Candidate Forum 3/19/91 7-8:30pm

This is NPR, National Public Radio. This is... We examine how the creation of Israel changed the face of the Middle East. Also, television critic David B. and Gully on 10 years of public television's great performances. I'm Frank Browning. Join us for the next fresh air. This is KMW with your tar. Listen to supported radio from with your tar state university. Stay tuned now for the political candidates forum coming up in just about 50 seconds. Looking at the forecast for tonight's university, mostly cloudy and windy are 30% chance for showers or thunderstorms after midnight, low 45 to 50. South winds, 15 to 25 miles per hour, with occasional higher gusts.

On Wednesday, windy with a 20% chance from warning showers or thunderstorms, partly cloudy during the afternoon with a high in the mid to upper 60s. Southwest wind, 15 to 30 miles per hour, and gusty. Wednesday night and partly cloudy, although in the mid 40s, Thursday mostly cloudy with a high of 60 to 65. Currently outside our studios, it is 58 degrees. This is KMW with your tar. Listen to supported radio from with your tar state university. Good evening, I'm Gary Shivers, General Manager of KMW Radio. We know we're on, we heard some feedback. The Wichita Eagle Cake TV Channel 10 KMW Radio and the Wichita Citizens Participation Organizations and CPU staff are proud to present this series of neighborhood forums for the discussion of community issues with candidates for election to the Wichita City Council. The sponsors are grateful to KZSN Radio

for the use of their remote broadcast equipment, which makes this live broadcast possible. Four council seats in four districts are up for election. Forums are scheduled in each of the districts. On Tuesday evenings during March, a fifth forum with candidates for mayor of Wichita will be held on Wednesday evening March 27th. The object of these forums is to provide individual citizens an opportunity to question the candidates about the issues. The candidates have agreed to the following guidelines for the forum. Each candidate will offer a two-minute opening statement. The sequence of the statements was determined a few moments ago by the toss of a coin. After the opening statements, questions from the audience are invited. In order to maximize citizen participation, each individual may ask one question and one follow-up question. Each candidate will have two minutes in which to respond to the question and one minute for a response to the follow-up question. The sequence of the responses will alternate between the candidates. Joining us here is a panel of three journalists who represent the sponsoring news organizations.

They are here to ask additional follow-up questions to the audience questions and if time permits to initiate their own questions for the candidates. The panel includes Mike Taylor, Senior Reporter for Cake TV, Gordon Basham, News Director for KMUW Radio, and Jim Lin, City Hall Reporter for the Wichita Eagle. Time is reserved at the end of the hour for the candidates to question each other. There will be a two-minute response and a one-minute follow-up response. The candidates will ask their questions in the reverse sequence of their opening statements. Tonight's forum is live from the Orchard Park Recreation Center in Council District 5. The candidates alphabetically are Greg Ferris and Estella Martinez. Mr. Ferris is president of the Country Donuts Incorporated. He's served on the Wichita City Council from District 4 since 1987. He's a graduate of Wichita State University. Mrs. Martinez is president and owner of LaTell Incorporated. She's served on the Wichita City Council from District 5 since 1989. She's a graduate of North High School.

The first opening statement comes from Mrs. Martinez. Thank you very much. I do want to thank KMUW, Channel 10, and the Wichita Eagle for putting on this forum. I know it takes a lot of organizing, a lot of time in order to do this. I think I have really enjoyed serving on the council for the last year and ten months. And perhaps something that will summarize the way that I feel is the words of Horace Mann. He said, be ashamed to die until you won some victory for humanity. And I am trying to win those victories for humanity. And I feel like I will have done quite a bit to begin with and I will complete that in the four years that I have left. Thank you. Now the opening statement from Mr. Ferris. Thank you, Gary. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. This is a very important election as West Wichita at the current time represents the largest district in the city of Wichita until redistricting will take place. There are more citizens in District 5 and there are any other district in town. So it's a very important election.

