Jared Cerullo, candidate for City Council District 3 in Wichita, KS
Name: Jared Cerullo
Age: 47
Occupation: Freelance contractor/self employed
Previous government service:
District 3 Advisory Board 2016-2020
Wichita Transit Advisory Board 2019-2020
Have you run for office before? (Please list any previous offices sought)
No
What is the top issue in your race, and how would you address it?
Public safety. The city of Wichita currently has significant staffing problems with its police and fire department that must be addressed immediately. Wages for both police and firefighters have also fallen way behind comparable midwestern cities.
Wages are a direct result of union leadership negotiations with the city manager. No council member can have much to do with police and fire wages other than to advise the city manager on his/her opinions. We must raise police and fire wages in order to remain competitive with other comparable cities. We must address the staffing issue. The police department’s special units appear to be pulling beat officers off the streets to respond to 911 emergency calls. We cannot ignore or eliminate the special units, but we must make sure street officers have adequate staffing.
I was proud to support a fire dept. optimization study that will help determine where fire staffing is inadequate and where a new fire station is needed next year.
What to do with the area’s homeless population has been a major issue recently. After they were pushed out of Naftzger Park, they migrated north a few blocks and set up camp around Open Door and the Lord’s Diner. Now, key sidewalks in that area have been striped off as no-sitting zones and warnings have been issued that the homeless people’s impromptu shelters and other possessions will be subject to seizure. Do you support these policies and why or why not?
Naftzger Park had become a very dangerous place. There were continuous fights between homeless people and open drug usage going on inside that park. It had to be dealt with. I was supportive of redeveloping Naftzger Park into a safe community gathering space and I am proud to see that numerous events have already taken place there.
The homeless people who constantly gathered in Naftzger Park and who moved to the sidewalks along Topeka Street are chronic homeless folks who have repeatedly ignored and refused the services available to them that could help them get back on their feet. We cannot allow a tent city along any downtown sidewalks.
I am hopeful that the plans set in place last month to provide a 1-stop shop for homelessness, mental health and substance abuse problems will provide a safe place for the chronic homeless to remain in a structured environment where they are not a danger to the rest of society.
The city has ongoing project plans to reconfigure many four-lane streets, including main thoroughfares such as Broadway and Douglas, to one car-traffic lane running in each direction with a center turn lane. Do you support this plan and why or why not?
I support “road diets” where they are feasible. For instance, I was supportive of the road diet plan on Mt. Vernon, east of Broadway in District 3 because it is not a thoroughfare that handles a massive amount of car traffic like South Broadway or East Harry and Lincoln Streets. We must think of ways to make Wichita more bicycle and pedestrian friendly. This is one way to do it.
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