Voice For Liberty

Tag: Wichita city government

  • Wichita press release mislabels Wichita Downtown Development Corporation

    After selecting a firm to assist with the planning for the revitalization of downtown Wichita, the city issued a press release that contains a mischaracterization of a Wichita institution.

    The press release reads “The City of Wichita has committed $225,000 for a downtown comprehensive strategic plan. The private sector has contributed $275,000, including $175,000 from Wichita Downtown Development Corporation and $100,000 from businesses, organizations and individuals.” (emphasis added)

    Here, the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation is classified as part of the private sector. It’s hard to see how this characterization makes any sense.

    The WDDC is organized as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit corporation. But unlike most non-profits — which rely on voluntary contributions from those who support their causes — the WDDC is almost totally funded by a governmental body, the City of Wichita.

    In fact, nearly all the WDDC’s revenue comes from taxation. According to its IRS form 990 for 2008, the WDDC received $610,214 from its public improvement district, in the form of property taxes paid by downtown property owners. According to the form, this represents 98.320% of the WDDC’s revenue.

    So is the WDDC part of the “private sector?” Of course not. It is funded almost totally by government taxation. The City of Wichita calling WDDC “private sector” is like saying the Wichita public school district is private sector.

    You can’t blame the city for trying this sleight of hand. One of the big buzzwords we’re going to hear as part of the coming centralized government plan for downtown is the “public-private partnership.” We can expect the city to do everything it can to pump up the appearance of private sector buy-in to the planning process. This misleading characterization of the WDDC, I suspect, is just the start.

  • Wichita planning firm hopefuls make pitch

    This past Tuesday and Wednesday, the four planning firms that were selected as finalists for the master plan for the revitalization of downtown Wichita made their public presentations. I was able to attend three of the presentations.

    In his opening remarks to the Tuesday session, Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer said that tonight is an important night for our community. He said that the revitalization effort is about more than just downtown, but about all of us. “Downtown is our front porch.” We must come together as a community in this effort.

    Studies of other cities, he said, show that downtown revitalization leads to more jobs, tourism, increased property values, and increased satisfaction and pride in our city.

    “Feet on the street,” the mayor said, means that everything people want can be provided in a walkable area.

    The planning firms and their representatives are all immensely confident in their capabilities and proud of their past achievements. Most use grand language — “dynamic,” “bold plan, “innovative,” “forward-looking.”

    Community engagement is important, all firms said. So is the public-private partnership. Leveraging public investment with private investment was always mentioned.

    Transit — including public transit — was emphasized by the firms. One firm promoted “bicycle-oriented development.” In a nod to the green revolution — whether that’s a good idea or not — “sustainability” was often mentioned, with one firm having an expert in just that on its panel of presenters.

    There was actually some distinction between the presenting forms. One makes use of a charrette, which is a period of intense design activity. Another firm said it doesn’t use this practice.

    For one firm, the presenter said that the firm had been in Wichita for three months gathering information and meeting with Wichitans.

    The presentations and the printed proposals are full of grand and attractive images of the firms’ projects in other cities. One firm, in its presentation, showed several images of parts of downtown Wichita where there was a vacant lot or other empty space. Then, said the presenter, imagine if it looked like this! And the empty space would be filled in with attractive buildings of immense size and scale.

    Sometimes the presenters said things that made me wonder about their actual knowledge of Wichita. One said that because Wichita has such a stable economy, it is attractive to outside investors. While it’s true that our housing market has been relatively stable — we never had the huge run-up in prices and then a crash — it a common compliant that Wichita is too dependent on aviation, and that we need to diversify our local economy.

    Another presenter, and I am not kidding, praised the WaterWalk development as an example of a Wichita success. I also learned that we must prepare — at least according to one firm — for the return of passenger rail service to Wichita.

    I was surprised that most of the planning firms used a variety of experts in different fields — economics and economic development, transit, planning, architecture, sustainability, civil engineering, traffic, and transit are some of the examples. One firm had partnered with local experts.

    Each firm presented for about an hour, with time for just a few questions from the selection committee.

    Going forward, the selection committee will select one firm to recommend to the Wichita city council. The target date for this is tomorrow. Then, it’s thought that on October 13 the city council will make the selection — or maybe choose none of the firms.

    Since the city council has the final say, I was surprised that only council member Lavonta Williams attended, besides, of course, Mayor Brewer.

    After the steering committee makes its recommendation, I plan to examine that firm’s proposal more closely. We also need to take a look at the results of their previous projects. For example, were they financed through tax increment financing (TIF) districts, and how are those districts performing? What other type of public subsidy was necessary to make the projects work (or not)? Was eminent domain used to transfer property from one person to another, just because the new owner would pay more in taxes? If there was rezoning, was it done with overlays that respected existing property use rights?

