Columns

WICHITA MATTERS: Century II, Home Rule, and the Problem (and Appeal) of States Pushing Cities Around

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On Sunday the Wichita Eagle ran two guest editorials–one by me on how state governments push cities around, and one by my friend John Todd on the effort by him and others to get the state to require cities to hold a public referendum before historic buildings like Century II could be torn down. Both essays are essentially about “home rule,” though neither ever use that phrase. Let me try to expand on that idea here. “Home rule” refers to the principle of municipal governments being allowed the ability to fully govern their own residents. Under our constitutional system, the national government and the state governments are assumed to have some degree of sovereignty; no such assumption necessarily holds counties and cities, however.

Columns

WICHITA MATTERS: On Partisanship and Punishing Politicians

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It would be wrong to say I know James Clendenin. I’ve met him a few times at different city events. Once I asked him to come to Friends University (where I work) for a candidate forum, during which he interacted with and answered questions from the students–about parking enforcement, marijuana decriminalization, and more–in a smart and open-minded way; and that impressed me. Another time I had nice things to say about his genuinely admirable—and ultimately successful –work to save the Starlite Drive-In in south Wichita. That’s not enough to say I’m friends with the man, but perhaps it gives me a little cover when I say: the fact he still hasn’t resigned from the Wichita City Council in shame disappoints me—but perhaps that disappointment is at least as much rooted in the structure of our city council as much as in anything relevant to the character of Clendenin himself.

Columns

WICHITA MATTERS: Decisions in a Distracted and Divided Wichita

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This composite image contains two scenes that I’ve seen nearly every day for weeks as I’ve walked our dog near our home here on the west side of Wichita. These two homes are directly across the street from each other, with each Biden sign more or less directly facing a Trump one. I’m not sure which family put up which sign first, but I observed their numbers growing, one sign or flag or banner after another, one day or week after another, in a silent suburban struggle. (And it’s continued since I took these photos; the Trump house now has five signs advertising their preferred choice for president, while the Biden house now has four signs, plus one for the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate here in Kansas, Barbara Bollier.) I may make a point of avoiding this particular street on the day after Election Day. Wichita isn’t, of course, actually this evenly divided; while the major parties and news organizations don’t spend much effort polling in any cities besides the very largest, the best and latest polling available makes it pretty clear that Trump leads Biden beyond the margin of error in Sedgwick County.

Columns

WICHITA MATTERS: Glimmers of a Different Wichita

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Two weeks ago, the Wichita City Council, by a 4-3 vote–a result which surprised more than a few Wichitans–implemented a mask requirement in the city of Wichita, in the wake of the Sedgwick County Commission’s refusal to fully support the mask mandate which Governor Kelly had called for all the state of Kansas to embrace. (The commission, in the wake of Wichita’s decision, later supported a similar order from Dr. Garold Minns, the county’s health officer.) Then earlier this week the Wichita Historical Preservation Board, by a 5-2 vote–a result which, once again, surprised more than a few Wichitans–nominated Century II for state and national historic status, thus supporting the effort to get the iconic building listed by the Kansas State Historic Preservation Office and the National Register of Historic Places. If that happens, it would likely present very serious obstacles to any plan–such as that proposed by the Populous outfit hired by the Riverfront Legacy folks–which involved the destruction of Century II, which is why multiple interested groups sent representatives to the Preservation Board to make their case (in vain, as it turned out). I found myself wondering yesterday: is there anything these two votes have in common? The obvious first response–and, in all likelihood, mostly the correct one–would be: “no.”

Columns

WICHITA MATTERS: The Coronavirus in Kansas: The First 100 Days

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This past Saturday was more than just the summer solstice, the longest day of the year and the official start of summer (astronomically speaking, if not calendrically). It also marked the 100th day since the coronavirus pandemic formally began in Kansas, with Governor Kelly having issued her state of emergency order, in response to the first Covid-19 death in the state, on March 12. Wichita and Sedgwick County began to follow suit the same day, and just as USD 259 students were beginning their spring break, our long Covid Spring started. Now, our Covid Spring has become a Covid Summer. What’s different, what’s the same and what, if anything, has been learned?

