Wichita City Council ethics meeting ends in charges, countercharges and thrown papers
.jpg "Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple ends Tuesday’s City Council workshop on ethics by throwing a stack of papers over the COVID barrier at council member Jeff Blubaugh. The papers were a collection of social media memes and posts made by Whipple supporters criticizing various Republican politicians, which Blubaugh had printed out, demanding that Whipple denounce them.")
A Wichita City Council meeting to shape a new ethics policy ended poorly after members of the council left the bench and the mayor tossed a printout of social media screenshots at a council member over a plexiglass COVID barrier.
After nearly four hours of heated debate about whether a new ethics policy should include provisions related to campaign finance — and whether unethical behavior is prevalent enough to warrant a new policy — the workshop ended Tuesday without a formal vote to close the meeting.
The policy under consideration has not been released in full to the public.
Based on discussion during the workshop, it would limit gifts council members could accept; attempt to disrupt favorable treatment to friends, family and donors by clearly defining those relationships; and would establish an ethics advisory board to enforce the new policy.
During the meeting, Mayor Brandon Whipple and council member Jeff Blubaugh clashed repeatedly over what they think should be in the final policy.
Blubaugh wants the policy to include a prohibition on cyberbullying by campaign aides and supporters. Whipple opposes that, saying it would make council members responsible for conduct by third parties they don’t control.
The meeting was tense, but reasonably cordial until the last few minutes when Whipple and Blubaugh traded accusations of unethical behavior.
Whipple accused Blubaugh of supporting former Sedgwick County Commissioner Michael O’Donnell, one of three Wichita Republican officials behind an attack video ad that falsely accused Whipple of sexual harassment during the 2019 mayoral race.
When Blubaugh accused Whipple of accusing him without evidence, Whipple pulled out his cell phone and read from an October Facebook post by Blubaugh that encouraged people to consider both sides of the story regarding O’Donnell’s role in the video.
Replied Blubaugh: “That is not an endorsement of that behavior, Mayor.”
Blubaugh then passed out printouts of social media memes and posts he said were made by Whipple’s campaign workers attacking O’Donnell, former Mayor Jeff Longwell, former mayoral candidate Lyndy Wells, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall.
“Show me more,” Whipple challenged. “I want to see them.”
Blubaugh passed Whipple the printouts around the plexiglass barrier that has been set up between council members to block transmission of COVID-19, accusing Whipple of using a Political Action Committee to pay his supporters to attack Republican politicians.
“If these are from those individuals, you need to denounce this behavior,” Blubaugh said.
Whipple denied his PAC paid for the memes and posts and refused to denounce them as Blubaugh demanded, saying Blubaugh was asking him to “denounce the First Amendment rights of people to express political opinions using comedy.”
”You’re finding stuff here that you just found randomly on the internet and because you don’t understand the internet or apparently campaign finance laws . . . you think that now I should be accountable for all the negative campaigning on the internet,” Whipple said.
“If you’re paying those individuals,” Blubaugh said.
“But I’m not,” Whipple said.
He accused Blubaugh of grandstanding. “Now we’re going to have a front-page story where you can feel like you got in a big fight with the mayor and you can get your name in the paper.”
As the meeting broke up, Whipple tried to pass the printouts back over the top of the COVID barrier to Blubaugh. When Blubaugh didn’t reach for the papers, Whipple pushed them over the barrier.
Blubaugh threw up his hands as the papers dropped into his lap and said, “That’s an unethical situation right there.”
“No, it’s not,” Whipple said, now standing. “Because guess what, you slowed down the ethics reform so now we don’t have any policy.”
Blubaugh said he plans to seek an attorney’s advice as to whether Whipple’s actions at the meeting could have any legal repercussions.
The disagreement continued after the meeting, Blubaugh said.
When Blubaugh went into the mayor’s office after leaving the council chambers, Whipple called him “a (expletive) baby,” Blubaugh said.
“Never in all my years in office have I had things thrown at me or accusations and profanities hurled at me,” Blubaugh said. “How was that ethical? Is this the ethics reform we want as a city? We could have about a week’s worth of ethics violation cases just from today’s meeting.”
Whipple acknowledged calling Blubaugh a “baby” but said he doesn’t remember the specific language used.
“It’s not something I would have done had I thought it was anything other than two men having an adult conversation about what is obviously an ongoing personal conflict,” Whipple said.
Whipple said Tuesday afternoon that he regrets his behavior, but said he had reached his limit after nearly an hour of “jabs” by Blubaugh suggesting improper behavior by his wife, who controls a political action committee. He said it felt like Blubaugh was trying to portray the politicians who smeared him — including O’Donnell and former City Council member James Clendenin — as victims.
Whipple also said he “didn’t throw the papers” at Blubaugh.
“My goal was to hand it back over and have him put it back on his desk, but of course I didn’t anticipate it to look the way I think it did.”
Council member Becky Tuttle attributed the ragged ending of the meeting to tensions that have been raised over months of debate on the ethics policy, which is in its 13th rewrite.
The council is hoping to finish the policy next month and distribute it for public comment before finalizing it.
“As we’re trying to codify this ethics policy, people are very passionate about it,” Tuttle said. “But I think in the end, we all want the same thing. We want to have one of the strongest ethics policies in the nation.”
She took Tuesday’s exchange between Blubaugh and Whipple philosophically.
“Today, sometimes you have to work through some of the issues,” she said. “I think there was a lot of really good, robust discussion.”
Council member Brandon Johnson left the meeting just before the final clash, with the parting words “I thought today was a good conversation.”
Later, he said he had another appointment and “I figured we were done talking about anything productive.”
He said he hadn’t watched the end of the meeting, but added: “I think there was some tension in the air.”
“Aside from what looked to be negative, I think a lot of good discussion points are out there for the community to look at,” he said.
Like Tuttle, he predicted the council will pass a good policy at the end of the process.
“I think this is just the messy sausage making,” he said. “But it’s trying to get it right.”
This story was originally published January 26, 2021 at 3:54 PM.
