City sending educational mailer on Wichita’s proposed sales tax

Citing misinformation about the proposed 1-cent sales tax for Wichita, city officials have decided to send out an educational mailer.

Opponents to the tax question, which is on the Nov. 4 ballot, have said the city doesn’t have a plan for how it would use the revenue.

“The city does have a plan,” Mayor Carl Brewer said Monday during a news conference.

He said the plan is in response to needs cited by the community, including at public meetings and through surveys.

The City Council voted in August to put the sales tax on the ballot. The tax would expire after five years and is projected to raise nearly $400 million for four projects: expanding an existing water source for a future water supply and to protect against a severe drought, street repair, job development and public transit.

“We decided to do a mailer because there was a lot of misinformation that was going out where people didn’t quite understand what was going on,” Brewer said. “By doing the mailer, we’re able to educate everyone.”

City officials decided about two weeks ago to send a mailer to the 173,000 households in the city limits. The cost of the mailer is $47,137, officials said.

Interim City Attorney Sharon Dickgrafe said state law prohibits cities from “advocating for any type of election.”

“So we tried to tailor all our materials to properly educate the public on what the sales tax will do, what it won’t do,” she added. “It is a fine line between advocacy and educating, and we’re trying real hard to keep it strictly educating.”

To help address the water piece, a public meeting will be held before the election to give an update on the city’s Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) facility. Of the projected tax, $250 million is targeted to expand the ASR, which pulls water out of the Little Arkansas River northwest of Wichita and stores it in the underground Equus Beds.

The meeting would discuss what is being done at the ASR and plans for the expansion, officials said.

If the tax passes, a citizen oversight committee will be established. The City Council soon will start taking nominations to fill seats on the committee, which will composed of six members from each of the six council districts and eight at-large members, officials said.

The committee’s meetings would be open, and documents would be available online.

The tax would raise 1 cent for every dollar spent. It would raise the overall sales tax in Wichita to 8.15 percent, including state and county sales taxes.

This story was originally published October 20, 2014 at 1:12 PM with the headline "City sending educational mailer on Wichita’s proposed sales tax."