Voice For Liberty

Tag: Wichita city government

  • Wichita Municipal Court judges should be elected

    At today’s meeting of the Wichita City Council, John Todd makes the case that Wichita Municipal Court judges should be elected by the people rather than appointed by the council. Before John spoke, there was some confusion on the bench as to whether public comment would be taken for this item.

    Before you appoint Municipal Court Judges today, I request that you give consideration to changing the City’s Charter Ordinance in a manner that would require the election of Wichita Municipal Court Judges by the Citizens of Wichita.

    During last spring’s municipal elections the issue of the election of Municipal Court Judges was brought up with no objection to it being raised by any of the candidates. And, the citizens I have visited with about this issue are very supportive of the election process that clearly provides for a clear-cut separation of powers between the legislative branch, the City Council, and the judicial branch, the Municipal Court.

    As you are probably aware, Municipal Court Judges have more power over citizens than most people know about. The court can levy hundreds of dollars in fines against citizens, and can send them to jail for up to one year, and surprisingly, there is no stenographic record of the court proceedings.

    The perception of a free and independent judiciary starting at the Municipal Court level is essential to providing citizens the assurance that they have a place where they can go to protect their rights and be assured they will receive the due process of law that they expect under our system of government.

    The election of Municipal Court judges by the people would certainly help insure the people that their judiciary is free and independent of the influences of the legislative and executive branches of city government.

    The election of Municipal Court Judges is the right thing to do. It returns control of the Municipal Courts to the people and makes the Judiciary branch of city government accountable to them. I ask you to initiate legislation today that would allow the citizens of Wichita to elect their Municipal Court Judges. I believe the election of Municipal Court judges is a process that can be achieved by Charter Ordinance under the City’s home rule powers.

  • ‘MyWichita’ a useful service

    The City of Wichita has a feature on its website that lets citizens receive timely and useful information by email, instead of requiring citizens to continually check the site for updates.

    Its name is “MyWichita.” It’s available as a link in the right-hand column of the city’s website, or you can go right to MyWichita by clicking on www.wichita.gov/mywichita.

    You can do a few things like pay your water bill or search and apply for city jobs. But for me — and I suspect for many interested and involved citizens — the best part is receiving timely information by email.

    You’ll need to create a MyWichita account, which is free and easy. Then, by clicking on “Receive daily updates sent right to your email,” you can select the types of information you’d like to be notified of.

    You can select to receive press releases, city council agendas and minutes, district advisory board agenda and minutes, agendas and minutes of other boards, and a variety of items.

    You don’t receive the actual items in your email. The email contains links to the items. That’s okay, as it’s really the notification that an item is available that is useful.

  • Wichita city council discusses economic development incentives

    Last week a Wichita company that’s expanding made an application for industrial revenue bonds and accompanying property tax abatements. The company’s application wasn’t timely, and for that reason is not likely to receive the requested help. The discussion surrounding the item provides insight into city council members’ ideas about the role of the city in economic development.

    Industrial revenue bonds, or IRBs, are not a loan from the city, and the city does not make any guarantee that the bonds will be repaid. The primary benefit to the recipient of IRBs is that the property purchased with the bonds will generally be exempt, in whole or in part, from property taxes for some period. Also, the company may not have to pay sales tax on the property purchased with the bonds.

    The agenda report for this item is at Request for Letter of Intent for Industrial Revenue Bonds, Michelle Becker, Inc. (District V).

    In introducing the item, the city’s economic development chief Allen Bell said that because the project has already started construction, it falls outside the guidelines for the city’s IRB program. The construction is 85% to 90% complete.

    A question by council member Sue Schlapp established that if the company had made application before the building was started, the application would have been approved as routine.

    She also asked that if we approve this action today, will we have to go back and look at other businesses that are in the same place? Wichita City Manager Bob Layton asked that the council establish guidelines that if a project has already started, a project is not eligible for this type of assistance.

    There was also some discussion about whether this company would move away from Wichita if the tax abatement was not granted. Since the building is already under construction, Bell said this is evidence that the company is intending to stay in Wichita. “It’s difficult to think of an incentive as something that’s given after the fact,” he said.