    These are some of the questions that we’ll want to get answers to. These are the important things I learned about during my trip to Anaheim’s Platinum Triangle development. Will Wichita pursue a freedom-friendly planning process as used there?

    In addition, we need to decide whether we want to plan at all, at least in the comprehensive way that the planning firms are promoting. A book I recently read, The Best-Laid Plans: How Government Planning Harms Your Quality of Life, Your Pocketbook, and Your Future, presents evidence of the harm that centralized government planning causes. Listening to the presentations, I recognized the firms were planning to use many of the dangerous practices and beliefs mentioned in this book.

  • DeBoer plan for Wichita downtown redevelopment largely realized

    The following is a lightly edited version of an insightful comment left on this site by an unknown writer, the “Wichitator.” Since many readers don’t read comments, I’ve promoted this to a post.

    Hundreds of millions have already been spent for downtown redevelopment and what do we have to show for it? In contrast, look at the benign neglect the city has had on the thriving east and west sides of town where projects on Maize and Webb roads have prospered despite heavy property taxes.

    Over 20 years ago the current downtown developer of the languishing East Bank (WaterWalk) project, Jack DeBoer, provided his vision for revitalizing downtown. There was a lot of public discussion about DeBoer’s proposal including front page Wichita Eagle articles at that time. No one in the local news media wants to talk about this now apparently.

    Ironically enough, at that time, DeBoer’s plan did not include the struggling East Bank (Waterwalk) project that he is currently involved in. DeBoer’s vision of downtown projects were largely implemented by taxpayers over time.

    The largest and most expensive of these projects will be the Intrust Arena with its $200+ million price tag. The only one that has been partially rejected was turning the Keeper of the Plains into a 500 foot community version of a Seattle Sky Needle that one might argue was at least partially implemented when this statue was placed on a much higher pedestal at a more prominent point where the two rivers meet at high cost to city taxpayers.

    Lesser downtown projects that were part of DeBoer’s plan and were a lot less expensive than the new arena, were completed years ago. This public infrastructure is now in place at a very expensive cost to taxpayers of the past few decades. Another example, Exploration Place, still has years before its mortgage will be paid off, I believe.

    Where has been the return for this community? It is invisible to this taxpayer. Look at the downtown taxing district. It takes in about the same level of property tax revenues as it has always received. It is clear that there is no private sector growth downtown. So tax revenues are stagnant. This publicly funded but privately selected downtown board operates with almost no media oversight. There is some taxpayer subsidized remodeling going on but outside of that, I can only think of the Garvey Center where significant private funds are being spent on a partial remodel of their downtown property.

    The philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Since the downtown development plans are NOT being made public it looks like we’ll soon have another, 21st century version of the 1980s DeBoer plan that the taxpayers in our community will be expected to fund. In Washington, nothing fails like excess (see GSE’s Fannie & Freddie) and in Wichita we are trying to follow in our federal masters’ footsteps. Since local government can’t print money like the political fools in Washington can through the Federal Reserve Bank, the fiscal chickens will come home to roost a lot more quickly here. Mr. Weeks is right in trying to see the details of these proposals. If we did, the price tag would probably take our collective breaths away. The downtown development folks who want to be the 21st century reincarnation of Mr. DeBoer are just as right in wanting to keep this information hidden.

  • Downtown Wichita presentations: what’s the point?

    As part of its effort to revitalize downtown Wichita, the city wants to hire a planning firm. Four firms have been selected as finalists. Tuesday and Wednesday, (September 22 and 23), the firms will make public presentations as part of the selection process.

    I had thought that it would be great if the public would be involved in this selection process. To that end I asked — first informally, then under the provisions of the Kansas Open Records Act — for copies of the proposals submitted by the finalist firms. My requests were denied. (See Downtown Wichita proposals not available to citizens)

    In the end, the fact that the city won’t let citizens see the proposals probably doesn’t matter. At this week’s planning meetings, citizens will not be allowed to ask questions. There will be a city council meeting where the council will make a decision, and citizens will have an opportunity to provide input at that time. But without detailed knowledge of the proposals, how can citizens ask questions?

    Citizens need to realize that city government and downtown leaders are just not interested in their input in this matter.

    There are a few citizens, though, who do have these proposals. If you’re a member of a select committee, you can have them. Government shouldn’t be allowed to pick and choose which select citizens are allowed to see how their tax dollars are to be used.

    The fact that the city doesn’t want to let citizens — except those in a limited circle of downtown boosters — view these proposals and participate in the planning firm selection process is disturbing. It follows a pattern of stacking committees with people friendly to the desired goal, with no desire for dissent to be heard. It’s a public relations disaster for the City of Wichita.