What this election is about is leadership. It's about the ability to go out and get the job done. It's ability to find the issues, take those issues from the very fruits of the very beginning and carry them through to the end. I've been able to do that during the time I've been on the council. The area that I've served before, the last three years in the CIP has more projects than any other district in the city of Wichita. That's because I've worked hard to find the way to get the job done. It is very important that you ask each one of us what have you done? What projects have you initiated? What ideas have you come up with that will cut your taxes? I've saved the city over two and a half million dollars in property tax. By going out and finding a way to raise the money through alternate means of revenue that will cost the local taxpayer absolutely nothing. So time after time I've been able to get the job done. That is the issue. You need to ask us what have you done?

Now it's time to hear questions from the audience here in Orchard Park Recreation Center. Individuals with questions are invited to get in line at the microphone in the aisle. In order to let more people participate please keep your questions brief and to the point and in the form of questions. And remember that both candidates will respond to each question and follow up. Don't everybody rush all at once? Yes sir, please state your name. Kenneth Long. Just recently the city purchased an old hotel at the corner of Kellogg and Broadway for about three and a half million dollars. It's appraised by the county at just a little over two million dollars. You bought the lot next door for 675,000 and it's appraised at 133,000. It's my understanding the city will make some improvements to the hotel and sell it a few years down the road. What makes you think you'll ever get your money back even half of it given the sorry state of real estate values in the core area? Yes, Mr. Cresswell.

Well you're right. We did buy that property and we bought that property because we're building an overpass. Much needed overpass for Kellogg over downtown. Now we had an option of either buying all of the property for three million or buying a little tiny stripper right away as it went through condemnation for two million or not doing the project. Now it's been widely understood that that's an important project in the city so we felt like we needed to proceed with it. Once we have built the highway which will be done in three years we will sell the hotel for anywhere from a million to two and a half million dollars and recoup the money that we invested. Therefore saving the taxpayers the money so we were going to spend the money on that project which was a road project no matter what. Mr. Martinez? Yes, Mr. Ferris is correct in that analysis of what the city did. They found it was cheaper to do it this way than to just buy the right away and therefore there would be damages because the hotel, the advantage of the hotel was going to have to be changed. And therefore they thought there may be a suit and therefore it would be more expensive to go the other way than the way that we did.

All right, I follow up then. Do you support subsidizing a new hotel on the river bank for seven to ten years has been publicized? And do you think if a hotel can't make it on its own in seven years it ever will? Mr. Ferris. Well I think that you made a good point it's an important project on the east bank. The city subsidy as I see it we own the land that they want to build on and I think we can do something that will cost the taxpayers absolutely nothing in a low cost lease on the land for a few years. If you ask me what I support the city putting money into the hotel absolutely not. Mr. Martinez. I think there is something that needs to be done and the city may have to help to supplement a hotel for a while. The hotel is needed desperately downtown in order for all the projects that we have the convention the bureau cannot bring enough conventions into the Wichita district because we do not have the facilities to house the people that would be coming here and we have lost quite a few quite a bit of revenue from this. If the city does supplement this in some way it will be there will be a way to recoup it after say five or six years so the taxpayers will get their money back.

Gordon Bashamram KWW as a public does the city of Wichita have need for a new riverfront hotel in other words our occupancy rates high enough to where we have need for a new hotel where our occupancy rates low enough to where a new hotel would be unnecessary. Mr. Fairf. Well I think that which came first the chicken of the egg we need something downtown and maybe it's an upgrading of the hotel package that's down there now that's a possibility. Right now we know and I can show you letters if you'd like to see them of conventions that have said they will not come to Wichita because our hotel package is not sufficient. We all know the demise of the holiday in now the Wichita Plas and the problems it's created so there needs to be something happening in that area. Whether or not it's a new hotel I think that we can take a little bit of an example from Des Moines. There was a group of men that came together and built a new hotel in Des Moines and all the old hotels set up in stream that we don't need at the occupancy rates are too low there's no way we'll be successful. I met with the owner of one of those old hotels and he told me that from the day that the new hotel opened they became profitable.