    A question by council member Paul Gray established that there have not been many cases where companies have asked for tax breaks retroactively, according to Bell’s answer. Bell also said that he didn’t think that approving the current application would spur an avalanche of similar requests.

    Gray also noted that we can create economic disparities between companies by granting incentives, so how do we justify doing this? Bell’s answer was that an important consideration is bringing business from out of state instead of taking business away from other local companies.

    Layton added that an important consideration is whether the project can more forward without public assistance.

    Council member Jeff Longwell remarked that “we really don’t have that many tools in our toolbox for emerging businesses.” Bell agreed.

    In later discussion, Longwell said “I hate to penalize this emerging company … I should have got them in on this process long before we did and we wouldn’t even be having this argument. So I suppose I am at fault in part of this delay.”

    Gray said that because we’re not competing against another community for this company — the normal use of incentives — he can’t support this application.

    Council member Janet Miller said that the appropriate time to look at incentives is, as the manager said, when we think a company can’t move forward without the incentive. She also noted that we’re being asked to approve an action for which we’re going to soon have a policy against.

    Schlapp, indicating a desire to approve the incentive, asked for justification: “We have a company here that doesn’t need an incentive but wants an incentive … can somebody justify that?”

    Longwell said it’s not as simple as a need and a want. He said the applicant is a smart, well-managed company. But we shouldn’t use the qualifier of helping only the companies that couldn’t succeed without the city’s help. “Why not reward some some of those companies that are very well managed and run smart and have the ability to grow even more with our help than without it?” Again he referred to the lack of tools for emerging businesses. “We ought to be helping these types of companies that we think can truly prosper even more with our help … I think they fully warrant our help because they’re successful …”

    Mayor Carl Brewer said that we have a proven track record of trying to help businesses and to get businesses to come to our area. He agreed with Longwell in that we need additional tools to use for economic development, as other communities have been competing successfully. We don’t have the same tools that other communities have, he said.

    Longwell suggested the city visit with the applicant about her financing. He made a motion to defer this item. Council member Williams asked about the impending completion of the project, since it’s scheduled to be completed at the end of December. The answer from the manager was that with regard to IRBs, the project would not be eligible after it’s complete. The motion passed with Council member and Vice-mayor Jim Skelton opposed.

    Analysis

    What’s striking about the discussion are these two things:

    First, many council members and some city staff believe that the city doesn’t have enough “tools in the toolbox” for shoveling incentives on companies for economic development purposes. Evidently the ability to grant exemptions from property taxation — and not only the city’s property tax levy, but also that of the county, school district, and state — along with the ability to make outright gifts of money is not enough.

    Second, many council members and some city staff believe that they can determine which companies are worthy of incentives.

    According to city manager Layton, the city is going to revisit its economic development policies soon. This would be a good time for Wichita to come up with ideas that would benefit all companies, not only those that fall within guidelines that the council or city staff creates. My suggestion, explained in Wichita universal tax exemption could propel growth, is to give all new capital investment a tax abatement for a period of five years.

    At the state level, there has been some discussion about the costs of tax abatements or exemptions. In a recent debate in Wichita, Kansas Secretary of Revenue Joan Wagnon used the term “tax expenditures” to describe these giveaways of the state’s income. The idea is that if the state (or other governmental body) didn’t create tax abatements or exemptions, revenue to the government would be higher. Her debate opponent Alan Cobb said it’s wrong to term these tax giveaways as “expenditures,” as the money belongs to the people first, a position I agree with.

    There is the related issue of these tax abatements or exemptions really being appropriations of money that, if processed through the normal process of legislative hearings, etc., would be noticed for what they are. In Wichita city government we don’t have hearings quite like the Kansas Legislature, but the idea is the same: if this company had asked for a grant from the city for $22,253 (that’s the value of the first year of the requested tax abatement, with a similar figure for the following nine years, less $2,500 a year to the city for administrative fees), citizens — news media too — would quite likely look at this matter differently. Presented as industrial revenue bonds — just what are those anyway? — and a tax abatement, well, it all seems so … so innocent, so municipal.