  • Wichita city council: more travel on tap

    At tomorrow’s meeting of the Wichita City Council, approval of more travel is on the agenda.

    Tomorrow’s agenda item is this: “Approval of travel expenses for Mayor Brewer, Council Member Schlapp, Council Member Gray, and Council Member Williams to attend the NLC Congress of Cities in San Antonio, Texas, November 10-15, 2009.” This is all the information that is available.

    The reaction of citizens to council member Janet Miller’s junketeering to France has been overwhelmingly against this type of wasteful travel. Now we have four members of the council traveling for five days to a National League of Cities event.

    What is the value of this conference? Citizens might be excused for assuming that an organization with such a lofty name acts only in the interest of citizens. In reality, the NLC is a special interest group, and its interests are not always in line with citizen concerns. For example, this position paper outlines its stance on the use of eminent domain for economic development. It’s a position, as you can imagine, in favor of cities’ rights to take property for economic development.

  • Janet Miller’s junket follow-up

    At Tuesday’s meeting of the Wichita City Council, I asked a question about council member Janet Miller and her travel and got a bigger response — from the mayor, the Wichita Eagle and other news media, and the public — than I expected. Some issues are still unresolved, however.

    First, I was surprised that this matter was reported on so prominently by the Wichita Eagle, as it turned into a front page story. It involves, as I noted in my testimony to the Wichita City Council, a relatively small amount of money. Furthermore, it wasn’t the most important matter I testified about that day. The secrecy surrounding the downtown redevelopment proposals is, I believe, a more important issue, as are things like TIF districts, special assessment financing, and other issues I’ve brought up before the council.

    But those matters are more difficult to comprehend. Junkets are easy to understand.

    Second: the behavior of council member Miller is an issue that citizens need to know about. The approval of this travel appeared on the August 18 city council agenda. I wrote to Miller on August 15, asking for the cost of the trip. Over the next several weeks, I left several telephone messages and sent at least one other email message. It was Van Williams, the city’s public information office, who promptly responded to my requests and supplied me with the figures.

    Miller didn’t respond to my inquiries until I received an email message at 8:11 the morning of the council meeting. And you know what? There are some mitigating factors, such as the host organizations providing many meals and covering other expenses.

    So why didn’t Miller respond to my requests earlier? I don’t live in her district, so maybe that’s a reason why. I endorsed her opponent earlier this year, so maybe that’s why.

    A more cynical explanation that has been suggested to me is this: She wanted me to make my case in public, and then let Mayor Carl Brewer tell me all the ways I’m wrong — using information that I asked for, but was not given (at least not until right before the meeting). This strategy — if in fact it was used here — has been used against myself and other activists by a variety of governmental bodies.

    Another observation is the bizarre analogy the mayor used, that one doesn’t get a divorce to save money just because a marriage is having trouble. Besides not making sense on any level, the mayor made these remarks as he was sitting next to Vice-Mayor Jim Skelton, who is in the process of divorce. As the mayor spoke about this, Skelton expressed astonishment. Eventually the mayor looked at Skelton and smiled. I made a motion towards my microphone, wanting to ask why he was looking at the vice-mayor. But as the mayor reminded me, he had given me my time to speak, and I could not speak again.

    (I might remind the mayor that he is not a benevolent dictator who “gives” time to citizens to speak. City statute does that. He doesn’t have a choice or say in the matter.)

    There are still some questions to be asked:

    First, why is the city paying some expenses for Kelly Harper, president of the Wichita Sister Cities? The mayor forgot to address this.

    Second, why isn’t the mayor — instead of Miller — attending the International Cities Conference?

    Third: The mayor said that these conferences are important for the city’s economic development. If so, why are we sending the most junior council member, in office for just five months, on such an allegedly important mission?

    Finally, the most important question I asked was not addressed at all by the mayor: why can’t citizens see the downtown redevelopment proposals? Vice-Mayor Skelton intervened on my behalf, but was not successful.

    (In the video below, I didn’t include Vice-Mayor Skelton’s brief remarks due to YouTube’s ten minute length limitation.)

  • Wichita’s redevelopment role model needs scrutiny

    Power and Light District Kansas City 2009-09-16 35Kansas City Power & Light District

    On the City of Wichita’s cable channel 7, Kansas City’s Power & Light District is presented as a model for the revitalization of downtown Wichita. Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer sees this district as Wichita’s competition.

    So yesterday I went to take a look for myself. And I agree with the mayor. It’s a neat place. It’s huge. It would be great if Wichita had something like it.

    But there are problems surfacing already. Although I haven’t yet done extensive research, it appears that the troubles stem from the public/private partnership nature of the district.

