Editorial: The Eagle endorses Baty over Cruse, but there are risks either way

Voters in the Sedgwick County 4th Commission District have their work cut out for them, because both the candidates on the Nov. 8 ballots have their risks and their rewards.

The incumbent is Lacey Cruse. The challenger is Mattress Hub entrepreneur Ryan Baty.

Our editorial board endorses Baty, but the decision was neither easy nor unanimous.

Cruse’s strength is that she has endless compassion and offers a much-needed voice for a segment of society that in the past was not often heard by the County Commission — especially the low-income and minority populations of the county.

She’s a fierce advocate for residents fighting mental illness. She was on that long before the case of Cedric “C.J.” Lofton, a 17-year-old in mental crisis who died in county custody because rules were bent to send him to juvenile lockup rather than the hospital where he belonged.

But Cruse also tends to embarrass the county from time to time, as when she got banned from an Old Town bar for making a racially insensitive comment. And she has a bit of a persecution complex that holds her back from being as effective as she could be.

Cruse doesn’t get along with some other commissioners and tends to see misogyny in honest disputes over policy.

It’s complicated and there’s some truth to Cruse’s side — like when male commissioners supporting the Value Them Both Amendment took it upon themselves to rewrite her district newsletter, inserting their views on abortion in place of her pro-choice take. It’s hard to imagine that happening to a male commissioner.

For the record, we’re not endorsing Baty because he’s male. And we recognize there’s a risk of leaving Sarah Lopez as the lone female voice on the commission.

What tipped the scale to Baty is business acumen.

He’s built an impressive empire of stores and his entrepreneurial vision could be helpful as our fragile economy goes through pitches and yaws over the next few years.

And Baty calls it right on the need to better coordinate public and private efforts on mental health.

The county is the primary responder for mental health crisis, but ongoing treatment is primarily a responsibility of private hospitals. Things will stay that way until a planned state mental hospital can be built in Sedgwick County, which could be years away.

There are also a number of nonprofits, each with their own part of the puzzle, and Baty hopes to get them working together to fill gaps and eliminate service overlap. He’s a good salesman and negotiator and might make some progress.

But there’s a fine line between cooperation and abdication.

Fortunately, Baty seems to recognize that providing mental health services is and must remain a county-run function and it would be irresponsible to farm it out too much.

He wants to expand the ICT 1 program that teams a police officer, paramedic and mental health professional on mental crisis calls. He also wants to pay more competitive salaries at Comcare, the county mental health department, and to expand its mobile mental health teams.

That will cost money and Baty proposes to pay for it through growth and expansion of the tax base.

That sounds good in theory, but failed miserably when former Gov. Sam Brownback tried it to pay for his tax experiment. Also, the Republican-dominated state Legislature has made it exceedingly difficult for local governments to reap the tax benefits of growth.

Of concern is how far to the right Baty may go.

If he’s elected and models his service after commissioners David Dennis and Pete Meitzner, things will probably be OK. If he hews farther right like Commissioner Jim Howell and former commissioners Richard Ranzau and Karl Peterjohn, things could get dicey.

Sedgwick County tried the ultra-conservative experiment and it was a disaster. Many of today’s problems trace directly to the “small government” obsession of the former majority that turned down public-health grants, alienated department heads and stripped the workforce bare. Baty told the Editorial Board that it would be foolish to not use federal grant money, so that’s a promising start.

Our choice is Baty on points. But whoever wins this race, we’ll be watching them closely.