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Posted on Wed, Feb. 11, 2009

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Wichita council candidate Bob Aldrich wants focus on the basics

BY FRED MANN

The Wichita Eagle

If you walk into his office at the right time of the morning, you'll probably catch City Council candidate Bob Aldrich watching an "Andy Griffith" rerun on a small, rabbit-eared television set.

He has seen every episode of the ancient sitcom a thousand times, he figures, but each time he sees one it still seems fresh to him.

"It's amazing the message a lot of those family-type programs sent out, about how life was back then, and the respect everybody had for each other," Aldrich said. "We've definitely lost that way."

His office is in the Broadway Plaza Building downtown, where he buys and sells railroad car parts as vice president of Windy City Railway Services.

Aldrich, a Republican and former Pachyderm president, is one of four candidates for the District 6 council seat that will be vacated by Sharon Fearey, whose term expires in April.

Other candidates include Damon Isaacs, Janet Miller and Ken Thomas.

Aldrich, 53, has been in the railroad business for 30 years. It is a continuation, like watching the old TV sitcoms, of his childhood.

He grew up in Southern California in the 1950s and 1960s playing with Lionel trains and enough track to cover his family's entire house near Pasadena. It was a magical time and place to grow up, Aldrich said.

From there, it was hardly a straight line to Wichita.

He was a wanderer and a beach bum, he said. Halfway through his junior year in high school, he hitchhiked to Florida to see his mother, who had divorced his father when Aldrich was 5 years old.

When she moved from Florida to Junction City, he tagged along and fell in love with Kansas. He graduated from high school in Junction City in 1973.

Aldrich never went to college, although he took a few college courses along a winding career path that led to jobs as a welder in Tulsa and a police officer in two small Missouri towns before he settled in Wichita in the railroad industry.

Aldrich and his wife, Donna, who will celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary Sunday, endured back-to-back emotional trials recently.

In 2005, Aldrich's father slipped into a diabetic coma in California and wasn't expected to survive. But he did, and Aldrich moved him to the house next door in Wichita. He died in 2008.

The Aldrichs' only child, Jennifer, born with a rare disease, died in 2006 at age 31.

Four years ago, Aldrich had become restless with City Hall and realized complaining from the sofa wasn't enough. So he campaigned for the District 6 council seat and lost in the primary by six votes to Richard Lopez, who lost to Fearey in the general election.

Aldrich led bythree votes before 30 provisional ballots were counted.

A friend, Mitch Mitchell, a retired engineer who played a big role in developing the Wichita-Valley Center flood control project -- the Big Ditch -- was with Aldrich that day.

"He was a lot calmer than I would've been," Mitchell said

Mitchell thought Aldrich would disappear from the political scene after the loss.

"To my surprise he's worked his butt off ever since... learning, adding things to his knowledge of the community, politics and things that make the nation work," Mitchell said.

Aldrich, a former member of the city's park board and Metropolitan Planning Commission, has raised about $8,600 for his campaign. He said he is obsessed with neglect that he sees in certain parts of the district, which ranges from Midtown to north-central parts of the city.

The area of 21st Street and Broadway has been neglected for years, he said. It remains "a gold mine" of business opportunities for economic impact and jobs, he said.

Aldrich also wants the city to refocus on basic priorities such as public safety. He wants to eliminate gangs and hire more police officers.

Bring up the narrow loss in 2005, and Aldrich delivers a line with the comedic timing of one his favorite TV sitcoms.

"Must have been something I said," he joked.

But, he added,"I think I did make an impact on the voters' minds that maybe there is a better way."

Reach Fred Mann at 316-268-6310 or fmann@wichitaeagle.com.