So I think that yeah we do need something to happen down there and whether that would be a new hotel or an upgrade. You recognize the sound of the official city hall timer. Thank you. We were told by the convention bureau that the first hotel that we had designed and we're thinking about building was not adequately sufficiently large enough for the house of conventions that would be coming here. We needed something that was large enough in order to get enough conventions to come to Wichita and that was the problem that we had so therefore they decided to design a larger hotel and we are in desperate need of one. Next question from the audience. Yes sir. I'm Jerry Bush. My question will be concerning the 375 Du Boer extravaganza revitalization plan and the plan calls for bulldozing a large area of residential housing and Du Boer's presentations he says they're old and they're not attractive and they're not compatible. So they've got to go. He says do you think you're properly representing the less of the people whose homes these are and do you have a problem with using eminent domain to forcefully take these people from their homes.

The whole concept of Du Boer's plan number one is just strictly that concept. When I first got on the council they had a blueprint of the Ross designs. And when I showed me the book they said these are just plans they don't think that this picture that you see here that that's where the hotel is going to be or that this restaurant is going to be here there were conceptual plans. So then when there were a lot of other plans floating around the ice getting ranked the arena a lot of different things and so all of this was just plans to move forward with it. The housing is the same way perhaps that was an idea that he had at that time perhaps it will never happen. Everything is going to have to come to the council on one to one basis and will be decided on that way. It has something has to be done because the tax base is eroding so desperately we have 18% of our tax base is derived from downtown and I'm selfish. I don't want to have to pick up the difference for it to erode and I don't think you want to pick up the difference either.

I think if we somehow will invest in it then it creates more jobs it creates more industry in the long run. The tax base will be saved and you and I will be paying less taxes from that. Mr. Ferris. Well, Jerry I think this is one area that Miss Martinez and I differ greatly. The myth that it takes $375 million to revitalize downtown is ridiculous. What we need to do is to look at something logical and we had something logical in the Ross plan. Some people in town were not happy that they weren't included in the Ross plan so they devised their own plan. Spend another $70,000 and we ended up with the quote unquote debor plan. To address your question specifically no I don't think we need to tear out all those houses. I think that it is ridiculous to think that we need to take all the way to Seneca and Kellogg to revitalize downtown. I think that there are some things that need to happen downtown. There's no question that we can reverse the decline of downtown without the kind of investment that's being thrown around out there in the areas of $170 million of public money.

And just to address that there is no $170 million of public money. Mr. Debora is still saying you have to do it all or don't do anything and we don't have that. The city has said there's $110 million and now we're finding out stay won't participate with us and so we're down to about $90 million. The county is not stepping up with their $40 million maybe 20 so instead of 170 so the whole thing is a quote unquote concept. And what it is is it's just become something that the community cannot live with because they don't understand it. We need to describe it. We need to tell people what we're in favor of. What parts of the plan are important and move forward with those and quit talking about $370 million and $299 foot Indians and all this other stuff. It seems like people's memories are short. We're backing away that we're going to prove each thing individually. I can remember the start of the Debora plan.

He made heavy emphasis on the synergy that you had to have every element and do it all or not and it wouldn't work. And he put numbers on the blackboard that said one plus one plus one equals five and emphasize that. I guess I'm bothered by nobody can ever remember how things were when they were approved as the time passes. That was a question. It was always decided to me as far as I'm concerned I've never changed my philosophy on this that these were all conceptual ideas. They put an idea to have a certain amount on it so that we could divide some way to come up with a means if everything were done to be able to have it in the budget. And everything had to be passed individually. It was I never thought that we're ever going to spend that amount of money on it. But you had to find out whether you could budget that amount and they did. Well, again, I think we're back to where we're yes, I'm for but no, I'm not for it. Yes, I'm for all but no, I'm not for all of it.

And I think until we get real about the downtown revitalization and say there are things that can happen downtown that are important that we can do that make sense. Now let's go forward with those and as long as you keep shooting with these huge enormous plans, what's going to happen is we're going to end up with nothing and the downtown is going to decline because we have set our sights on something that is totally unrealistic. And so it's time now for us to decide what we're going to do and what direction we're going to do. The implementation track has already begun by their own words and we're nowhere. So now further follow up from Mike Taylor of Channel 10. Following along with the downtown plan, if it's either all or nothing or now it's a concept and we'll do a few things or pick and choose some of the projects. I'd like to ask each of you from the DeWore plan or your own ideas, what specific projects two or three you think can be done downtown and you would like to see done right away. The children's museum is something that I think is really going to become a reality. We're hoping to move on that, move forward on that and I think that's something that's going to be very needed for all the community.

