‘Vote No’ group hopes for ‘attitude shift’ at City Hall
The victors in Tuesday’s election say they hope they’ve won more than defeat of a hotel incentive.
The local chapter of Americans for Prosperity wants better communication with Wichita City Hall and more openness to incentive-free redevelopment downtown after 61 percent of voters sided with the group Tuesday, rejecting a plan to rebate to Ambassador Hotel developers roughly $2.25 million in guest taxes over 15 years.
But AFP supporters say there’s no plan to ratchet up any fight against downtown redevelopment. And no plan to craft their own slate of political candidates, although they say they’ll continue to support free-market/limited-government candidates who run for the Wichita City Council and Sedgwick County Commission.
“I hope it doesn’t disappoint anyone but there’s not this next big fight project or anything like that,” said Derrick Sontag, the AFP state director in Topeka.
“Certainly, we’d hope the City Council doesn’t choose to go down the route again of amending a charter ordinance and doing a rebate on the guest tax. We think the voters were very clear Tuesday about that.”
“Wouldn’t that be foolish?” said Sedgwick County Commissioner Richard Ranzau, who supported the fight against the guest tax.
AFP will move forward with equal parts education and an effort to open a dialog with the City Council about free-market redevelopment, including bringing proven Wichita developers downtown to do their own projects, said referendum organizers Bob Weeks, Susan Estes and John Todd.
“For me, I hope there’s going to be a little bit of an attitude shift at City Hall,” Weeks said. “ It’s very corrosive there. We go and we testify, and these three people here, we try as hard as we can to be accurate. There are some, obviously, that are not. So we go up there, we testify, and we all say we’d be happy to answer questions. They don’t ask questions very often, and then when we’re done and we’re sitting down and we can’t go back up there again, then the mayor and others say, ‘You’re wrong. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ They will slam us, and there’s no dialogue.”
“It’s so unfortunate,” Estes said. “The mayor said in his swearing-in ceremony that he welcomed us, that the dialogue was constructive and helpful, and we think that it is.
“The more things are talked about, the more confidence people will have in their city council. From our conversations with people at their front doors, there’s a perception that this city council isn’t responsive. It’s unfortunate there’s that disconnect, and we hope that changes over time.”
Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer said his door is always open to the AFP members.
“In the past, Susan has come up to talk about what they’d like to do, what their plans are, and I’d hope they still feel free to do that,” Brewer said. “I think many of our council members have the same open-door policy, so I’m not exactly sure what they’re searching for. Come on up and talk to us. Tell us what you want to do. This is about growing our city.”
Jeff Fluhr, president of the Wichita Downtown Development Corp., said Friday that while downtown redevelopment will proceed, the message from Tuesday’s election has been clearly received.
“That’s the one economic instrument that provides the mechanism (for a referendum) to take place,” he said about the guest tax, “and we have an understanding from the community it’s something they want to continue to serve Go Wichita and tourism development.”
The 6 percent guest tax is levied against hotel guests in Wichita, with the proceeds going into a fund for tourism recruitment.
A battle over subsidies
Market-driven successes downtown are more than possible, said Sedgwick County Commissioner Karl Peterjohn, another supporter of the Vote No effort. Peterjohn cited the failed Sav-A-Lot grocery store subsidy in Planeview as an example.
“When that project was voted down before us, the developer made some very pungent comments and walked away from the project,” Peterjohn said.
“But another developer took it on, built a bigger store, and the project was built successfully. It’s on the tax rolls now without any TIF exposure, without any transfer of funds for police, fire or other basic services to fund a TIF district. It can happen.”
What AFP won’t do is mount any assaults against future downtown development programs that don’t use charter ordinances like the guest tax. That’s the only Ambassador subsidy that could be legally challenged at the local level since the council had to amend a charter ordinance to divert its revenue.
The guest tax revenue was about 10 percent of the funding for the proposed $22.5 million, 117-room boutique hotel at the corner of Douglas and Broadway, which is under construction and about 15 percent complete.
Sontag reiterated that AFP did not oppose the Ambassador Hotel project, just its public subsidies.
“We welcome Paul Coury and anyone else to the city,” he said. “They’re renovating a longtime vacant building and turning it into something that will be a beautiful hotel. The only thing we didn’t approve of is the way it’s being done if it’s such a great opportunity, and obviously it is since it’s clear they intend to continue the project.”
Changing other subsidies is more a battle at the state level, Sontag said.
“TIF (tax increment financing) and CID (community improvement) districts are current law,” Sontag said. “We don’t believe either is good for the city of Wichita, the state or any municipality, but they’re current law, the way things operate. So as long as they’re in statutes we’ll continue to communicate why we’re against them in Topeka and in Wichita. But until they’re repealed, it’s the atmosphere everyone operates in.
“But to do a charter ordinance and allow the opportunity for folks to file a protest and allow citizens to vote is something we wanted to jump on.”
This story was originally published March 3, 2012 at 5:00 AM with the headline "‘Vote No’ group hopes for ‘attitude shift’ at City Hall."