Lonny Wright: Wichita’s ‘most-informed citizen’

Lonny the Attorney Plumber sits surrounded by rows and rows of empty seats at city hall.

It’s like that nearly every week at Wichita City Council meetings. Occasionally, a smattering of department heads attend. Reporters sit in the back corner.

But usually it’s just Lonny, sitting quietly or taking notes, wearing his pale yellow union shirt. And he always stays for the whole meeting.

Lonny the Attorney Plumber’s real name is Lonny Wright.

He’s really a retired union plumber.

He really went to law school.

And if you’ve ever gone to a city council, county commission or advisory board meeting in Wichita, you’ve probably seen him.

Voter turnout in the last local election was just over 16 percent – a reflection of historically low turnout and little public engagement in local government.

Meanwhile, Wright, 69, attends the meetings of at least 23 groups each month.

He became interested in local government when he was studying at President’s College School of Law, a now-defunct school started by philanthropist Willard Garvey in the early 1990s. He started attending city council meetings around 1998.

“I thought, I’ll just sit here and study while the meetings are going on,” he says.

“When I graduated, the last words Willard Garvey ... said to me was ‘Sic ’em.’ So for two years I was trying to work out how to bust the city, getting into the budget and stuff. What I discovered was they were a lot better than I thought. I ended up, by understanding how the city operates, kind of being pro-city.”

Wright comments frequently on local political happenings on social media and on The Eagle’s website. He often takes a liberal perspective.

But he attends weekly Republican and Libertarian Pachyderm Club meetings and likes to debate with political leaders whose opinions don’t align with his.

“I’ve been trying to become friends with Lonny although politically I think we’re pretty far opposite from each other,” said Sedgwick County Commissioner Jim Howell.

Wright is probably the most informed citizen in Wichita, Howell says.

“He disagrees with me a lot, but at least he’s willing to listen,” Howell says. “And he’s willing to ask questions and willing to understand my perspective.”

Wright doesn’t talk during most meetings. He often waits until afterward to talk with elected officials, to pick their brain over things like transit or infrastructure problems. He’s uncomfortable talking about himself.

“I’m more interested in listening to other people’s thoughts. I’d rather figure out ‘What is the question?’ rather than ‘What side am I on?’” Wright says.

“I try to just know what any citizen would know if they just sit and listen.”

‘Put on a tie’

Originally from Erie, in southeast Kansas, Wright moved with his family to Derby in 1955 so his dad, who was also a plumber, could get more work. He helped his dad. After high school, he had nearly a full scholarship to attend Wichita State to study music. Instead, he was drafted.

He spent time as a general’s aide stationed in both Vietnam and Korea.

“My parents cried. I was upset over a girl and re-upped for another tour (in Korea). But also to stay out of Vietnam.”

Wright got out of the Army in 1970. He lost his upper hearing overseas, so he could no longer play or study French horn.

Instead, he started The Andover Reporter newspaper and later bought a mattress company. When it went under around 1980, he went back to his roots.

“I returned to plumbing instead of wearing a tie,” he says.

Eventually, he applied for a union job replacing gas pipelines, which paid enough for him to afford law school in the late 1990s.

“I got addicted. I loved it,” Wright says. “It seemed logical and the competition was intense. I had to put on a tie and drink coffee and smoke cigars. Cram as heavy as I could because you had four to six hours of reading every day.”

He attended the law school, which was mostly for professionals who took classes part time, for six years. He graduated in 2002, but did not take the bar exam, which is required to practice law.

Civic engagement

More people should attend public meetings – even if it’s just one or two a month, Wright says.

Not all meetings are boring. At one, a man was speaking about a housing dispute and his pants fell down, Wright remembers.

“We see his boxer shorts. He just keeps talking and he can’t get his pants up. Down to his shoes.”

He’s seen people get nasty and call others names during meetings. And he’s seen people cry.

“You see issues develop. ... Sometimes people hurt themselves – they over speak or they talk too long or they’ll start out insulting. Other people are real skilled.

“It’s almost like a soap opera. Each department is like a separate business. They’ve got different revenue streams that come in, they’ve got different expenses, different regulations. There are moving parts. At the center of it are the citizens. The citizen boards, the citizens getting involved.”

Wright’s favorite meeting to attend is the Transit Advisory Board because of the challenges transit faces. But he also enjoys district advisory board meetings, held once a month in each of the six city council districts.

Some council members, including Lavonta Williams, Janet Miller and Pete Meitzner, have monthly breakfasts with constituents. Meitzner’s meetings have free bacon, Wright says, but Williams’ meetings are often the most attended.

“It’s nice to see people engaged like that,” said Mayor Jeff Longwell. “Lonny makes it a point to not only get educated on a variety of issues but also at that point isn’t shy about sharing or in some cases educating others who may be misinformed.”

Although some public meetings have higher attendance, Longwell said, many don’t.

“That’s always been sometimes frustrating for us, is how can we better reach our constituency? Like in west Wichita when we hold district advisory board meetings and we get maybe one citizen to show up. That’s pretty common.”

The city is shifting its focus more to social media to gain citizen input, Longwell said.

It can be difficult to get more people interested in local government, Wright says.

“How can we get people interested? Most of them don’t even understand the difference between what the city does and the county does,” he says.

“It’s so surprising how easy it is to make a difference. These are our citizens and neighbors making decisions. I see people making a difference all the time. If they would just get the agendas and see what’s coming up at the meetings and pick any meeting ... just to see what’s going on and how much voice citizens have.”

This story was originally published August 29, 2015 at 4:48 PM with the headline "Lonny Wright: Wichita’s ‘most-informed citizen’."