The other thing we're hoping will become a reality and that is the facility to house all the state departments here in Wichita. That will really be something that will be a boost for downtown. The rest of the hotel hopefully will also become a reality. Well, I think Mike that you followed this enough to see that it's kind of been like a wind blowing through a wheat field. No one can figure out exactly what's happening on a given day. We must go forward with re-recorded development. We have the money in the CIP to take the re-record or and make it vital from a second street all the way down to Lincoln. That is something that's real, it'll be in the area like Price Woodard Park. It's something that makes sense. We can do that. It's something that people can enjoy. We've already moved forward with Old Town and that's something where very little public emphasis was there. We had to get the ball rolling. As soon as the cleanup is accomplished, we will be able to see something happening down there. We've gotten guarantees.

So those types of projects are already rolling and they can have it and they've already started to happen. Jim Lynn of Wichita Eagle. You have said you disagree with the other on downtown, but I have a little bit of trouble figuring out where you disagree. Could each of you describe where you think you disagree with your opponent on downtown development? Is Martinez? I think that I have been supportive from the very beginning and I think that the whole thing to be supportive of was the concept. And I think that Mr. Ferris has kind of gone back and forth. He's even have to send letters, explain himself after the fact to the business community that yes, he supports it. I've never had to send any letters to anyone because everyone has always known where I have stood on it. Mr. Ferris. Well, I have sent letters to the business community and that was encouraging them to continue the $54 million. I've never said I wasn't in favor of downtown. I am very much in favor of downtown development, but the business community is going to have step four with their share.

I think I'm for putting pressure on what's getting something going, something that makes sense. I am not for $370 million downtown project. I think it's ludicrous. I think it's too much. I don't think people are in favor of it. It's more than we can afford. I'm for doing the things that make sense. Included in that are the things I mentioned in the museum district as the private sector raises their money that they have already committed to. We can do that. And if you look at the whole concept, it's all well and good and nice. But if you just sit back and talk about concepts for the next 10 years, we'll still be talking about concepts. If you talk about moving forward and doing something, we'll do something. And that really is the difference between Ms. Martinez and myself. Another question from the audience. Yes, sir. In November of 1989, the city was found in violation of a federal law under the Fair Labor Standards Act since 1986. Federal judge ordered the city to pay back pay to police officers. It took the city six months to reach a settlement with those officers in the result of $2.5 million.

During which time, the city was still in violation of the federal law and a federal court order. Why did it take the city so long to come into compliance with the federal law? Mr. Ferris? Well, I think that you have to understand that we had a disagreement with the attorneys. I mean, the attorneys on the other side was whether or not we were in compliance. We still have a disagreement with the judge whether or not we were in compliance. But we did settle to improve the employee relations. The question boils down to whether or not police officers were on duty because they carried their radios. Once it was determined by the courts that that was a problem, we immediately corrected that, changed that as soon as we made the settlement, it was part of the settlement, it was changed. And once that was finished, we paid the settlement, it was over. I'm not happy about that. I still don't agree with the court decision. It was made. We settled it. It's over. Mr. Martinez?

I think we did take us a little bit too long to react. I don't know. But it's one of those things that had to be settled. And it was settled the best way, I guess possible. But it was too bad that it ever happened to begin with. The follow-up question, sir. It's my understanding that the city council was leapt out of a lot of the information and reference to the first lawsuit. There's another lawsuit currently pending over the same Fair Labor Standards Act. How much information does the city council now getting in a reference to this problem? And if they aren't getting any information, what do you plan on doing about painting more information from city management? We weren't left out of the information in the first lawsuit, neither on the second. The first lawsuit, we were told that we had top labor attorneys that have examined the law and said that we were not out of compliance. These were people from in town, they were people from out of town. The judge happened to disagree with that. By the way, judges in other states have ruled on the other side of the issue. So it's only really in Kansas and in this district, this particular judicial district, that the findings have been for the employees that under these same situations.

