District 2 City Council candidates say they’ve learned from experience in politics

Pete Meitzner doesn’t mind admitting he learned on the job during this first term as a Wichita City Council member.

For instance, he says, he started out opposing the new Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport, until he realized it could be paid for with user fees rather than out of general city funds. Today he counts it among the city’s biggest achievements during his tenure.

Jim Price says he learned something during his first foray into politics, too: His defeat last year in a race for a state House seat didn’t change his mind about the importance of getting involved in the process.

Meitzner and Price are vying to represent the city’s District 2, which includes much of east Wichita. Meitzner got 72 percent of the vote in the primary, while Price secured the second spot in the general election by receiving 14 percent to Anthony Mitchell’s 12 percent.

Meitzner, 59, who is managing partner of a consulting firm, said he has learned a lot about the city in the last four years and now can apply that. He considered running for mayor but said family considerations kept him from doing so.

He said he was initially “of the same crowd that thought our airport was just fine.”

“The airport is a big thing for us, and I’m proud that we were able to do this without costing the taxpayers,” he said.

Meitzner also takes some credit for progress on the widening of East Kellogg, saying he was among city officials who worked with state officials to make the project cheaper, better designed and – if it goes as planned – finished at an earlier date.

Asked where the council could improve, he said, “Trying to win and keep the trust in City Hall. And we don’t have that.”

Price, a 43-year-old self-employed construction contractor, has other ideas about where the city could improve. One issue he’s heard mentioned repeatedly by voters is the city’s approach to policing.

“People keep asking, what is the value of a police officer doing a radar trap to get a $50 fine? That’s what I keep hearing from neighborhoods across Wichita, not just my district.”

Price also thinks the city should adopt a more accommodating attitude toward private businesses.

“You hear companies say it takes way too long to get to shovel and dirt, or get zoning,” he said. “Because of the bureaucracy, it just becomes this whole thing.”

Sales tax vote

Price criticized Meitzner’s vote to put a proposed 1-cent sales tax on the ballot last year.

“That just doesn’t sit well with me, that it was OK for him to represent my district as saying ‘let’s throw some money into the general fund.’”

The sales tax proposal was defeated by nearly a 2-to-1 margin. It would have paid for water supply, street repair, job development and public transit.

Meitzner said his vote simply allowed residents to make their own views on the tax known, “and that’s what happened.” He qualified his own support for the measure.

“I thought the sales tax vote was an opportunity to fix some real needs in water and streets and transit. The jobs thing, did I like it? No, I wasn’t all in on that. It could have been crafted better.”

Meitzner said he also voted to allow residents to decide whether fluoride should be added to the water system in 2012. That measure failed. He said he voted against taking a proposal to reduce the penalty for first-time marijuana users to voters, noting that the city can’t overturn state law. A majority of council members voted to put the marijuana issue on the ballot, although the state attorney general has said he will challenge it if it passes.

A ‘greater problem’

The Eagle has previously reported that Price has two criminal convictions, one for participating in a 1990 gas station robbery in Texas and the other for interfering with law enforcement officers investigating his son’s small marijuana growing operation in Butler County in 2012.

Price said the fact that he received probation for the robbery showed that he was an unwilling participant in a heist that he said was committed by two hitchhikers he had picked up. Price said he was unaware his son was growing marijuana in a spare storage bedroom at home.

He said the cases aren’t an issue with voters.

“Honestly, the only people who talk to me about it is the newspaper,” he said. “I’ve heard a couple people say, ‘I’m sorry you got in trouble when you were a kid.’”

Price said he waited until two hours before the filing deadline to oppose Meitzner because he wanted to see if more candidates would challenge the incumbent.

“Maybe there’s a greater problem that there wasn’t five other guys that didn’t step up in that same district,” he said. “At least I’m willing to get up there.”

This story was originally published March 26, 2015 at 6:25 PM with the headline "District 2 City Council candidates say they’ve learned from experience in politics."