Wichita mayor pushes to hire a staffer; debate derailed by YouTube comments

Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple’s push to hire an assistant to help him with policy research, community outreach and communications stalled Tuesday after a readout of YouTube comments derailed the City Council meeting.

Whipple hasn’t said who he wants to hire for the position, but some speculated Tuesday that he wants someone who has worked on his campaign.

Adding a position during the novel coronavirus pandemic was already largely unpopular with the rest of the council before the mayor moved to table discussion, prompted in part by how long it was taking to get through the debate.

The city is under a hiring freeze and has furloughed around 300 workers as part of an effort to combat an estimated $10 million shortfall in the city’s general fund.

“We are in a hiring freeze right now,” said council member Becky Tuttle, “and it would be almost impossible for me to add a position to our staffing table when we are not allowing other staff to be hired to fill positions that already exist.”

Whipple said the position is essential and would be in keeping with city practice for the past 20 years, allowing the mayor and city council to have a full-time assistant. He said he wants the position to be filled by a graduate-level professional to do independent research of the city’s issues.

Bryan Frye, a City Council member, said the staff member Whipple is describing already exists.

“We have the position,” Frye said. “You’re just not utilizing the position to best suit the needs of the office.”

The position under consideration changed from a more traditional assistant to a communications and event planner under Whipple’s predecessor, Jeff Longwell, when the city hired Megan Lovely.

“For the last 12 years, everyone who had this position or the equivalent actually worked for the mayor before the mayor was (elected) and could actually be found in their campaign structure,” Whipple said.

Lovely volunteered on Longwell’s mayoral campaign in 2014 before she was hired by the city and acted as a coordinator and spokesperson for Longwell while he was mayor.

Whipple suggested there are trust issues in the City Council office. He said that Lovely is transitioning to work directly under the city’s communications director that was hired this spring.

“It’s important, too, that whoever works with the mayor is someone who the mayor can trust,” Whipple said.

YouTube comments slow meeting

City Council meetings have been livestreamed onto YouTube and Facebook since late last month when Sedgwick County banned gatherings of 10 or more people, barring the general public from attending meetings in person.

In lieu of public comments, the city clerk reads YouTube comments into the record during the council meeting.

YouTube commenters seized on the opportunity Tuesday to accuse Whipple of trying to politicize city government.

“And there it is,” said Amy Lyon, who placed fourth in the August mayoral primary behind Whipple, Longwell and Lyndy Wells. “The crux of the matter is you need to bring in your campaign team.”

Whipple said the potential hire for the position would have to go through the city’s human resources department to get hired and would not engage in political activities. The fact the position was even being brought before the council is a departure from how the city has operated in the past, he said.

Beyond criticism, which is typical of a public comments period, at Tuesday’s meeting, City Attorney Jennifer Magana advised the city clerk to read all of the comments made online during the meeting. That resulted in the clerk reading several back-and-forth exchanges between a handful of commenters.

After several minutes of that, Whipple asked to move further discussion about the new position to the next meeting where the public can attend in person. The decision was ultimately delayed until after the city manager’s office finishes a staffing study that’s supposed to be completed by June 30.

After Tuesday, Magana is going to research whether some of those comments can be filtered out to speed up the meeting while still meeting the requirements of open meetings law.

Sedgwick County has been following a more orderly process for public comment during its online meetings.

Members of the public who want to make general comments or comment on an agenda item have until 5 p.m. the day before the meeting to file comments online or e-mail.

Those are assembled into a packet for the commissioners to review before the meeting.

For last week’s Wednesday meeting, “I got mine around 7:30 or 8 in the morning,” said Commissioner David Dennis.

Also, “they had copies for us at our table” when the meeting began at 9 a.m., he said.

All the written comments received become a part of the official public record of the meeting, said Commission Chairman Pete Meitzner.

He said the county adopted the same system for public comments as Johnson County, which is holding its meetings via teleconference.

Residents who wish to file comments with the county can e-mail communications@sedgwick.gov, or submit online at https://www.sedgwickcounty.org/commissioners/public-comment-form-bocc/.

Budget shortfall looms

Wichita’s city government is facing an $8- to $10 million shortfall as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, and it could become worse in years to come.

The city is considering continuing a hiring freeze, allowing positions that were budgeted to go unfilled, possibly skipping public art projects and delaying capital projects for one to two years.

Raises for some city employees also could be frozen temporarily, based on the City Council’s budget retreat immediately following the council meeting Tuesday.

Because Wichita has fewer than 500,000 residents, it was passed over in the recent federal stimulus package that provided COVID-19 assistance to state, county and city governments. Sedgwick County government is receiving more than $99 million in federal funding.

“Sedgwick County has indicated that they’re willing to consider sharing some of that revenue with us once we come up with a mutually agreeable formula,” City Manager Robert Layton said.

But that money wouldn’t solve the city’s budget problems.

“The problem today is ... the federal legislation does not allow us to use that to offset any revenue shortfalls, so it’s only for COVID-19-related expenses,” Layton said.

This story was originally published April 21, 2020 at 4:50 PM.