That doesn't take away from the fact that the judge found for that that we settled and it's over. The current case, we're settling it exactly the same way we handled the first one. We've already changed the meal time policy, so we're no longer under the situation that you mentioned at first. This is Martinez. We are working to come into compliance with the second ruling and they are trying to settle on that at this time. And perhaps it's something that we really shouldn't be discussing if they are still working on it. Jim Lynn from the Eagle. We're talking about labor relations generally, the city seems to maintain a rather tough approach to labor sometime. The firefighters are in the middle of an administrative hearing claiming that the city hadn't negotiated in good faith. Are we approaching labor the right way? Are we risking morale problems? The direction we're headed? Mr. Ferris. I believe it's Mr. Martinez.

I've lost track. That's right, I'll be glad to answer it first. We have had some problems, there's no doubt about it. I think that in the last four years we've taken strides, we've been able to accomplish two-year contracts, which we were never able to do before. I think any time you're in the midst of labor negotiations, it does create problems. We have always, until this last year, been able to sign a contract with every employee group that did give raises. In fact, raises generally double what the county was giving across the street. But I think you're right, we need to work on that, we need to make efforts in communication. We have initiated a labor relations committee that we have a council member that sits on that tries to work through issues that aren't part of the actual negotiation process. So we're making steps and we do have some more to go on that. Mrs. Martinez. Thank you. The morale has been down and it's difficult to assess sometimes. It's difficult for us to give X number of dollars when we would like to give more, but you have to stay within a certain guideline. I think that there are a lot of different ways to raise the taxes for the firefighters and for the policemen.

I think user fees are something that we need to work on to set aside, perhaps to be specifically for one or the other. For example, the firefighters will come to my store and they come and they inspect it and it's all free. I don't know why we can't put user fees on something like this. And perhaps that way we could build up some funds in order to be able to get bonuses or do something along this line for the police and the fire department. By Taylor from Channel 10. It is easy to say, gosh, we'd like to give you more money, we just don't have it. Do you think police and firefighters particularly deserve more money than they now earn? And if you're reelected to another term, would you work to see that those raises were given instead of just saying, well, gosh, it'd be nice to give you more money. He actually pledged that you deserve more money if you believe that and I'll work to do that. In the last four years, we have given about 17% in raises that are actually raises now.

In that same time period, everybody qualifies for a step increase. Part of the problem we have in negotiations is that the city gives about $7 to $8,000 per employee for retirement benefits. Employees don't want you to talk about that as a benefit. The city says, well, it costs us money. So I think an I've asked the manager to say to go to the employee groups and say, let's look at that in a value way. Perhaps we can trade some cash for some of those benefits in 20 or 30 years. Maybe some of the younger employees would prefer that. So I think we're going to start needing to be creative on how we dispense the public funds so that those people can get raises when they need them. And I think most of the younger employees that I've talked to would prefer to have the cash and a retirement plan. But they don't have to have the best retirement plan in a 10 state region, which the city firefighters happen to have. So I think maybe we need to make some adjustments there. Mrs. Martinez. Thank you. I think we also need to work perhaps on the insurance that the employees have to pay their portion of it.

I was told that the county only pays like $3 per pay period where the fire department or the police department, I'm sorry, has to pay 58. That in itself, if we were somehow be able to put the two unions together for the insurance purposes and perhaps be able to save money along that line, that in essence would be a raise for them. And so these are a lot of different things that we need to work on in order to be able to increase the pay. Is there another question from the audience? The insurance return again. If tax increment financing for downtown pollution cleanup becomes a reality and the city, in fact, collects money from the polluting companies, how will this affect the city's compliance with the tax lid law? Will they just use this money on top of what's already allowed under the tax lid?

Are you familiar with how it works, the tax increment? The companies would still keep paying the same amount, the businesses that are in the area in the district. Your taxes would be lowered like, say, 40%. But they would still keep paying the same amount. Do you follow me? That's not the question. Oh, I'm sorry. This money will be set aside for the tax increment financing. And if you collect money from companies, say, like Coleman, that will defray what's already been collected by the tax increment financing. Then how does this affect the tax lid law? You've already been allowed a certain increase each year under the state tax lid law. This will be in excess of that when you collect money from the polluting companies. The difference that the city would never have to, they could absorb the difference of the two. I'm still not understanding you as that what you're saying. Your rights are closing. I think you're making an end run around the tax lid law is what I'm trying to say.

