Bill Buchanan tried to ‘deliver democracy to local doorsteps’

For 24 years as Sedgwick County manager, Bill Buchanan has been telling people to go.

Now, he’s gone.

Before he retired Friday, the often impatient administrator regularly dispensed with formalities on the phone. Instead of saying “Hello,” he’d simply say a blunt “Go!” to speed conversations along.

“Whaddya need?” he’d prod when a flustered caller stammered in reply.

He had work to do. A lot of work.

Buchanan, 70, replaced Kim Dewey, who had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of attempted possession of marijuana and subsequently was asked for his resignation.

The county faced a number of challenges, including a lack of direction and professionalism.

“Bill likened it to turning the Queen Mary,” said former Commissioner Tom Winters when honoring Buchanan at his last commission meeting on Wednesday.

“It was going to be a long and hard task.”

The Altoona, Pa., native – who is retiring to Pittsburgh – had been a city manager in Jackson, Mich., and Franklin, Pa., and village manager of Liberty, N.Y., before applying for the Sedgwick County job in 1991.

After applying, Buchanan and his wife, Lynn, were watching “Dances With Wolves” and heard Fort Sedgwick mentioned.

“We kind of both looked at each other,” Buchanan said. “It was an omen.”

When Buchanan arrived in Wichita for an interview, he was “not impressed with the visual presence of the community.”

“Coming in from the airport to downtown was dismal,” he said of road, traffic and building issues.

Still, Buchanan wanted the job.

“It was a large, complicated county, which provided all sorts of services which I had no experience in, which was fascinating to me.”

In this job, he has overseen a few dozen departments that provide public safety, human services, internal operations support and culture and recreation. He has recommended budgets — totaling $425 million in 2015 — and carried out policies for the five elected commissioners who are his bosses.

Buchanan said he assumed he would eventually leave the county and manage another city one day. He did apply a few times and even had a couple of offers, such as in Dayton, Ohio, but it always worked out that he stayed.

“I used to get up in the morning and just be ready to go,” Buchanan said.

That changed in recent months, he said, maintaining that it’s not related to a political shift on the commission.

“There’s a point and time in people’s lives – and at this age – when you’re just ready, and I’m ready,” Buchanan said. “It wasn’t as fun as it had been.”

Buchanan’s zeal for work is a big part of why he was chosen over other candidates for manager, said Mark Schroeder, one of the former commissioners who hired him.

“Bill had an energy about him that none of the others had,” Schroeder said. “That’s what made him so successful. He’s able to gather people around him that like that energy.”

Schroeder said Buchanan’s enthusiasm didn’t diminish in difficult times.

“His style was just to jump in it,” Schroeder said. “If you wanted to put the brakes on for a moment, that was a problem for Bill. … He wanted to keep moving forward, and rightly so in a lot of those cases.”

As politicians hesitated while pondering ramifications from certain actions, Schroeder said, Buchanan “was always there to say, ‘Why?’”

“We don’t tolerate slow, ponderous … bureaucratic processes,” Buchanan said.

He admits his impatience has both “been important and troublesome.”

“You gotta spend the time making sure the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed,” he said. “That is not my strength.”

Schroeder said Buchanan is personable but would “get a little upset from time to time” and the two might not talk for a day or so.

“He understood what pulled us and what pushed us, but he was in kind of a different place,” Schroeder said of the difference between elected positions and Buchanan’s job. “He was the guy who had to get it done.”

Former Commissioner Bill Hancock, also among those who hired Buchanan, said he “fit into our community very well.” But Hancock didn’t expect him to last this long because Buchanan wasn’t afraid to do what needed to be done, which could wear out his welcome.

“Bill Buchanan brought professionalism to the county,” Hancock said. “It wasn’t a matter of good-old-boy politics anymore. He wasn’t afraid to get rid of anyone, and we gave him the authority to do that. We had enough of the old style government of Sedgwick County.”

‘That’s politics’

Even Buchanan’s detractors generally agree that Buchanan had the people’s best interests in mind.

“It’s pretty obvious when you talk to him that his concern is for the county,” said former Commissioner Gwen Welsheimer. “His heart was in his job, and he never took his eyes off of it.”

Welsheimer and former Commissioner Kelly Parks tried to fire Buchanan in 2009, though Welsheimer now says she simply wanted to have an executive session to explore the idea.

“It was a struggle,” she said of disagreeing with Buchanan on the county budget.