    A few more observations:

    Council member Jeff Longwell’s confession of being at fault for the lateness of this company’s application should be remembered by voters in the next election, should he decide to seek to retain his current post, or — as some have told me — he seeks the mayorship of the city.

    There’s also Longwell’s use of the term “reward,” in that the city should “reward some some of those companies that are very well managed and run smart.” I’d like to remind him and the rest of the council that the free enterprise system contains a very powerful reward mechanism for companies that do well: profit. That alone is sufficient.

    Coverage from the Wichita Eagle is at Wichita City Council puts off tax breaks for accounting firm.

  • Wichita Convention and Visitors Bureau should follow Kansas Open Records Act

    Remarks to be delivered to the December 1, 2009 meeting of the Wichita City Council.

    Mr. Mayor, members of the council,

    I’m recommending that the city not renew its contract with the Go Wichita Convention and Visitors Bureau until that organization decides to follow the Kansas Open Records Act.

    Recently I made a request under the provisions of the records act for records from the Bureau. This request was denied. The Bureau didn’t deny my request because of the nature of the records I asked for. Instead, the Bureau’s Chairman, Devin Hansen, has an understanding, he wrote, that the Bureau is not subject to the open records law.

    Here’s why the Convention and Visitors Bureau is a public agency subject to the Open Records Act. KSA 45-217 (f)(1) states: “‘Public agency’ means the state or any political or taxing subdivision of the state or any office, officer, agency or instrumentality thereof, or any other entity receiving or expending and supported in whole or in part by the public funds appropriated by the state or by public funds of any political or taxing subdivision of the state.”

    The Kansas Attorney General’s office offers additional guidance: “A public agency is the state or any political or taxing subdivision, or any office, officer, or agency thereof, or any other entity, receiving or expending and supported in whole or part by public funds. It is some office or agency that is connected with state or local government.”

    Let’s ask a few questions:

    Is the Convention and Visitors Bureau supported in whole or in part by tax funds? According to its 2008 annual report, 89% of its revenues came from the transient guest tax. We must answer “yes” to this question.

    Is the Convention and Visitors Bureau an office or agency connected with state or local government? Absolutely, in terms of both funding and function.

    There’s no rational or reasonable basis for the Bureau’s assertion that it is not a public agency subject to the Kansas Open Records Act.

    There are two other quasi-governmental organizations similarly situated, the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation and the Greater Wichita Economic Development Coalition. These two organizations have also refused to comply with the Kansas Open Records Act for the same reason as the Convention and Visitors Bureau. The WDDC, in particular, is relying on what I believe to be an incorrect interpretation of the law by city legal staff.

    Mr. Mayor and council members, look at the plain language of the Kansas Open Records Act, as I’ve explained. Look at the intent of the Kansas Legislature as embodied in the statute: “It is declared to be the public policy of the state that public records shall be open for inspection by any person unless otherwise provided by this act, and this act shall be liberally construed and applied to promote such policy.”

    The policy of the state is that records should be open. Governmental bodies shouldn’t be looking for reasons to avoid complying with the law, as has the City of Wichita and these three quasi-governmental organizations. Especially when the reasons the city legal staff has used are wrong, both in terms of the letter of the law and its intent.

    As a condition of renewing the city’s contract with the Convention and Visitors Bureau, I ask that this council instruct the Bureau to follow the Kansas Open Records Act.

  • Wichita MAPC meeting mix of policy, politically correct

    At yesterday’s meeting of the Wichita Metropolitan Area Planning Commission, a mix of politics and policy resulted in protection of a Wichita non-profit’s market, but at the loss of convenience to Wichitans.

    The issue is about 65 red clothing recycling bins operated by American Recyclers of Tulsa. These bins are in violation of Wichita city code, which states that bins like these — called curbside recycling — can’t be used for the recycling of clothing. They may be used for the recycling of other items.

    The firm’s attorney, Bob Kaplan, had asked that the Wichita ordinance be revised to remove the prohibition on accepting clothing. Overland Park allows curbside collection of clothing under certain conditions, and after approval of a site plan.