Okay. All right. Well, you would be right if we, the whole, the whole problem with the whole situation is that we're asking the state to exempt the city under this particular situation from the cash basis law. We're at, it's a, we're asking for specific legislation that will only apply to this one single characteristic in situation. To go a little deeper into that, the, the whole idea is going to take 10 years to clean it up. Now, we're going to start collecting the small portion of it up front through the TIF district. We're also going to collect from the other areas. And as that money comes in, what we'll do is just reduce the back end of the TIF. So we will never have a surplus in the account that you're concerned with. And so I understand where you're going with that. But we wouldn't be in violation since we're asking them to exempt us from the cash basis law. Follow up question from Gordon Bastion.

One week from today, both of you will be asked to vote on the city's consent agreement with the state of Kansas to begin, essentially, begin the process of the cleanup. Could you give us an indication tonight how you plan on voting first of all? And secondly, on your position regarding the plan to clean it up, has it stands on an overall basis? I think it's a very creative plan that the city manager has come up with. And I was certainly vote to move forward with it. I think it's very, very vital that we get started with it. Well, this is one area that Ms. Martinez and I do agree that the plan is necessary. It's a solid one that consent decree has many what you might say outs for the city to protect us in the event that there are problems. So that we are very, very secure in this agreement. If Coleman doesn't come through, if we can't collect from responsible parties, if we don't get certain legislation that it exempts us from the consent decree. Do you want to give it? We've learned this evening that you'll both be voting for this consent decree next week.

I certainly will be, yes. As I will. You heard it first. Here is Jim Lynn with the legal. There are certain outs in the consent agreement, but the public perception may be that, hey, we're agreeing to go ahead with this thing without funding in place. We don't have the agreement with Coleman. We don't have the tax increment financing district. Is that a wise thing to do? Ms. Martinez. We will probably have the agreement with Coleman before we come to that point. And so I think that there's really no other way. If we don't start moving on this and Superfund is going to come in, it's going to cost us ten times more than what it would be if we move forward with it now. So I think we need to have a consensus and be able to agree to start working on it. We've already picked the engineers for this. They're going to be able to find out where the pollutants are and who they are and to be able to get the parties that are guilty in regard to this so that we can go after them. Mr. Ferris.

Well, Jim, you ask a question that really doesn't need to be asked. I'll tell you why, because the way that the consent decree is written up, if the funding is not there, if we cannot set up the TIFF, if the tax increment financing district, if we cannot collect from Coleman, we can just tear up the agreement. It's void. And that's what it says in the agreement that if any parts of the agreement are a problem, then we can throw it out if the legislation doesn't come through from the state. And we're only in line for a certain amount of money to clean it up. So there's all these guarantees. And if these guarantees are not in place, then the agreement is void. Gordon Bash. The major mandate of the city council is to set policy for the city. It's up to the city government itself, the paid city government, as aware, to carry out the policy of the city council. Right now, it's the policy of the city government to draft legislation, specifically the legislation creating the tax increment finance district was created by the city rather than the legislature. The chairperson of the House Economic Development Committee, the committee that introduced this legislation, which will create the TIFF, has mentioned that the legislation that was drafted by the city was severely flawed.

Do you think it should be the policy of the city to draft legislation or should it be the policy of the legislators who know how to write laws to do so? Would you each address that, please? Ms. Martinez. I think in this case, we had a problem. And so we had to try to solve it. And so I think that they are working together to try to get the legislation correct so that it can move forward in the state. And I think that we had to do it. I don't know that the legislature could do it because we had the problem here within ourselves. Mr. Ferris. From my experience with the legislators, they would like to always initiate everything for us. If you're talking about the legislative staff, we took this agreement through that process to check and double check it to make sure that they were satisfied. Now, just because their legislative staff was satisfied doesn't mean the legislators themselves were satisfied. Just like when we get an agreement or something written by our staff doesn't mean we're satisfied.

