The Sunflower reached out to all the Wichita City Council candidates for an interview about their priorities, background and more. Candidates’ answers have been edited for length and clarity. The other candidates for District 6, Brett Anderson and incumbent Maggie Ballard, did not respond to requests for interviews.
Why are you running?
I’m running because I care. We have a lot of wasteful spending going on. What got me into the race is when I opened up the newspaper and seen that we spent $600,000 on two porta potties, you know, like, “did we really need that?” You know what I mean?
And then the unhoused population is getting really out of control, and we keep on saying, ‘Affordable housing, affordable housing.’ Everybody has been for affordable housing. But do you know that there is not an affordable housing policy? So how are you guys for affordable housing when you guys are in the seat to put in place? I’m going to be an elder one day, and I don’t want to be priced out. I want to make sure we get a policy in place that fits everyone, not just feeding the rich.
Lastly, the homeless population, (or the) population of the unhoused, is really out of control and I believe that we need to show true compassion and meet them where they are. I believe we should set up intentional communities, zones, or you can call them campgrounds. This unties everybody’s hands, because right now everyone’s hands are tied. The policy says that building encampments are illegal. The police officers have to sweep them. They sweep them to where? … After they get out of the shelters in the morning, they have nowhere to go, so then they end up just walking.
It will also make it easier on the police when they do the sweeps, at least now they have somewhere they can tell them where they can go.
Editor’s note: The city council voted in 2024 to accept a $660,310 bid from a contractor to build restrooms at two downtown parks, according to 12 News.
Why should Wichita State students vote for you?
Because I care. One thing about when we’re young – we have passion and we really want to make a change. When you think about the things that I’m talking about, of giving homeless people an actual area to go to, that’s major, where we can go and actually show true compassion and show up for them. That’s what we believe in and as humanity, that’s what we believe in, right? But eventually, as we grow up, this world has a way of really just tearing us down and taking that piece of humanity from us. So if we can start now and be like, “Yes, we can change the world and your voice is powerful.” That’s why you need to vote, because I’m going to stand up for you. I’m going to stand up and I’m going to speak out.
What are your main priorities?
Homelessness, affordable housing and a transparent city council.
Like when we go to set up these deals with the developers, they do have a process to go through, but they’re missing a step. They’re missing the step where they actually go to the neighborhood associations and present it to them first, before planning (Wichita’s Metropolitan Planning Department) makes their decision, and then City Council makes their decision. We need to be more transparent in that aspect, because then when they’re not transparent, it’s making it look like there’s a lot of back door deals; sweetheart deals. In order to get people to start feeling more comfortable, we need to put the information out there – even though it is out there right now, we need to make it more black and white, easy peasy.
I believe we need a department … of auditors. Not just one person, but a whole team of people, and all they’re doing is going over contracts and then going to the places to see if they’ve done what they were supposed to do by that time. If not, hold them accountable.
I’m going to be the type of city council member that, if what you guys are presenting doesn’t make sense to me, I’m going to say, ‘No, I need more information.’ I’m going to speak out, you know? Not like, ‘Well, okay, I have two options. This one’s better than that one so yeah, we can go with that one.’ No, that’s not what we need to do. We need to say, ‘This is what I feel, this is what needs to happen.’
How would you describe the role of a city council member?
I think the role kind of needs to be reformed in all honesty. Right now, I don’t think the City Council knows enough about what’s going on. When I go to a city council meeting, anytime you ask them a question, it seems like they have to ask the manager Bob (City Manager Robert Layton). So to me, it’s like Bob is more in control than city council, and I think City Council needs to have more control over things that are going on. We’re the policy makers. We are the ones that approve and not approve. Essentially, because we’re the ones who approve everything and not approve it, we are the developers of the city. In a nutshell, City Council is the developers of the city, even though we have all these other people, but we’re the ones who essentially say, ‘Okay, this is what the budget is, this is what I would like to use the budget money on.’
What experience do you have that you think makes you the best fit for the role?
So I come from the supply chain world and my experience – it’s always been dollars and keeping track of things. So I started off in aircraft where I was a receiver, and my job was to – every piece that came in, before I received it in, I had to count piece by piece, by piece; be very detail oriented. That led me into being an auditor. … But then I worked myself up to being a buyer and a scheduler, and now I’m a process assurance trainer. And that means, since I’ve done all these jobs, I follow processes.
That’s one thing that we’ve lost in the city too – is we’ve been skipping some processes. I think that that makes me the best fit for the job, because I believe in processes, and I believe in following them, and if they’re a good process, it will work. If it’s a bad process, it’s going to show us. And if it’s a bad process, we need to correct it as soon as possible.
What principles or values would you say are most important to you or would guide your decisions in this role?
Integrity, passion (and), I’m a very warm person – where I feel like I’m friendly enough to and open enough to address, and where you can come up to me and I feel like I can come up to you. But my biggest one is passion. I really want to make a change.
Are there any past actions of the City Council that you strongly agree or disagree with? Why?
I will commend the City Council for having a tricouncil (trigovernmental meetings). That is where they have the city, the county and the school board meet. I think they do it (once) a quarter, which – that is very good. They need to because we need to protect each other. We’re all here in Wichita, so why aren’t we working together and consolidating? I do commend them for working on consolidating some of the services to get a wider spread of things.
I just don’t like a lot of their spending.
So I’m going to hit a double edged sword on the next things that I mention – okay, the Kenmar deal and the ice skating rink and the sports complex on the west side. So it’s a double edged sword because I commend them now for doing something, but at the same time, you guys have been in office for four to eight years. Why didn’t you do it back then? Because you guys all ran on these principles, and ironically, election year, things that you guys ran on is getting done now. … It’s just a lot and I think that we should have jumped on that type of stuff a long time ago, because we could have saved ourselves some money a long time ago.
I do believe that the group that got together to look at the budget and Celeste (Racette) and her team presented. I think the city should actually re-look at the suggestions that they suggested and take heed. I think there’s more than just the three that they’re taking, that they’re going to do. There’s more that they should take so we can get some more savings and not have to … add a sales tax.