“It would be awful to have to try to appease five different commissioners,” Welsheimer said. “I don’t know who could have done a better job.”

Buchanan said the potential to lose his job made for an interesting and humbling time – humbling because of the support he then received from myriad people.

“And that you can never forget.”

Welsheimer said Buchanan made it clear that though he would listen on issues, there wasn’t much to discuss until she had support of a majority of commissioners.

“What else could you expect of him?” she said. “That’s politics.”

Welsheimer said Buchanan is politically savvier than most.

“To survive that job, you would have to be.”

Parks remembers Buchanan’s attitude more than anything when it came to the five commissioners voting on an issue.

“He said, ‘I don’t need to talk about it. I’ve got three votes lined up.’

“He held up three fingers and would smile at me. Just a smart-ass.”

Buchanan said that though that quality is “highly regarded in my family,” he would never taunt in that manner.

“That’s not respectful of the democratic process.”

Parks said Buchanan isn’t an enemy.

“But I’m not going to have tea and crumpets with him either.”

‘Poster child’

Though the county still has unfinished business – Buchanan said the joint law enforcement training center isn’t done nor is the location finalized for the newly merged code enforcement office – Buchanan has achieved some of the biggest items on his to-do list through the years.

“The county, I think, actually has been the poster child for good counties,” said Commissioner Jim Howell, who has worked with Buchanan about half a year.

The county is in great shape financially and has the highest bond ratings possible from Fitch Ratings, Moody’s Investors Service and Standard and Poor’s.

“He runs his organization very tightly,” Howell said of Buchanan.

“He can make tough decisions.”

Buchanan counts not building an addition to the jail – thus saving millions of dollars over the last decade – as one of his biggest achievements. Instead, he said, he put programs into place that alleviated the need for more jail space.

He’s also proud of the county providing funding to start Exploration Place and, later, to rescue it.

Buchanan said he may be proudest of daily efforts to help county residents who need it most, such as people suffering from mental and physical issues.

Buchanan is known – even nationally – for saying that professional managers deliver democracy to every citizen’s doorstep.

“He practiced that,” said Bob O’Neill, executive director of the International City/County Management Association.

“That’s really hard,” O’Neill said. “It’s not always pretty. It’s not always efficient.”

Buchanan was elected president of ICMA in 2006, which O’Neill said “means there’s a whole lot of people who think a whole lot of you.”

“He’s always thinking about the community,” O’Neill said. “He tries to stay true to … facts and the data and the things I think professionals try to think of in context of communities. … He’s very respectful, but he’s not going to pull punches.”

O’Neill said Buchanan is “just kind of one of my heroes.”

‘We are the servants’

David Miller, the county’s chief information officer and former budget director, said he simultaneously feared and revered Buchanan.

He said he still remembers “the fear that was in my heart the first time that I had to present to Bill. He has so many things on his plate every single day and every moment, and he’s going from one meeting to another meeting. He’s looking at you, and you’re trying to read his impression. Often, he’s thinking of the meeting he just got out of.”

Though his fears of presenting to Buchanan were ever present, Miller said, Buchanan is the most gracious person he knows.

“When he sees you tripping, he’ll pull you aside and give you guidance on how not to trip.”

When someone does well, Buchanan “will go out of his way to thank you for your efforts.”

Miller said Buchanan once called him to praise some work he did. Miller said he stopped Buchanan and thanked him for his leadership.

“He said, ‘Ah, I’m just a monkey in a suit.’

“I don’t think I would be in my career where I am today if I wasn’t able to experience and watch his leadership,” Miller said. “For me, it’s just very sad to see Bill going.”

O’Neill said Buchanan’s greatest legacy may be the people he’s mentored through the years who have gone on to be managers or senior staff members themselves, such as Kathy Sexton, the city manager in Derby.

One of the most important lessons Buchanan said he tried to teach is one that some people still don’t get.

It’s “to have people stop thinking that they work in silos.”

“We get so focused on our own little business that we don’t understand that sometimes there’s a bigger picture.”

Buchanan said it’s important for county managers and staff to remember the county is not their organization, it’s not their money.

“We are the servants,” he said. “The means to get stuff done.”

Buchanan said that’s been the essence of his career.

“We do deliver democracy to local doorsteps daily.”

This story was originally published June 13, 2015 at 3:24 PM with the headline "Bill Buchanan tried to ‘deliver democracy to local doorsteps’."