Wichita City Council, city employees to receive airport parking passes

City officials and city employees at the airport for city business will be the only people issued parking passes at Wichita Eisenhower National Airport.

The Wichita City Council made the decision Tuesday.

In November, the Wichita Airport Advisory Board voted to abolish the parking passes. But it reversed that action earlier this month.

In the past, 113 courtesy passes were held mostly by elected city, county and congressional officials and their staff members; local business leaders, including representatives of the chamber of commerce, economic development and tourism bodies; as well as current and retired aircraft industry executives.

Under the new policy, each of the seven council members will be issued a card that can be tracked for accountability. The city manager’s office is considering about 10 cards to issue to city employees; those can also be tracked to ensure they are being used for city business.

“The intention is not using these passes in any way shape or form as a perk to electeds, to business leaders, to head of nonprofits, to just anyone,” said Mayor Jeff Longwell.

He referred to the new policy as “making sausage from the bench.”

The decision to keep the passes for city officials doing city business will allow them to park there without using local tax dollars.

“If we were to change the policy and fly and turn in those legitimate expenses, the taxpayers ultimately pay those. By doing what we did today, it clearly shows the new policy says this is to be intended for city business travel only, official government business only. We want to control that. The only way to do that is limit the number of passes and have a clear policy that addresses it.”

Also, in accordance with state law, qualified disabled veterans will have free parking at the airport.

Outside entities, including businesses, the chamber, Visit Wichita, the Airport Advisory Board and federal and county elected officials, will not be issued passes.

Longwell said the business leaders he had spoken with didn’t have a problem with not having passes any more.

City Manager Robert Layton said there could be discussions about issuing county officials cards if they pass a policy saying the cards would be used only for county-related business.

The council probably will finalize the policy for its own use of the passes within 30 days, Layton said.

This story was originally published January 12, 2016 at 11:47 AM with the headline "Wichita City Council, city employees to receive airport parking passes."