Wichita City Council fumbles last chance to fix sales tax election | Opinion
The Wichita City Council on Wednesday ditched a proposal to delay the election on a 1% city sales tax — and with it, probably the last chance to bring some semblance of order to what has so far been a race toward chaos.
Mayor Lily Wu called the special meeting to propose sliding the vote back from a special election on March 3 to the regularly scheduled primary election in August.
A total of 22 speakers from the public addressed the council at the meeting. Almost all of them supported pushing the election back.
“When people cannot trust the process, they do not trust their leaders,” said Joan Schneider, a lawyer and Army veteran. “Rushing this proposal to a special election creates the impression, true or not, that this leadership places special interests above those that they represent.”
She’s not wrong.
The tax election has been a rush job from the get-go. As I detailed in my column Wednesday morning, the council voted to put the sales tax on the ballot only 14 days after three prominent local business CEOs released the proposal publicly — and just in time for the deadline for setting up a March 3 election.
The motion by Wu to push the election to August got only one other vote, council member Mike Hoheisel.
Council member Becky Tuttle summed up the majority view: “Over the years, I have consistently said we can’t change the rules in the middle of the game. And I feel like today, having a delay in this is changing the rules in the middle of the game for both parties, for the vote yes side and the vote no side.”
Ordinarily, I would agree with that. But in this situation, another cliche comes to mind: Don’t throw good money after bad.
Wednesday’s meeting came on the heels of Friday’s news that several polling sites the county election office usually uses — churches mostly — will be unavailable in March. Sedgwick County Election Commissioner Laura Rainwater told the council that more than 25,000 voters — approximately 10% of the electorate — will have to be moved to other sites.
Notifying those voters of the change, as required by law, will add $20,000 to the $150,000 projected cost of the election.
If the council had moved it to August, the city would have gotten its election for free, piggybacked on the state and county ballot.
At times, the meeting felt kind of like a hostage situation and the homeless were the hostages.
Lingering COVID funding was supposed to support the fledgling Second Light homeless shelter and multi-agency service center formerly known as “the MAC,” through the end of the year.
While those federal grants don’t expire until Dec. 31, Finance Director Mark Manning told the council that they actually need to be spent by September to allow time for wrapping up the paperwork.
Passing the sales tax in March would allow the city to begin providing funding from it to Second Light about the same time the COVID funding runs out.
If the election were pushed to August, the city would have to wait until Jan. 1 of next year to start collecting the tax.
“The first check will not be given to the Second Light committee until March (2027),” said council member J.V. Johnston. “That $1.8 to $2 million (Second Light shortfall) is going to come from somewhere. I know it’s a chance, but we invest $170,000 now, we can get that funded when they need it.”
The council is now in damage control mode and likely to remain there until the election.
One of the frequent demands from the public has been putting “guardrails” up to ensure that if the tax passes, the proceeds actually pay for what’s been promised: homelessness and affordable housing assistance, public safety projects, convention facility upgrades, a new performing arts center and property tax relief.
The council will hold a workshop/town hall Jan. 27 and follow up at a night meeting on Feb. 10. Both will allow citizens to speak on what they think the guardrails should look like.
Of course, none of this will matter unless voters approve the sales tax.
If I make invoke another cliche, given the mood shown by the people who came to City Hall Wednesday, that’s a mighty big chicken to count before the egg is hatched.
This story was originally published January 15, 2026 at 5:15 AM.
