Incumbents hold onto Wichita City Council seats for four more years
Wichita City Council members Becky Tuttle, Jeff Blubaugh and Bryan Frye will hang onto their seats for another four years, according to final, unofficial election results.
Their challengers, who all called for ethics reform and increased transparency at City Hall, had high hopes of ousting the incumbents in Districts 2, 4 and 5, which cover portions of east, west and southwest Wichita.
But none managed to squeak ahead as results poured in Tuesday night.
“When I signed up, I knew it was going to be an uphill battle. And it certainly turned out that way,” Mike Magness said about his loss in District 5 to Frye.
“Obviously I was hoping for more votes,” Christopher Parisho, who ran against Blubaugh in District 4, said, adding that he will continue to advocate for change despite the loss.
“I hope the crop of the elected people this time around pay more attention to what the people want and try and implement some of the changes, fix some of the issues that I’ve had people bring up with me in the course of this campaign.”
Beckie Jenek, who also ran in District 4, said she thinks being in the race, along with Parisho, helped hold Blubaugh accountable and pushed him to change his position on ethics reform and community engagement.
“I just hope that wasn’t an election-year thing,” Jenek said. “Because in his previous six years on the council, we haven’t seen that. So I hope he keeps that up.”
Calls for increased transparency came after the public was left in the dark about some of the city’s biggest projects, including an agreement to sell riverfront property for $1 an acre as part of a deal to bring a Minor League Baseball team to Wichita. Ethics reform became a key issue after The Eagle reported undisclosed gifts received by Mayor Jeff Longwell before he steered a multimillion dollar contract for the city’s new water treatment plant to his friends.
As they celebrated their wins Tuesday night, Tuttle, Blubaugh and Frye all said they wanted to continue pushing Wichita forward during their next term.
They have all said the city’s communication to the public could improve but, overall, the city is on the right track.
City council members, which are paid $42,759 annually, are elected for four years and serve part time.
Frye, who won 67.9% of the vote to Magness’ 31.3%, said he wants “to continue to build on the momentum that we started over the last couple years, and just continue to carry it into a breakout 2020.”
He ran on a platform of taking care of the city’s infrastructure.
“I want to continue to focus on the quality of life issues, our infrastructure, making sure that we’re building out the water treatment plant the right way, that we’re delivering good value to our citizens,” he said.
Tuttle, whose number one issue was retaining and recruiting a talented workforce, called the District 2 race with real estate broker Joseph Scapa and teacher Rodney Wren contentious.
But she said she thinks sticking to her message — making Wichita an attractive city where people want to “live, learn, play and pray” — helped her come out on top with 60.8% of the vote. Scapa had 29.8% and Wren had 8.7%.
“It’s been a long road, but we’ve been very strategic in listening to what individuals and businesses and not-for-profits in Wichita said they need to be successful,” Tuttle said. This was her first election. A former YMCA executive, she was appointed to take over Pete Meitzner’s seat after he left for the Sedgwick County Commission at the end of 2018.
Blubaugh, who stayed ahead of Jenek throughout the evening to secure nearly 58% of the vote to her 34.6%, said he wants to work not only on projects in District 4 like commercial development around the new baseball stadium, but on also citywide projects such as the water treatment plant during his next term.
Parisho, a photographer, walked way with 7% of the votes in the race.
“Our mayor (Jeff Longwell) has done a very good job working hard, making the right moves, trying to move the city forward,” Blubaugh said. During his campaign he said the biggest issue facing the city is taking care of its core areas of responsibility, such as the new water treatment plant and streets, along with public safety, police and fire.
“I think people will reflect back that we had a great four years the last four years, and I think we’ll have a great four years, the next four years,” he said.
The results of the city council races are not final until the canvass on Nov. 15 and provisional ballots — cast by voters whose eligibility is in question — are either counted or disqualified. The number of provisional ballots was not disclosed by the Sedgwick County Election Office on Tuesday night.