    One problem is the tax increment financing district, or TIF district, that underlies the district. It appears to be underperforming: “The biggest project, the Kansas City Power & Light District, will cost the city more than $4 million because there wasn’t sufficient economic activity to cover TIF bond payments.” (TIF bonds take a bite out of KC’s skinny budget, Kansas City Business Journal, February 9, 2009)

    In Wichita, when we have underperforming TIF districts, we might make an interest-free loan to solve the problem.

    The district and Jackson County are squabbling over the taxable value of this property, too. And it’s not a small disagreement — the owners and the county disagree by a huge amount:

    The developer of the Kansas City Power & Light District refers to the project on its Web site as an $850 million project.

    Yet The Cordish Co. claims in a lawsuit and to county officials that the project’s value — at least its appraised valuation — should be $12.3 million when the project is complete.

    That valuation, which equates to an average of about $24 a square foot, is a far cry from Jackson County’s appraised value of $160 million, roughly $270 a square foot, which is what county officials say the district is worth for 2009. (Power & Light District developer seeks bargain-basement valuation, Kansas City Business Journal, January 16, 2009)

    The developer of the district seems to have a few issues, too, writes a Kansas City Star columnist: “Cordish Co. CEO David Cordish comes across as a petulant, greedy, uninformed developer in his e-mail rantings to KC Mayor Mark Funkhouser.”

    In Wichita and across the country, public/private partnerships have a mixed record. We’ll want to think carefully whether we want to rely on the artificial nature of subsidized development as we think about the revitalization of downtown Wichita.

  • Wichita City Council, September 15, 2009

    On today’s public agenda of the Wichita City Council, I have two things to discuss with the council. One is the city’s refusal to make public proposals submitted by planning firms wishing to be awarded a contract by the city. Background is here: Downtown Wichita proposals not available to citizens.

    Then, there’s Janet Miller’s junket to France, with background here: Janet Miller’s junket should be canceled.

    Mr. Mayor, members of the council:

    I’ve asked that the proposals from the four finalist firms for the downtown revitalization master plan be made available to the public. My request was denied.

    The part of the Kansas Open Records Act that the city cited does not prohibit release of the proposals. Instead, it states that the city is not “required to disclose” the proposals.

    So the city can share these with citizens if it wants to. And I think it should.

    According to the communication I received from the city, these proposals will not be made public until the city council accepts a proposal (or rejects them all).

    Since citizens won’t be able to read these proposals, they won’t be able to give any reasoned input on this matter. We don’t even know what questions to ask. I think this is intolerable. It’s offensive.

    There are a few citizens who can read these proposals: a select group of downtown boosters. The interests of these people — and of the various bureaucrats who also have these proposals — I would submit, are not representative of the city as a whole.

    Mr. Mayor, you can release these proposals if you want to. The citizens of Wichita would be better served if you do.

    Now, to the matter of Council Member Janet Miller’s travel to France. This trip can only be described as a junket, with all the negative connotations that go along with that word. To make it worse, the city is paying for a private citizen to make the trip, too.

    We’re in a tough budget time. Even in good times these trips should be avoided, but when budgets are stressed, travel should be the first thing to be cut.

    I realize the cost of this trip is small when compared to the total spending of the city. It’s less than $4,000, according to the estimates I’ve been given. But that’s still money that could be saved.

    Furthermore, these actions are symbolic. The city council asks citizens and employees to sacrifice, but in this case is not willing to set an example.

    There’s more travel to be approved on the agenda today, along with an item that hints of more to come later on. These items should not be approved.

    For Council Member Miller’s trip, I have these questions:

    What is the benefit of traveling to the International Cities Conference and the Sister Cities Festival?

    Why is the city paying for a private citizen, even though she is the Wichita Area Sister Cities President, to attend these events?

  • More Wichita travel on tap

    At tomorrow’s meeting of the Wichita City Council, approval of more council member travel is on the agenda.

    The two items are:

    • Approval of travel expenses for Council Member Miller to attend the Annual Built Environment and the Outdoors Summit in Topeka, Kansas, October 1-6, 2009.
    • Approval of travel expenses for Mayor Brewer, Vice-Mayor Skelton, Council Member Schlapp, Council Member Gray, Council Member Williams, and Council Member Miller to attend the LKM Annual Conference in Topeka, Kansas, October 3-6, 2009.

    (I wonder why Council Member Jeff Longwell isn’t making the LKM trip.)

    As of early Monday morning, the agenda packet (that’s the detailed material, sometimes several hundred pages, that accompanies the agenda) is not available for tomorrow’s meeting. But the agenda packet usually doesn’t contain more information about these travel items.

    I’ll be at the council meeting tomorrow asking that Janet Miller’s junket to France be canceled. (The city is also paying for a private citizen to take the trip with Miller.) I’ll ask that the council cancel this travel, too.