Is Genesis Clubs’ Wichita Ice Center disaster the tip of the iceberg? | Opinion

As journalists, we love the city of Wichita’s public-private partnerships, because they’re often put together so poorly that it represents job security for our investigative reporters.

As citizens of this community, we are not as enamored of them, because each failed project, slipshod contract and backroom handshake deal ends up costing us money.

The latest example is Tuesday’s resolution to the fiasco at the Wichita Ice Center in the wake of the now-defunct public-private partnership to have Genesis Health Clubs — owned by brothers Rodney Steven II and Brandon Steven — run the city-owned facility.

To summarize, the public-private partnership went poorly for the public.

While the Genesis Club on the second floor of the ice center was meticulously maintained, the city’s portion of the skating center deteriorated dramatically and the ice-making system itself eventually failed entirely.

The city had floated $750,000 in bonds to help Genesis develop its private business in the ice center, and on Tuesday, the City Council accepted a $219,000 settlement of that debt after Genesis made only one bond payment, for $14,127.65, in eight years.

The settlement amount was the maximum that the city could have collected if it had won a lawsuit against Genesis, because the contract was so poorly written that it handed the Steven brothers a get-out-of-debt-free card.

One provision in the contract, unnoticed at the time, allows the city to try to collect only the last three years of missed payments — $219,000 out of almost $450,000 in unpaid bills dating back to 2017.

The discussion at Tuesday’s council meeting largely sloughed off responsibility to earlier generations of city officials — since moved on, retired, or in some cases deceased.

Council member Brandon Johnson, in his last meeting before turning the seat over to newly elected council member Joseph Shepard, expressed dismay — not so much over the scandalously incompetent sweetheart deals cut by City Hall luminaries of the past, but that the people who made them were criticized in absentia.

“I am a little disappointed at some of the discussion earlier, with some of the finger pointing at specific former city staff members, especially when the context or nuance is missing from the discussion,” Johnson said. “Mistakes are mistakes, they should be corrected, but no one’s perfect.”

In the spirit of context and nuance, it’s probably worth noting here that the council member who championed the Genesis deal the loudest was one Michael O’Donnell, later elected to the state Senate and then the Sedgwick County Commission, before having to resign in disgrace over a political ad scandal. He now works for — you guessed it — the Steven brothers, as their lobbyist at the state Capitol.

If the Genesis deal was a one-off, we’d be more inclined to agree with Johnson’s forgive and forget attitude. But it’s not. In the last 15 months, three other contract fiascos costing Wichita taxpayers have surfaced.

In late 2024, we learned that the tenant running a disc-golf business at the former Clapp Golf Course was paying $300 a month rent for the clubhouse and course instead of $660, because no one at City Hall enforced what were supposed to be automatic rent increases in the contract for the parkland.

In May of last year, the council was asked to approve a $400,000 settlement to let two of Wichita’s favorite private partners — Old Town developer David Burk and Key Construction co-owner David Wells — off the hook after they refused to pay back a $1.8 million balance due on a $2.5 million loan for the development of the Ken-Mar strip center at 13th Street North and Oliver. The council rejected that settlement, litigation is ongoing.

And the most galling example was about a year ago, when we found out the real reason City Hall was so intent on imposing paid parking in downtown Wichita. Parking maintenance was nearly out of money because city officials made a secret handshake deal with businesses 25 years ago, relieving them of $13 million in parking fees that were supposed to maintain the garages the city built for them.

Bear in mind that the city has hundreds of these contracts requiring business owners to take some action to compensate the city for public subsidies that helped build their companies. And the council signs off on new ones just about every week.

How many of those collections are up to date? How many businesses are actually generating the jobs they promised to take advantage of city incentives?

Who knows?

Finance Director Mark Manning said Tuesday that the iffy contracts and collections that have plagued Wichita were mainly caused by a city practice of spreading contracts among multiple departments, each responsible for drafting and enforcing the terms.

He said that’s now being centralized in the Finance Department where it belongs. It’s a start, and it should help a lot with new contracts going forward.

But what Wichita really needs yesterday is an Office of Contract Enforcement.

That office needs to have one job, be adequately staffed, and be directly responsible for sorting out the terms of City Hall’s deals to ensure the private partners in public-private partnerships — now and in the future — are holding up their end.

The alternative is more shady dealings at City Hall. And we’ve had more than enough of that.

This story was originally published January 7, 2026 at 5:18 AM.