    In his testimony, Kaplan said that there are two reasons why there is opposition to the recycling bins. One is the proliferation of the bins. There are about 65 in Wichita. The second — and perhaps the primary reason — is that sometimes the bins become full and items are left outside the bins. Other people dump all sorts of trash and junk near the bins. But about one million pounds of clothing is picked up in the course of a year.

    Kaplan said that every box is visited by the recycling company once a day, seven days a week. All items left at the bins are picked up, even if they are not items that should have been left there. Also, the company quickly responds to calls if a problem is reported.

    The operator of a Wichita recycling center spoke to answer questions about his operation. The relevance of his testimony was not clear, but several members of the MAPC were interested in details of the operation of the recycling center, such as its hours of operation, and has it considered opening other locations in Wichita.

    Representatives of Goodwill Industries spoke, and it was at this time that the crux of this issue became clear: Since the introduction of the red bins, Goodwill has seen a drop in the volume of clothing items coming to its stores. He said that the prohibition on curbside recycling of clothing protects the standard of living in our community by preventing blight. He welcomed American Recyclers to come to Wichita and open a business in a building, as does Goodwill.

    MAPC member David Dennis asked questions regarding the number and locations of the Goodwill stores, the amount of investment, jobs, and wages. But the most important question Dennis asked was this: Where do the proceeds go — charity, or profit?

    John Todd, citizen, said that the applicant’s proposal offer choice to the consumer. Competition is good for business, and the consumer wins where there is choice and competition.

    Kaplan agreed, saying “competition is not a relevant factor” in the decision the MAPC has to make.

    A question by MAPC board member Mitch Mitchell highlighted the point that it is not the boxes themselves that are illegal. It is that they are used for the recycling of clothing that makes them in violation of Wichita city code.

    A motion was made and seconded that would have left the Wichita ordinance as it presently exists, meaning that the red bins would still be illegal. A substitute motion offered by Mitchell would have accepted Kaplan’s offer to work with city staff to include the provisions of the Overland Park ordinance so that there could be curbside recycling of clothing.

    City legal staff interjected that what was being asked — directing staff to initiate an amendment to the zoning code — was beyond the authority of individual applicants, but the commission could, still, ask for this.

    But no second to Mitchell’s was forthcoming, so the motion died. The original motion passed with only Mitchell voting against it.

    After the meeting, Kaplan would not comment of the future plans of his client. The red bins are likely to be removed, he said, to comply with the decision.

    Analysis

    The prohibition of curbside recycling of clothing is a curious anomaly in the city code. The type of bins in question are allowed for the recycling of other goods. I spoke with MAPC member Mitchell, and he said that no one in the city’s planning department can tell him why the prohibition on clothing was placed in the ordinance.

    The most troubling aspect of the MAPC’s consideration of this item is the nature of the questions asked by several board members. These questions were obviously designed to show that a non-profit organization like Goodwill Industries is superior to a profit-making business. This presumption that non-profits are more virtuous and desirable because of the absence of the profit motive is common, but unfounded. It’s an example of the bias — considered to be the politically correct stance in some quarters — against profit and business.

    This is especially troubling in the case of David Dennis, who, according to his biography, has worked for non-profit government institutions (primarily the military and Wichita public schools) for most of his career.

    The ability to earn a profit means that an organization is providing goods or services that are valued by people, and if the organization is able to stay in business, it means it is doing this efficiently. Profit is evidence that capital is being used effectively.

    Additionally, profit is the source of the ability to pay taxes. That allows institutions like the military and public schools to operate and institutions like Goodwill to exist without paying many of the taxes that businesses must pay.

    Would the members of the MAPC have been willing to ask for a change of city code if the red bins were operated by a charity? We don’t know, but making the type of policy decisions that were made today is not within the scope of the MAPC’s responsibility. Mitchell said it is difficult to work on these types of issues without considering and making policy.

    As it stands, Wichitans are about to be deprived of a convenient way to recycle clothing. The Wichita city council should consider revising city code to allow curbside recycling of clothing.