And we have to work and make sure that all those things were worked out. So we had a need. They had a policy. We took it and we worked it out. And in my understanding is that this flawed idea is more because the legislators were not happy with some of the elements, not that there was something wrong with the laws. Now we await the next question from the audience who wants to come on down. Good evening. What on your record during your time on council? Would you introduce yourself? I'm Twilight Pinington. What in your record during your time on council can you point to as proposals that you have initiated and have been approved by the council? Mr. Ferris. Well, there really are enormous amount of things that I've accomplished. One that I like to point to is a couple of years ago, the city staff told me they don't even bother trying to get a once in bed tax increase. To the free property taxes. I took it went to the lodging association, worked an agreement with them, a very hostile group when I started, very supportive group when it was over, took it to the council and as a result, we took two and a half million dollars of property tax out of the CIP and inserted funding from outside of the city.

So I started that and brought it through. There's a new street and in fact it's in District 5 that was a very creative way to finance a street never been done before. The area businesses participated, they paid for the street because I went in, met with them, worked with staff, came up with different alternatives and solutions. Then they initiated a project and it was finished and now there's a new street that runs in behind Walmart that the residents in that area are very happy about. So there are a multitude of those types of things, some reorganization in the park board structure. I was visiting with the city finance director today and he was indicating some savings that have resulted already from that process.

Again, I was told it would never happen, we started it, got it passed by the council, worked individually with council members and it was concluded, solid things that were started and carried all the way through. And my time is down, there's a couple of other things I'd like to share. I hope somebody has to follow. I have not initiated as many things as my friend here has. I'm fairly new on the council but I have certainly helped to push a lot of items through. I help with the Bias Crime Act, I also help with a street ordinance act that we just passed not too long ago. I help with a police substation, that was something that was very important. As far as paving Mays Road, a lot of the arterial streets, Mays Road and 119th Street, I have to push that forward and CIP. I've been very proud of my record and I have moved a lot of things forward and I'm proud for that. If I will have a question, I'll throw in from the panel. Yes sir.

I'm Luther Steele and I live 1402 North Sabin. And there's four projects in the downtown building that you all plan on, building. I don't think anyone knows, sport yourself, you got a 299 foot Indian, you got 18,500 foot seat sports complex, you got a children's museum and I surround it. And I went from here at San Diego to Los Angeles, went up San Francisco, went up to Portland and see I don't. Went up into Canada, no place that I see a monument up there, but traffic. I never seen so many visitors in those areas. If you can find a question in there somewhere, Ms. Martinez. The 299 foot Indian, of course, was always supposed to be done with private funds, never with the city funds. And the private sector is also supposed to have $54 million that are going to put you put into an endowment.

And this endowment will help to fund the ice arena, or mostly it's four museums right now, but it will help to fund the children's museum for any shortfall that they will have. Mr. Ferris. Well, the whole concept that Mr. Dubor started with was that the private sector would raise $54 million. That was to build the Indian and to endow the ice rink in the museums and those things. So far they have not come up with any money to do that. So part of the whole problem now is that the downtown plan is the mayor likes to say is a three-legged stool and right now there's only one leg. And that's the city council. And so far everybody's fallen on their face talking about the downtown plan because we haven't accomplished anything. And we will not accomplish anything as long as the community is not behind this. According to their own designs and their own plan that they approved in the wise partnership, they were going to have the money raised by December 31st. Then that was last year. Then it was going to be February 15th. Now this was approved by wise the same people that are in charge of the fundraising.

And we were real lucky when they came down to the council on February 22nd to tell us they had started the project. So I think that they're going to have to get going because those projects will not stand on their own. We know that. If those projects are going to be built and done, that you have to have a commitment from the city council that they won't even start and initiate them in any way until the money is in the bank. Pledges do not pay endowments. The money has to be in the bank. And there is a follow-up question, is it? Let's see. What do you use as a guideline in granting revenue bonds? And all this goes off the property roll for five to fifteen years. This is why our property tax has gone up so high. The tax in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Oklahoma are exactly one-third of what our property tax area is in which toll. Is there anything you can do to help someone with this?

