Editorial: Eagle endorses Meitzner over Grant; but either would serve District 1 well

Endorsements can be tricky.

Sometimes, the candidates are so flawed that you don’t want to endorse either one. Other times, both candidates bring so much to the table that you wish you could endorse them both.

In Sedgwick County Commission District 1, we’re pleased to report that either incumbent Pete Meitzner or challenger Kelli Grant would be a solid choice.

The two were so close in qualifications that the temptation was to make no recommendation. But that’s not an option for voters and would be a cop-out for us.

So, by split decision, we’re saying stay the course with Meitzner.

But let’s start with Grant.

Once a struggling single mother who received public assistance, she landed an entry-level job with Comcare, the county’s mental health services department, providing direct client services.

She rose through the county ranks to a managerial job in the Department of Corrections, and from there to the Finance Department. While in finance, she became a whistleblower, reporting a supervisor for adding suspicious charges to the credit card that was issued in Grant’s name. The supervisor was subsequently fired.

Her job experience gives her a deep understanding of three areas of county government that could use improvement, particularly the provision of mental health services.

Grant also has an impressive educational background that dovetails nicely with the responsibilities of a county commissioner.

She has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Wichita State University in criminal science with an emphasis in sociology. She is a doctoral candidate in sociology at Kansas State University. The final hurdle is completing her dissertation on how prison food service practices affect female inmates, which was delayed by the COVID pandemic and its restrictions on visiting correctional facilities.

Her top-line issue is the hundreds of vacancies in county government, which have hit particularly hard in mental health and the jail. She supports recent efforts to increase compensation, but said the county needs to do more to attract and retain employees.

She also favors funding more specialty courts to deal with specific problems, chief among them domestic violence. She hopes to expand the county’s grant-writing capabilities to help pay for it.

Meitzner has served the county well since coming over from the Wichita City Council, where he spent seven years in office. He has a good handle on issues facing the county and deep community ties.

And he’s managed to mostly steer clear of the dissension that has wracked the commission since Commissioner Lacey Cruse’s allegations of improper trips and gifts to influence the selection of a site for a planned mental health crisis center.

Of concern is his role in the county’s decision to quietly quit sending mail ballot applications before this election. Politicians should work to increase voter turnout and he failed us there.

But there’s one issue that tipped the scale in Meitzner’s favor and it’s no one else is talking about — Amtrak.

President Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan includes $66 billion for Amtrak repair and expansion and the rail service will be firming up plans for that in the next few months.

Passenger rail could be game-changing for Wichita and Meitzner’s been the No. 1 advocate for Wichita Amtrak service since his early days on the City Council 10 years ago.

Filling in the Amtrak gap between Oklahoma City and Newton would give us easy access to OKC, Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio to the south, and simplify train travel to Topeka, Lawrence, Kansas City and Chicago to the north.

Also, train tourism is growing again post-pandemic. It’s possible we could attract some if we gave it some emphasis.

If anyone has the knowledge, contacts and passion to get Amtrak here, it’s Meitzner. And if there’s a need for state support to improve tracks or stations, there’s nobody better than Meitzner to make our case in Topeka.

As we said earlier, voters in District 1 will be in good hands no matter who wins. But we want to keep Pete Meitzner’s hand on the throttle.