    An earlier report from KWCH is Red Bins Violate City Code. Its reporting on yesterday’s meeting is at Red Bins Illegal and Must Go.

  • Jeff Fluhr updates status of downtown Wichita

    Last Friday, Jeff Fluhr, president of the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation, addressed members and guests of the Wichita Pachyderm Club. His topic was the future of downtown Wichita and its revitalization.

    “It’s very important that we have a downtown that is very clear and very concise on where it wants to go,” he said. He likened the development of downtown to the planning of an automobile trip, so that we don’t make major investments that we later regret.

    The potential of increased private investment is an important goal for downtown. Predictability will help the private sector invest, he said.

    As to the importance of downtown, he said that is where the distinctive quality of a city is found — its history, cultural arts, and other institutions that represent the community. Tourism is another goal of a revitalized downtown Wichita, along with an improved perception in the global market as a great place to do business.

    Old Town is an example of success in Wichita, he said, an example of what can be done when people are creative and purposeful. He said that Wichita’s transit center, being located near the new Intrust Bank Arena, provides the potential to use mass transit.

    As to the economics of downtown Wichita redevelopment, he showed a chart, nearly a year old, that compares public and private investment in downtown over the past ten years. The two amounts are nearly equal to each other. Fluhr said that Goody Clancy, the firm hired to to plan the revitalization of downtown Wichita, has offered the opinion that the way Wichita has measured investment in downtown — using capital investment only — is not an accurate picture. We should also take into account companies that may have moved into the downtown area because of the improvements that have been made. What types of jobs have been created, and what is the spin-off from them?

    Addressing the WaterWalk project, he said that an important event took place last November, when people started moving in to the residential building. Now we see human activity in the development. The landscaping is being installed at this time.

    Along Douglas, Fluhr said that gaps in the buildings are a problem. We need to bring storefronts back to downtown. This creates an atmosphere of walkability, which helps to bring residential back to downtown, an important thing he said we must continue to work on.

    Mentioning the Q-Line, the free trolley bus service, Fluhr said that “we’ll literally have a couple thousand people that can be on this thing in a given night.”

    Besides downtown, Fluhr said that they’re also looking at “first-ring” neighborhoods, the areas that surround downtown. In response to a question, he said we need a healthy city throughout. The first-ring neighborhoods may provide housing that is more affordable than in downtown proper.

    Analysis

    In comparing the planning of downtown Wichita to a car trip, Fluhr made the same presumption that Wichita city council member Lavonta Williams made when she compared downtown planning to planning her lessons as a schoolteacher. The planning of even a small portion of a city is an immensely more complicated task. That these two figures make such comparisons leads me to believe that we don’t understand the monumental scope of the task we’ve decided to undertake.

    Regarding predictability being important to private sector investors: the planning process right now has created huge uncertainty as to the future of downtown. Who is likely to invest in downtown at this time, when so much is up in the air?

    Further, the potential use of eminent domain to take property creates uncertainty, too. This is why it is important for the city to swear off the use of eminent domain, and even the threat of its use.

    There’s also this concern I have about the predictability Fluhr said is needed for private investment to flourish: For the future to be certain, someone has to enforce the plans that have been made. All the methods that government has to enforce or encourage human behavior lead to loss of economic freedom: incentives, grants, tax abatements, subsidies, regulation, zoning, eminent domain, preferred treatment. All are contrary to economic freedom.

    It’s also troubling that now we’re going to be measuring the economic impact of public investment in a new way, using — if I can read between the lines a bit — things like “multipliers” and other economic development jargon and devices to exaggerate the impact of public investment. It’s important to remember that when left to their own devices, Wichitans have made investments that have produced tremendous economic impact with their own multiplier effects. These investments, however, have not always been made in the politically-favored downtown area. Instead, they’re been made where people wanted them to be made, so their economic impact, in terms of creating wealth and things that people really want, has been greater than if directed by government planners.

    As to the Q-Line claim of thousands of riders in a night, I hope Fluhr meant the potential capacity of the Q-Line system, as its actual ridership is much less and very expensive on a per-rider basis. See Wichita’s Q-Line an expensive ride for ridership numbers, which have been less than 1,500 per month.

