Category: Wichita city government
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Ken-Mar TIF district, the bailouts
Circumstances surrounding the Ken-Mar shopping center in northeast Wichita illustrate how inappropriate it is for the city to serve as either entrepreneur or partner with entrepreneurs, and is another lesson in how Wichita needs pay-to-play laws.
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Wichita City Council campaign contributions and Douglas Place/Ambassador Hotel
Making contributions to candidates for political office is part of the American political process. But for the Wichita City Council, we see a troubling trend of contributions made by people who also ask the council for money.
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At Wichita City Council, facts are in dispute
Some Wichita City Council members, including Mayor Carl Brewer, criticize citizens for their use of inaccurate and misleading information. So how do the statements made by council members fare when subjected to scrutiny?
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The resolve of the Wichita City Council
Despite her assessment of the will of the people of Wichita, The Wichita Eagle’s Rhonda Holman encourages the Wichita City Council to stick to its guns and do the opposite.
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Citizen activists launch protest petition in response to Wichita City Council vote on hotel development
Despite hearing from numerous local residents speaking in opposition to the project yesterday, the Wichita City Council approved a number of public incentives for a hotel development in downtown Wichita. In response, the Wichita chapter of the grassroots group Americans for Prosperity plans to work to overturn part of the incentive package.
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In Wichita, private tax policy on the rise
In a free society with a limited government, taxation should be restricted to being a way for government to raise funds to pay for services that all people benefit from. But in the city of Wichita, private tax policy is overtaking our city.
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In Wichita, how tax increment financing can channel tax money
The flow of tax dollars Wichita city leaders have planned for Douglas Place, a proposed hotel in Wichita, creates a mechanism where taxpayer funds are routed to a politically-connected construction firm. And unlike the real world, where developers have an incentive to build economically, the city has created incentives for Douglas Place developers to spend…
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Wichita’s high tax hotels
Community improvement district, or CID, taxes are often targeted at visitors to Wichita, and harm our city’s reputation.
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Real Development’s troubles should be red flag for Wichita
Recent new stories that a prominent Wichita office building developed and owned by Real Development suffers from severe problems should cause the City of Wichita to halt any new partnerships being considered with the company, and to seek to remove itself from agreements that exist.
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Our Downtown Wichita launched
As part of an effort to provide information about the Douglas Place project, a proposed renovation of a downtown Wichita office building into a hotel, Americans for Prosperity, Kansas has created a website. The site’s motto is “Limited government and free markets in Downtown Wichita benefit everyone. Centralized planning and crony capitalism benefit only a…
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For Wichita’s Project Downtown, goal keeps slipping
In selling a plan for the revitalization of downtown Wichita, promoters started with a promise of much private investment for just a little public investment. But as the plan proceeded, the goal kept slipping, and the first project to be approved under the final plan will probably not come close to meeting even the modest…
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In Wichita, historic preservation tax credits an inefficient form of developer welfare
As part of the subsidy plan for Douglas Place, a downtown Wichita hotel being proposed, developers plan to make extensive use of historic preservation tax credits to fund their project. This form of developer welfare, besides being inefficient, is largely hidden from public view.