Commissioner’s questions halt county’s plan to remove trees on private land

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Good job, Sedgwick County Commissioner Richard Ranzau. It’s always good to put the kibosh on unneeded government spending.

At stake was about $47,000, just less than the annual median household income in Sedgwick County.

County Manager William Buchanan had signed off on spending $46,685 to clear out trees on private property along Central Avenue from the entrance of housing development St. Andrew’s Place east to 143rd Street. Work was to start next week.

But questioning by County Commissioner Richard Ranzau put the kibosh on the project, and the Minneha Township now will have to pay the tab if it wants the trees gone.

“We got out in front of ourselves without doing much critical thinking, and I take full responsibility for that,” Buchanan said.

Continue reading at the Wichita Eagle.

Readers may remember my op-ed in that same newspaper from 2009:

Last year a political science professor who is a keen observer of Kansas politics told me that city or county managers shouldn’t be in their jobs more than four or five years. After that, he said, they gain too much power.

If managers are to serve their councils or commissions — instead of the other way around — sometimes a change needs to be made, just for the sake of change.

This alone is enough reason for change in the Sedgwick County manager’s office after 18 years of County Manager William Buchanan.

Continue reading this at Commission has cause to want a new manager.

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