Wichita Mayor Election

[vbird53]

Seems as though the Wichita Eagle has made it's mind up that Jeff Longwell needs to go...

While I have voted for him in the past, and in this primary, I'm not necessarily a Longwell supporter. But his list of accomplishments is growing...and fast...

[pinstripers]

Don't live in the city, but I like that guy a lot

[abdullah_sharif]

i won’t trust government regardless of which poor sap is the head honcho, but longwell seems to like the aggressive model.

pave the roads, treat the water, hire good law enforcement, and put out the fires. other than that, stay the f out of my life.

[vbird53]

i won’t trust government regardless of which poor sap is the head honcho, but longwell seems to like the aggressive model.

pave the roads, treat the water, hire good law enforcement, and put out the fires. other than that, stay the f out of my life.

His opponent is 100% expand-all-services-at-whatever-cost, traditional Democrat

[Rocky Mountain Shock]

I'm an out of towner too, and I also like the guy and think he's done a helluva job.

But part of a journalist's job, especially a local one, is to be an advocate for the public by exposing political corruption. I read the Eagle article, and it does look like a thorough examination of the situation. I hope Longwell did not act in the manner in which the article describes. That's up to the public to decide, and to also decide if his accomplishments outweigh the gravity of these allegations. The Eagle did its job.

[1972Shocker]

Here is Mayor Longwell's response to the Wichita Eagle allegations:

https://www.kwch.com/content/news/Unfair-and-inaccurate-Mayor-Longwell-rebuts-The-Wichita-Eagle-article-which-alleges-he-steered-a-water-plant-contract-to-friends-561922301.html

[vbird53]

I'm an out of towner too, and I also like the guy and think he's done a helluva job.

But part of a journalist's job, especially a local one, is to be an advocate for the public by exposing political corruption. I read the Eagle article, and it does look like a thorough examination of the situation. I hope Longwell did not act in the manner in which the article describes. That's up to the public to decide, and to also decide if his accomplishments outweigh the gravity of these allegations. The Eagle did its job.

It looks like a thorough examination of the situation from one side. I think the Mayor's response included in 1972's post presents another side.

[SHOCKvalue]

Longwell is a mixed bag to me. The city has really progressed downtown under his watch, and the AAA club is a pretty massive coup. If we somehow could have had Longwell in office during the Waterwalk fiasco, our downtown would almost guaranteed be a fair bit ahead of where it is today - fighting to just catch up to average. On the other hand, seems like there really is something to the insider stuff. I have a buddy who is a partner at one of the main civil engineering firms in town, and he has some real stories to tell about how the the ballpark design-build group was chosen. We ended up with worse option, and it really shows with the uninspired ballpark that an accountant could have designed. Rather than the #1 sports facility designer in the nation (Populous, on the team not chosen), we ended up with a local firm with less design flair/chops than a creative kid with a set of legos. Not to mention a price tag that is somehow at least 30-50% higher than what other towns needed to spend to basically build what we are in the process of constructing. That last part is a pretty huge red flag to me.

I do agree that the Eagle is currently illustrating why the media has lost so much trust with many folks. The theme of their initial article on Sunday might very well have some legs, but it mostly seemed like a huge opinion piece posing as investigative journalism. Today they released another article that was really unfair about the whole Mead's Corner nonsense. It is clear as day with that second article that the Eagle has a personal beef/angle with Longwell and is using their platform to try and manipulate public opinion. Rather than... you know... objectively reporting news.

Political parties aside, Whipple is (was) a proponent of both keeping Mead's Corner, and Century II. Mead's Corner was a dilapidated building taking up prime real estate, and it is being replaced by a modern structure that is increasing density and street frontage (by using the footprint of the entire parcel), bringing more workers and retail/dining downtown, and increasing the tax base both in property tax and sales tax. How terrible. We do have truly historic buildings that are worth saving and preserving - Mead's wasn't one. Similarly, Century II is a huge, functionally-limited mascot for how little has changed in downtown Wichita in half a century. Sure, let's keep the hideous blue hamburger as well. "Progressive" my hind end.

Longwell has some concerns and warts, but Whipple by all indications would be Carlos Mayans v2.0 flying under a different political flag.

