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Arena results a relief

Feb. 9 at 5:21 p.m.

Intrust Bank Arena’s second year lacked the strength of its first, so there was no giant $1.1 million profit-sharing check to pose with at Wednesday’s Sedgwick County Commission meeting. But the venue still performed remarkably well in 2011, and 2012 raises expectations for more acts and revenue.

  • Bid policy a no-brainer

    Wichita City Manager Robert Layton is correct in wanting to require bids on all city-financed construction projects. In fact, many Wichitans likely were shocked to learn that bids aren’t already required.

  • Ban smoking in casinos

    It was bad enough that the Legislature exempted state-owned casinos from the Kansas Indoor Clean Air Act in the first place, worse when it let another session go by without righting the wrong. The hypocrisy should stop this year.

  • Make most of Douglas

    The Wichita City Council should endorse a Denver firm’s recommendations to end the inane one-lane eastbound squeeze in front of Eaton Place and otherwise help Douglas Avenue become the “vibrant signature street of Wichita.”

  • Kansas Views (Feb. 6)

    Closed meetings – If the governor wants to discuss public business with legislative committee members, all of the committee members – not just the Republicans – should be involved, and the discussions should take place in a public setting so the people of Kansas can know exactly what is being said.

  • Wise to delay in AAA

    Though it looks bad, it makes sense for USD 259 to temporarily leave in place old busing policies for northeast Wichita. But the district needs to transition as soon as possible to a boundary plan that is equitable and meets the needs of neighborhood families.

  • How will this look?

    You have to wonder why two Sedgwick County District Court judges would think it wise to contribute to an anti-abortion political action committee, especially when cases involving abortion can and have come before them, or why Kansas’ top elections official would agree to get involved with political campaigns.

  • Worthy ideas on arts

    Anger lingers over Gov. Sam Brownback’s one-man demolition of the Kansas Arts Commission, the resulting loss of $1.2 million in matching funds, and statewide fallout such as the shutdown of three arts councils and two arts academies. But it’s time to acknowledge that the commission is gone – at least as Kansans knew it – and to find a way out of this fiasco. Some worthy ideas are emerging.

  • Help plan city’s future

    If Mayor Carl Brewer set the bar low during Tuesday’s State of the City address in observing with pride that Wichita isn’t in the fiscal pickle of Detroit, Harrisburg, Pa., or Central Falls, R.I., he also had a point.

  • Follow meetings law

    It’s troubling when a city council or school board runs afoul of the Kansas Open Meetings Act. It’s alarming when those who write and sign the state’s laws do so.

  • Kansas Views (Jan. 30)

    Food stamps – Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback envisions a state in which opportunity abounds and no child lives in poverty. Except, it seems, the children of illegal immigrants.

  • Wichita needs right tools

    Even if Boeing’s decision to leave town after 85 years left Wichita feeling jilted, duped and shaken, as national headlines have put it, the move is as much an opportunity as a crisis. Now, Wichita needs to make sure it has the right tools, including political will, for the task of finding more jobs, diversifying its economy and assisting existing businesses.

  • Protect Wichita’s water

    Gov. Sam Brownback deserves praise for tackling a difficult but crucial issue facing Kansas: managing our water supply. But he needs to make sure that his proposed reform doesn’t undermine Wichita’s efforts to do just that.

  • Brown left imprint on lives, court

    U.S. Senior District Judge Wesley Brown, who died Monday at age 104, said he hoped to be remembered not only as an old judge but as a good judge, and he certainly will be. There was something undeniably inspiring, though, in how Judge Brown just kept going and going, becoming the nation’s longest-serving and oldest sitting federal judge and giving new meaning to the term “lifetime appointment.”

  • Fix food-stamp policy

    In the first month after Kansas changed how it figures household eligibility for food stamps, 2,066 children dropped off the rolls. If Gov. Sam Brownback is surprised that people think he’s balancing the state budget by letting poor kids go hungry, he shouldn’t be.

  • Still counting on KBA

    The state didn’t need a $960,000 forensic audit to know the Kansas Bioscience Authority had problems, starting with former president Tom Thornton and the board’s failure to rein him in. But it’s good to have the benefit of the auditors’ work – and better to realize Thornton is long gone.

  • Give courts flexibility

    Though rooted in the past and insulated from passing fads, the Kansas court system must not be exempt from change. So the governor and Legislature should heed a long-awaited blue-ribbon commission report and give the court system the flexibility to improve itself and adapt to the high-tech times.

  • Kansas Views (Jan. 23)

    Tax plan – We don’t object to the idea of state tax reform. If inequities can be addressed, they should be. But we object to tax reform that creates inequities, particularly if they add to the woes of people least equipped to deal with them.

  • Boundary quandary

    As USD 259 officials wrestle with proposals to redraw boundaries and close schools to reconcile the 2008 bond plan with a $54 million reduction in promised state funding, it may be little comfort to realize that people are riled up because they like the schools as they are. That’s no small thing, though, at a time of seemingly epidemic discontent.

  • No way to make policy

    President Obama killed the Keystone XL pipeline, at least for now. But politics killed it, too.

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