Wichita city officials say they have worked hard to eliminate waste. Well, except for this.
This is especially problematic given these two Fridays — with street lights switched on near noon — were Riverfest Fridays. Many visitors, both natives and tourists, may have been downtown to see the waste on display. It doesn’t promote a good image for our city and its leaders.
So while the city advises you to unplug alarm clocks and cell phone chargers when not using them, note that the city cares nothing about running the street lights in the middle of the day.
The lights illustrated in these photographs are, undoubtedly, a small portion of the city’s spending. But you don’t have to look very hard to find waste like this, and we know that small examples of waste are multiplied many times. So when city leaders tell us that there is nowhere left to cut in the budget, that everything that can be done to trim the fat has already been done, and that the only thing we can do is raise taxes — well, think of this photograph and others illustrated in Wichita advances in the field of cost savings, Another Friday lunch, and even more lights are on, To compensate, Wichita switched on the street lights, In Wichita, the streetside seating is illuminated very well, In Wichita, the rooftops are well-lit and On a sunny day in downtown Wichita you can see the street lights.
Please report streetlight problems to Westar Energy at https://www.westarenergy.com/report-a-street-light-out
Perhaps we should also question why the city of Wichita was watering city-owned properties during the month of May, a waste of both electricity and water. The city is offering subsidies to individuals to purchase efficient appliances, but has not purchased rain gauges and smart controllers for their own systems, even though they own a lot more property than the average homeowner in Wichita. There is nothing more discouraging than seeing city sprinklers watering the street during a thunderstorm.