    It’s impossible not to appreciate Mr. Fluhr’s enthusiasm for his work and his genuine concern and vision for the future of downtown Wichita. I’m concerned, however, that Fluhr and the downtown Wichita revitalization boosters — let’s call them the “planners” — have fallen victim to what Randal O’Toole and others call the design fallacy.

    O’Toole explains in his book The Best-Laid Plans: How Government Planning Harms Your Quality of Life, Your Pocketbook, and Your Future:

    These planners are guilty of believing the design fallacy, the notion that architectural design is a major determinant in shaping human behavior. While design does play a role at the margins of certain things — for example, certain patterns can make housing more vulnerable to crime — the effects that planners project are often highly exaggerated.

    Later O’Toole writes:

    The worst thing about having a vision is that it confers upon the visionary a moral absolutism: only highly prescriptive regulation can ensure that the vision overcomes an uncaring populace responding to a free market that planners do not really trust. But the more prescriptive the plan, the more likely it is that the plan will be wrong, and such errors will prove extremely costly for the city or region that tries to implement the plan. … Problems such as these stem from the design fallacy that is shared by so many planners and the architects who inspire them.

    Do the Wichita planners suffer from the design fallacy? Fluhr mentioned “engagement of the river” as he has in past talks. Referring to a conversion of an old school building into residential use, he used language like “a dynamic living space in a renovated school,” “each of the units is unique,” and “taking distinctive architecture to us and bringing it to new use.”

    Referring to our Carnegie Library, he said that its architecture is unique to Wichita, and wouldn’t be found in other cities. Projects like this, along with the Broadview Hotel and Union Station, should “remain in our fabric” as part of the “distinctive qualities that make us who we are.”

    This focus on the architecture of buildings in a city is characteristic of past talks by Fluhr. So yes, I believe that he and the planners are influenced by the design fallacy. It’s something we’ll have to watch out for as we proceed with the planning process.

  • Lord’s Diner debate focused on wrong issues

    At today’s meeting of the Wichita City Council, an item no longer on the agenda still caused some controversy.

    The Lord’s Diner, a charitable organization, had proposed buying a city-owned building at 21st and Grove and making a second site for their effort to feed Wichita’s poor.

    Opposition from community groups, however, drove the Lord’s Diner to withdraw its plans.

    In today’s meeting, council members Sue Schlapp and Paul Gray spoke in favor of the Lord’s Diner’s plans on the basis of its charitable and humanitarian activity.

    Council member Lavonta Williams, who represents the district where the proposed site exists, responded without mentioning the community’s real objection to the plan: they don’t want the type of people the Lord’s Diner serves congregating in the vicinity of the proposed location.

    Mayor Carl Brewer spoke of how this has been a complicated issue. Council members must do the right thing, he said, which may not be the same as what the community wants. He said he recognizes the need to feed everyone, and there are people all over town that need help: “These are people who cannot help themselves.”

    He said that people in key leadership positions said things that were “very bitter, very venomous,” and that citizens should “charge it to the mind and not the heart,” adding that “some people take desperate measures to be able to get what they want.” He asked that citizens not judge an entire community by the actions of a few.

    The mayor said he sees an opportunity, and he urged everyone to work together.

    What hasn’t been mentioned in the debate over this matter is that the proposal by the Lord’s Diner is a lawful use of the property. If we want to have a system that respects private property rights, that’s the only thing that matters.

    Wichita Eagle reporting is at City takes Lord’s Diner proposal off table after diner pulls its offer. An informative blog post by Brent Wistrom is at Council members vent as Lord’s Diner plan sinks.

  • Kelo abandonment holds lesson for Wichita

    In New London, Connecticut, developers wanted to build a new business complex on land owned by a number of homeowners, including Suzette Kelo. She didn’t want to sell, and the case eventually wound its way to the United States Supreme Court. In the decision, the court ruled in favor of the ability of cities to use eminent domain to take property from one party and give to another private party for economic development.