[vbird53]

Longwell is a mixed bag to me. The city has really progressed downtown under his watch, and the AAA club is a pretty massive coup. If we somehow could have had Longwell in office during the Waterwalk fiasco, our downtown would almost guaranteed be a fair bit ahead of where it is today - fighting to just catch up to average. On the other hand, seems like there really is something to the insider stuff. I have a buddy who is a partner at one of the main civil engineering firms in town, and he has some real stories to tell about how the the ballpark design-build group was chosen. We ended up with worse option, and it really shows with the uninspired ballpark that an accountant could have designed. Rather than the #1 sports facility designer in the nation (Populous, on the team not chosen), we ended up with a local firm with less design flair/chops than a creative kid with a set of legos. Not to mention a price tag that is somehow at least 30-50% higher than what other towns needed to spend to basically build what we are in the process of constructing. That last part is a pretty huge red flag to me.

I do agree that the Eagle is currently illustrating why the media has lost so much trust with many folks. The theme of their initial article on Sunday might very well have some legs, but it mostly seemed like a huge opinion piece posing as investigative journalism. Today they released another article that was really unfair about the whole Mead's Corner nonsense. It is clear as day with that second article that the Eagle has a personal beef/angle with Longwell and is using their platform to try and manipulate public opinion. Rather than... you know... objectively reporting news.

Political parties aside, Whipple is (was) a proponent of both keeping Mead's Corner, and Century II. Mead's Corner was a dilapidated building taking up prime real estate, and it is being replaced by a modern structure that is increasing density and street frontage (by using the footprint of the entire parcel), bringing more workers and retail/dining downtown, and increasing the tax base both in property tax and sales tax. How terrible. We do have truly historic buildings that are worth saving and preserving - Mead's wasn't one. Similarly, Century II is a huge, functionally-limited mascot for how little has changed in downtown Wichita in half a century. Sure, let's keep the hideous blue hamburger as well. "Progressive" my hind end.

Longwell has some concerns and warts, but Whipple by all indications would be Carlos Mayans v2.0 flying under a different political flag.

I think you captured this pretty well. There are still major issues to be addressed beyond the east bank of the river. I really don't like the city's process involved with the golf courses. I'm sure there's a backroom deal waiting for someone to redevelop Clapp (or almost hoping there is, since they closed the park prematurely)... I think there's still significant duplication in services between Wichita & Sedgwick County police and fire... I have a suspicion the city currently planning tax increases (more sales tax?) for all the spending in the works...

[jdshock]

We ended up with worse option, and it really shows with the uninspired ballpark that an accountant could have designed. Rather than the #1 sports facility designer in the nation (Populous, on the team not chosen), we ended up with a local firm with less design flair/chops than a creative kid with a set of legos. Not to mention a price tag that is somehow at least 30-50% higher than what other towns needed to spend to basically build what we are in the process of constructing. That last part is a pretty huge red flag to me.

Apologies in advance if this derails a topic that doesn't affect me, but I've seen you and others talk about the new ballpark a few times on here and it has consistently piqued my interest. When the city issued an RFP, did they publish the selection criteria? Do you know if anyone else filed an objection to the selection or if the city ever published a memo regarding the selection? Is the local firm partnering with a local contractor or are they using a national brand to build it?

[abdullah_sharif]

His opponent is 100% expand-all-services-at-whatever-cost, traditional Democrat

that's what i'm worried about. unfortunately, if that is the case, we'll have to choose between the lesser of two evils.

[SHOCKvalue]

Apologies in advance if this derails a topic that doesn't affect me, but I've seen you and others talk about the new ballpark a few times on here and it has consistently piqued my interest. When the city issued an RFP, did they publish the selection criteria? Do you know if anyone else filed an objection to the selection or if the city ever published a memo regarding the selection? Is the local firm partnering with a local contractor or are they using a national brand to build it?

I could be wrong - been a few years since I had a job dealing with city bidding - but the city was looking for design-build proposals, which I believe sort of omits the traditional bidding process in favor of a holistic look at the proposals. It also opens up the door for behind-the-scenes sort of stuff.

The city only had two design-build proposals, and both were a combination of local/regional/national companies partnering for the entire proposal. So neither option was all local or all national. The proposal that lost was the one that had the big name national-level sports facility designer. The winner was one who's design qualifications were a little sketchy and limited, and it didn't seem to matter because somehow all the design work ended up going to a marginally-qualified (for the task at hand) local arch firm who specializes in placing combinations of boxes together (schools, institutional stuff, etc).

Either group was anchored by a local construction company plenty qualified for the job, so that didn't so much matter. Same could be said of engineering. What the people of Wichita lost out on in the whole deal was facility design.

Losing team filed an objection, rooted in a pretty good argument (far more experience in designing and building such facility work), but they lost... somehow. City never really gave a compelling answer.