” And once laws are in place, Williams says, they’re very difficult to remove, no matter how strong the evidence is of their harm.

    Global warming alarmists pursue their agenda with zeal, and usually with no consideration as to the harmful effects of their policies. If uncontrovertible evidence that global warming is a mistake were to appear, would it make any difference to them? Of course not. Their crusade, which in reality is a thinly-disguised campaign against capitalism, would continue.

    For Dr. Williams’ column, see Global Warming Rope-a-Dope.

  • In public schools, incentives matter

    Last week (Wichita Public School District’s Path: Not Fruitful) I wrote about an article by Malcolm Gladwell. This article describes a method for evaluating and paying teachers. It’s not based on what public schools do now, which is to reward teachers solely on the basis of longevity and education credentials earned. That’s because we’ve found that these two measures don’t do anything to improve the effectiveness of teachers. “Test scores, graduate degrees, and certifications — as much as they appear related to teaching prowess — turn out to be about as useful in predicting success as having a quarterback throw footballs into a bunch of garbage cans.”

    Instead, Gladwell finds that personal characteristics and behavior of teachers matter highly. These are discovered and evaluated through observation of the teacher in the classroom, as Gladwell reports.

    Teachers, however, resist this type of evaluation. Teachers complain about arbitrary actions by administrators. They fear that they will be fired or disciplined in some way for speaking out or not going along with the system.

    The problem that employees of government have is that without competition provided by markets and the profit and loss system, administrators can be arbitrary in their actions. There’s nothing to prevent them from being so.

    In private enterprise, a firm must earn a profit. If it can’t earn profits, it will fail and go out of business. Private firms earn profits by pleasing customers. They provide products and services that customers value, and they provide them efficiently. To do this, they seek to employ the best people they can. If a firm hires less-qualified employees — say someone’s brother-in-law just because he’s a relative — they will probably not be as profitable. If activities like this go on long enough, the firm will probably go out of business, as it won’t be able to compete against firms with better-qualified employees.

    The public schools, however, don’t have customers in the same way that private firms do. Most customers of a school district like USD 259, the Wichita public school district, don’t have an alternative.

    Furthermore, public schools districts like USD 259 don’t have to earn a profit. Their revenue stream is guaranteed. Their customers are, too. So why should the managers of USD 259 care about the quality of their employees? They can hire anyone they want for any reason. And no matter how qualified and successful a teacher may be, that adds nothing to the “profitability” of USD 259. So what are the motives and incentives in place?

    To learn more about the evaluation system mentioned in Gladwell’s article, see Neither Art nor Accident: A Conversation with Robert Pianta.