    Locally, at least one Wichita bureaucrat was relieved. According to Wichita Eagle reporting:

    City economic development director Allen Bell lauded the Supreme Court decision.

    “I’m relieved to know that we’ll continue to have an important tool for implementing economic development and urban redevelopment projects here in Wichita,” Bell said. “But this is a tool we do not use lightly. The city of Wichita has never sought to use eminent domain except in very rare cases when there is no alternative to keep a project alive and further the overall needs of the city.”

    So what has happened in New London? Nothing. In fact, worse than nothing, as the planned development has been abandoned. Paul Jacob of the Citizens on Charge Foundation gives an excellent wrap-up of the situation in The politics of government usurpation, post-Kelo.

    Eminent domain was used to assemble the property where the WaterWalk development stands in downtown Wichita. This development is emblematic of the failures of public-private partnerships. Is its failure the result of its foundation built on eminent domain?

    As Wichita prepares its plans for downtown revitalization, freedom-loving citizens need to insist that the city forgo the use of eminent domain, especially the threat of its use. On its face, it appears that Kansas has a strong law prohibiting the type of eminent domain takings that the Supreme Court authorized in the Kelo decision. Kansas law says that the legislature must pass a law allowing the use of eminent domain on a specific parcel of property, if the purpose is to give it to another private party.

    But it is the threat of the use of eminent domain that remains the real problem. We can easily imagine a scenario where the City of Wichita decides it needs a parcel of property for some public-private use. Mayor Carl Brewer may make the case that the property is needed so that Wichita can create hundreds, perhaps thousands of jobs. The economic future of our city hangs in the balance, he’ll say. Dale Goter, Wichita Governmental Relations Manager, will make the case to legislators that Wichita really needs the property. By the way, legislator from Overland Park, won’t your city also want to use eminent domain someday?

    The poor property owner, who in the past would have been faced with a small battle in the Kansas district court, now has to lobby the entire Kansas legislature to protect his property.

    This is why it is important for Wichitans to insist the the plans for downtown Wichita revitalization specifically state that eminent domain — not even its threat — will be used.

    This summer I traveled to Anaheim, California to learn about a redevelopment district where the city decided not to use eminent domain. The article Anaheim’s mayor wrote about this planning effort is titled “Development Without Eminent Domain: Foundation of Freedom Inspires Urban Growth.” It’s very informative.

  • In Central-Northeast Wichita, government is cause of problem, not solution

    From the November 2007 archives. Since then, the Wichita schools have a new superintendent, and Kansas has raised its minimum wage.

    An article in The Wichita Eagle “Plan offers hope for city’s troubled heart” (November 14, 2007) reports on the development of a plan named New Communities Initiative, its goal being the revitalizing of a depressed neighborhood in Wichita. The saddest thing in this article is the realization that there is consideration of a plan for large-scale government intervention to solve problems that are, to a large extent, caused by government itself.

    The article laments low high school graduation rates and the low proficiency in math and reading. We should make sure we remember that almost all these children have gone to public schools, that is, schools owned and run by government. Plans to improve public schools almost always call for more spending. While education bureaucrats do not like to admit this, spending on government schools in Kansas has been increasing rapidly in recent years. The results of these huge spending increases are just being learned, but it is unlikely that it will produce the dramatic results that are needed.

    There is a simple solution to improving schools that won’t cost more than what is already spent, and should cost even less: school choice. In parts of our country where there is school choice through vouchers — or better, through tax credits — it is low-income parents who are most appreciative of the chance for their children to escape the terrible public schools. Further, there is persuasive evidence that when faced with viable competition, the public schools themselves improve.

    In Kansas, however, there is little hope that meaningful school choice will be implemented soon. Although Winston Brooks, superintendent of Wichita schools, says he is open to competition and accountability, it is a false bravado. The political climate in Kansas is such that it is nearly impossible to get even a charter school application approved, much less any form of school choice with real teeth. (See What’s the Matter With Kansas, January 3, 2007 Wall Street Journal.) As the government schools consume increasing resources, parents find it even harder to pay taxes and private school tuition. So the government schools, responsible for graduates who can’t read and calculate, extend their monopoly.