Columns

WICHITA MATTERS: The Road Ahead

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In the midst of violent protests, police violence, and a pandemic, I’m thinking about a road. It’s not much of a road; just a short stretch of University St., directly west of Friends University, where I’ve taught since 2006. Over those 14 years, I have biked back and forth on that 1/10th of a mile stretch, which dead-ends 50 ft. short of Meridian Ave., probably over 7000 times. It’s the final leg of my normal commute route; I bike from my home in west Wichita eastbound on Maple St., cutting south to University at West St.

Columns

WICHITA MATTERS: What Mayors Need

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Last week, Mayor Whipple had a rough time during the city council meeting, with his request for a deputy somewhat embarrassingly tabled in the face of both criticism from other council members and a long list of online attacks that got read into the record. The whole affair has already been critically commented on, but as a break from talking about the coronavirus pandemic all the time, let me beat this dead horse one more time–mostly because I hope it will revive. Not immediately, to be sure. Some members of the city council argued that any discussions about additional staff in the city’s government needed to wait on the completion of a comprehensive review currently being conducted by the city manager’s office; others pointed out that the politics of hiring a major new city employee at a time of government furloughs, increasing unemployment, and great economic uncertainty are pretty dubious, to say the least. And beyond that, there was disagreement between Mayor Whipple and different council members over how best to describe the duties of such a deputy, over who would be the likely candidates for such a position, and over whether or not a city employee already exists who could fill exactly the sort of policy research and community outreach role he’s requesting.

Columns

WICHITA MATTERS: The Coronavirus in Kansas: Wichita’s Weaknesses and Strengths

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When it comes to the coronavirus pandemic, it’s sometimes easy, here in Wichita–a large city nonetheless somewhat isolated and disconnected from the larger metropolitan areas of the country, a city which centers a largely rural and therefore much more low risk part of the state–to be unclear if we’re overreacting or not reacting enough. But feeling as though we’re stuck in the middle, feeling divided, is nothing new for a midsized city like ours. In general the news for Kansas overall seems to be pretty good. It is looking like the spread of the virus, as it peaks in April, won’t be as deadly as we feared, almost certainly in part because of Governor Laura Kelly’s (and locally, Sedgwick County Commissioner Lacey Cruse’s) insistence on pushing for stay-at-home orders as early as possible. But is it true that, in taking these actions, Wichita will suffer even more than it would have had the city, and its surrounding county and state, not shut things down?

Columns

The Coronavirus in Kansas: A Week of Triage

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This has been a week of triage for our city. With the Sedgwick County Commission at first resisting and then finally
submitting to medical opinion (and political pressure) regarding the need to
order many businesses and places of public gathering to close for the sake of
minimizing the potential spread of the coronavirus on Monday, the other
shoe–which every small business-owner and all of their thousands of supporters
throughout the city have known was just waiting to be dropped–came down
on Tuesday, and the scramble find a new normal began in earnest. We’d seen
libraries, movie theaters, restaurants and shops of various kinds, and so much
else start to limit their hours or close down entirely last week; this week it
finally became official. The question becomes the classic one which arises in
every emergency, every instance of limited resources: what can be sustained,
what can be changed, and what can’t be saved? Like many Wichitans, toward the end of last week I made the time to check in
on places of business I was most worried about surviving the loss of commerce
which this order–and, let’s be honest, the even stricter ones likely to follow
it–is going to entail.

Columns

The Coronavirus in Kansas: The First Week

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It’s a dark and quiet Wednesday
morning here in the Fox household, March 18, 2020. It’s been dark every
morning–and mostly gray and cloudy and cool all through the days as well–for
pretty much a whole week now, appropriately enough. Partly that’s because our
schedules, both external and internal, haven’t caught up with the hour in the
morning we lost less than two weeks ago when daylight saving time began. But
most, I think, it’s because of the gloom which has descended upon many of us
here in south-central Kansas in the past seven days, with the
weather–unhelpfully but perhaps unavoidably, reciprocating. A week ago, Wednesday, March 11,
I was wrapping up my classes in anticipation of spring break.