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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 is named Our Downtown Wichita, and it's located at dtwichita.com. Many people, myself included, feel that this project -- with its multiple layers of taxpayer subsidy -- represents crony capitalism at its pinnacle. It's also the first project to come through Wichita's Project Downtown evaluation process, which represents new advances in centralized government planning in Wichita. As the site's motto says: "Limited government and free markets in Downtown Wichita benefit everyone. Centralized planning and crony capitalism benefit only a few." The Our Downtown Wichita site contains information about the many forms of public subsidy that…
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No-bid contracts still passed by Wichita city council

Despite a policy change, the Wichita city council still votes for no-bid contracts paid for with taxpayer funds. In the current campaign for Wichita mayor, one candidates says he never has voted for no-bid contracts: "[Longwell] also takes issue with the claim he has ever voted for any no-bid contract, something he says his voting record will back up. 'That's the beauty of having a voting record,' he says." Mayoral candidate Williams decries ‘crony capitalism’ of critics, Wichita Business Journal, March 12, 2015 We don't have to look very hard to find an example that contradicts Longwell's claim of never voting for a no-bid contract. Minutes from the August 9, 2011 meeting of the city council show that there was discussion about the no-bid contract for the garage benefiting the…
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