    A continual problem in depressed areas of cities is low employment. Government again contributes to this problem by creating barriers to employment, most prominently through the minimum wage law. People have jobs because their employers value the work the employees perform more than what they pay them in wages and benefits. When government says you must pay a higher wage than what the potential employees can contribute through their labors, these low-productivity workers won’t be hired. As the minimum wage rises, which it is on the federal level, it becomes even more difficult for the least productive workers to find jobs.

    The reason that some young people find it difficult to get jobs is that they don’t have the education, training, or experience to be very productive at a job. While no one likes to work for only, say $3 or $4 per hour, working for that wage is preferable to being unemployed when the minimum wage is $6 per hour. While working for $4 per hour the worker gains experience at a specific job, and experience at holding any job in general. Soon, as workers become more productive, their wages will rise. Sitting on the sidelines not working or wasting time in a government job-training program does the workers no good.

    The article mentions the plight of children whose parents are in prison. More generally, this neighborhood is plagued by crime and gangs. While I do not know the proportion of these people that are in prison for crimes related to drugs, it most surely is high. Gangs exist almost solely because of the trade in illegal drugs. The government’s prohibition of drugs, then, plays a huge role in the problem of crime.

    The solution is to legalize drugs. Legalize all drugs, without exception. This should not be interpreted as an endorsement of drug use, as drug abuse is a serious health problem for many people. The health problems that drug abuse causes might even increase after legalization. But the crime problem would cease to exist. No longer would people be in prison simply because they are drug addicts. With legalization, the price of drugs would rapidly decline to perhaps the cost of a pack of cigarettes or a few cocktails each day. No longer would drug addicts have to raise several hundred dollars per day through crime. No longer would gangs find selling drugs profitable, and gangs would likely disappear, or at least move on to other endeavors. Do the owners of liquor stores shoot each other over turf wars, and do their customers engage in crime each day to pay for their fix of cheap alcohol?

    The alternative to legalization of drugs is more law enforcement aimed at decreasing the supply of illegal drugs. This government action, if successful, has this consequence: by reducing the supply of drugs, it increases their price, thereby making it even more lucrative to deal in illegal drugs.

    Then there is the government’s war on poverty. The economist Walter Williams recently wrote this:

    Since President Johnson’s War on Poverty, controlling for inflation, the nation has spent $9 trillion on about 80 anti-poverty programs. To put that figure in perspective, last year’s U.S. GDP was $11 trillion; $9 trillion exceeds the GDP of any nation except the U.S. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita uncovered the result of the War on Poverty — dependency and self-destructive behavior.

    In the same article:

    There’s one segment of the black population that suffers only a 9.9 percent poverty rate, and only 13.7 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. There’s another segment that suffers a 39.5 percent poverty rate, and 58.1 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. Among whites, one segment suffers a 6 percent poverty rate, and only 9.9 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. The other segment suffers a 26.4 percent poverty rate, and 52 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. What do you think distinguishes the high and low poverty populations among blacks? … The only distinction between both the black and white populations is marriage — lower poverty in married-couple families.

    In 1960, only 28 percent of black females ages 15 to 44 were never married and illegitimacy among blacks was 22 percent. Today, the never-married rate is 56 percent and illegitimacy stands at 70 percent. If today’s black family structure were what it was in 1960, the overall black poverty rate would be in or near single digits. The weakening of the black family structure, and its devastating consequences, have nothing to do with the history of slavery or racial discrimination.

    Williams and Thomas Sowell, who have studied the issue extensively, conclude that it is government anti-poverty programs that are the cause of a permanent underclass. These programs should be canceled.

    We see that government — through its poor schools, the raising of barriers to employment through minimum wage laws, the prohibition of drugs, and the culture of dependency and family disintegration supported by welfare — has been a contributing factor, probably the most important factor, in the decline of this neighborhood. It is foolhardy to believe that more government programs can reverse the damage already done by past and present government programs. While I’m sure that the intent of the New Communities Initiative and its coordinating members is noble, the reality is that government intervention is dangerous to the future of Wichita and to this neighborhood.