Wichita wants to charge you to park, but failed to collect millions from businesses | Opinion
As Wichita city government staggers toward a plan to expand paid parking across downtown Wichita, there comes the disturbing news that businesses in Old Town have been undercharged for their parking by more than half a million dollars a year — for the past 25 years.
That comes from a staff report that outlines various options to implement paid parking that the City Council is scheduled to pick from on Tuesday.
From the report:
“In response to requests for information regarding estimates of “how much revenue has been lost by the failure to increase the Old Town parking agreements since their initial approval, an audit was conducted by the City Auditor and since 1999, an average of $532,212.67 per year has not been realized. It’s been suggested by some of the individuals involved at the time, that the original intent of the rate increases were tied to a 15 year term and that removal of the rate increases, or decision to not implement the rate increases, was based on an agreement to pay a fixed rate in perpetuity; these claims cannot be corroborated nor can we find any City Council action to support the same.”
I spoke with City Manager Robert Layton about it on Friday. Whatever handshake agreement may have been made between city officials and Old Town businesses happened before he got here and is lost to the ages. The people in charge back then are long gone or dead and he’s had to piece together what went on from third- and fourth-hand accounts.
He said as far as he can tell, the scheduled contract increases were suspended while the city considered a pay-for-parking plan that was never completed or presented to the council, and they weren’t restored afterwards.
The current recommendation is to double the price per space to what it should have been, and levy a 2% sales tax on purchases in Old Town, so businesses don’t have to raise prices or take it out of their profits.
Layton said he’s reviewed most of the other contracts for parking garages and it appears that they won’t be due rent increases until next year or beyond.
This has gotten ridiculously complicated, and it deserves a lot more thought than the City Council is going to be able to give it on a loaded agenda the week before Christmas.
It’s pretty clear though, that if merchants, bars and restaurants were charged what they should have been, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in today.
Now, the city is claiming $18 million needs to be spent on deferred maintenance of city-owned parking garages. If the city had diligently collected what was owed to the people of Wichita by the businesses that use the garages, it’s highly probable that the maintenance wouldn’t have been deferred in the first place.
We’ve seen this kind of thing before. For example:
▪ At the Wichita Ice Center, Genesis Health Clubs failed to make nine years of payments that were supposed to reimburse $750,000 that the city fronted owners Rodney and Brandon Steven, to convert the second floor of the center into one of their membership fitness centers. Meanwhile, the city continued to pay the Stevens $40,000 to $50,000 a year to manage the city part of the facility, which was allowed to deteriorate to the point of unusability.
▪ At the former Clapp Golf Course, the operator of a disc-golf store was rented the clubhouse and use of the grounds for his business. His rent was supposed to go up each year, but somehow that slipped through the cracks.
Once could be a mistake. Twice could be a coincidence. Three times is a pattern.
And we have no way of knowing what other under-the-table contract “discounts” the city’s been letting slide on behalf of the local business gentry.
Layton said the city is investing in new software to monitor its contracts, which will act as an electronic “tickler file” to notify officials when rents are supposed to go up, along with renewal and cancellation dates. That’s expected to be in place within the next year, he said.
That’s a positive development.
But on the pay-for-parking plan, the numbers have lacked credibility since the beginning and have only gotten sketchier since.
The City Council should put the plan aside until the new contract software is in place, and shouldn’t allow a single new parking meter to be installed until real, verifiable numbers are in hand to justify it.
This story was originally published December 16, 2024 at 2:32 PM.
