Wichita spends $8 million on communications, but doesn’t listen | Opinion

What’s wrong with this picture?

Three rich guys walk into Wichita City Hall and ask for a 1% sales tax to fund an $850 million shopping list they say is based on extensive community input.

Their data is not well described and their 500-person “survey” doesn’t provide any specific data.

Meanwhile, the city of Wichita has spent roughly $8 million over the past decade to fund a department called “strategic communications.”

Its purpose, according to the city’s budget document, is to “build awareness, trust and a positive reputation.”

Over those 10 years, the department has rolled out three different social media platforms, all promising to give citizens a chance to weigh in on city priorities.

But instead of relying on that $8 million asset, the city council has instead answered the beck and call of the three rich guys.

The city’s social media project started back in 2013 with something called “Activate Wichita”, which then-Mayor Carl Brewer kicked off with a City Hall video, declaring it was “an online forum designed to let Wichitans help shape the future of our great city.”

Apparently, it didn’t live up to expectations and disappeared from view a few years later.

Next up, they fired up a new platform called Wichita.Forum.Gov. It was rolled out to a City Council workshop in March 2022 and was described by then-City Manager Robert Layton as a continued effort to improve our public engagement.

Like its predecessor, it was an online platform, again presented as a way to listen to the public.

Jim Jonas, head of the Strategic Communications department, told the council, “We need to do a better job of reaching out to residents and speaking with them and hearing their concerns.”

But, like its predecessor, it also died a quiet death shortly after, disappearing from the city’s website.

Undeterred by failure, the city charged ahead with the latest version of “public engagement”, an annual City of Wichita Community Survey, conducted by a firm called POLCO, at an annual cost of $35.000.

It’s been around for a few years, dating back to 2017, and, like its predecessors, was described as a way to listen to the public pulse.

Apparently, the public pulse is very weak in City Hall, because the POLCO survey was never mentioned during any of the hours of City Council debate over the proposed sales tax.

All three online efforts were designed to inspire the public’s trust in City Hall. But the latest results from the POLCO survey show just the opposite.

According to the survey, “Overall confidence in Wichita government” dropped from 45% in 2018 to 33% in 2024. That’s not much of a return on a $8 million investment in “Strategic Communication.”

The POLCO survey asked citizens to rate the issues they found most important.

As expected, the issues of public safety and homelessness made the list.

But there is no mention of a new performing arts center or convention center upgrades, which would draw $325 million from the sales tax increase, which the city’s voters will approve or reject in Tuesday’s special election.

So, here’s the question: Why do we continue to spend more than $1 million a year, almost $8 million over the past decade, on a “Strategic Communications” department that generates data ignored by the City Council?

Instead, the council has chosen to listen to three rich guys.

I’m expecting that the public’s lack of trust in City Hall is the main reason the sales tax will go down in flames.

The social media platforms funded by tax dollars all were well intended, but what’s the point if they aren’t going to be acknowledged as a vital part of the decision-making process.

Worse yet, we seem to be going backwards. Ignoring the city’s social media platform, newly elected Council member Joseph Shepard passionately called for multiple town hall meetings to give the public an opportunity to weigh in on the sales tax proposals.

Right, that makes sense. Let’s ask people to come out in the dark of night in the middle of winter and stand in line so they can deliver their five-minute opinion.

The imagery of the lowly citizens coming forward to genuflect before the rulers and plead their case is disturbingly medieval.

But if the council is going to ignore its investment in social media, they might as well go with the Dark Ages model.

It’s too late to change anything in this ill-advised and hurried special election, but we can only hope the council will learn from the experience and figure out how to listen to the public voice.

We deserve so much more for $8 million.

— Dale Goter is a media consultant, former journalist and former state Capitol lobbyist for the city of Wichita.