This is very serious. I didn't quite understand the question. I'm sorry. Like tax abatements, is that what you're referring to? You're a revenue bond. And it's around all these things. The industrial revenue bonds. And your question in regard to that? What's your guidelines on granting those? Well, they have had some failures in the past, in regard to that. And I think most of the time, I think the guidelines are usually set down by the staff. They bring us these and we need to vote on them or to approve them or disapprove them. Most of the time, the information that they give us is that they will are able to pay them back. The companies are sound at the time. There have been a few of them that have not been sound after the fact. But while I've been on, I can't think of any of them. I think prior to that, there was one or two that had not been able to pay those back.

But the guidelines are usually set down by staff. Well, the guidelines aren't really set down by staff. They're set by the City Council and the policy. And those guidelines are that they have to create some kind of economic development and economic growth. They have to show they're going to create jobs. And they're supposed to only give you given in the cases where that company would not do the expansion. You're right in that the policy has been very loose in the past. And I don't want to take credit, but I'd fall very hard to tighten those things up and put performance clauses that if you don't perform, you lose your tax abatements. Those types of things are the only security that we have to make sure that we're just not given pie in the sky, which sometimes has been the case in the history of those tax abatements. I follow the question from Mike Taylor of Kate. Follow along the issue of tax abatements. And it may be hunting in a little more Mr. Steele's questions. Do you favor generally tax abatements tax breaks for business? Is that good business policy for City Hall to take part in to give people a break on their property taxes?

Tax abatements, I think, are a good thing. I studied this in 89 when I first came on because I did not know that much about it. And in 89 at the time that I looked this up, there were 18 companies that had been given the tax abatement of those 18 companies. First of all, I'll backtrack and say that we have 175,000 dollars that we have as a guideline, and that's the highest that we can go for tax abatements. And this is just for city taxes, that's not for the school tax and the county tax. Of those 18 companies, we had abated $98,000. Of those $98,000, they had reinvested into the different facilities. I'm sorry, I believe it was $14.5 million. And from that, they had hired 542 people with a payroll of $12.5 million. So therefore, I feel like the abatement of $98,000 certainly came back 10 fold with their investment into the community, the taxes that the people were having to pay, and not only that, but the payroll, the increase in payroll.

So I do think that they are a good thing. They do help the community, and these were guidelines. This law was sent to us from the state, and I believe it was in 86. And the reason for this was to be able to be competitive with other states, and I think it has worked. Mr. Ferris, a couple of minutes or so. Well, the whole point of tax abatement, as Ms. Martinez said, was to try and encourage growth. The problem is that some people figured out that every time you want to buy a piece of equipment, if you come down to ask for tax abatement, say you're growing, that you would get it. So we have to begin to tighten that down as we learn very quickly that it was a mistake. I think that just to give tax abatements to companies that were growing of those jobs that were added, the real questions, how many of those jobs would have been added anyway? I think so part of the problem that we've been running into is that there are some companies who have abused that.

Now, we have tightened that policy. I think some people have kind of, not Ms. Martinez or myself, but some other people have asked for that thing not to come back to laugh at the election because they don't want to be an election issue. But you'll see a policy that's much tighter than it has been in the past, especially if I'm on the council, because I've already insisted on some changes if they want my support. You touched on it, Mr. Ferris, but if, for instance, $98,000, that's a pretty small fraction of the amount of the investment you quoted. Would that investment have happened anyway, you think? Are we being too generous? Are we being too generous with the tax abatements? You never know. You know for sure that it did happen after you baited. You never know whether they would have or not. That's one of the big problems. And I think another thing that people have to remember that anything that was abated wasn't anything that you're losing in taxes. It was something that was never on the tax roll. It never went on. And so it stays off for five years or 10 years, whatever the abatement was. And then it goes back on the tax roll.

Well, we can because of some of the weakness and the way the whole thing was set up initially, look back and say, yeah, that growth would have happened anyway. There are companies that, and it was the screous system I ever saw. And that's why we jumped on it immediately and changed it. That actually got the tax abatements after they had already created the growth, which was stupid and it was wrong. But because the policy, the way wise was so excited about it, it was done. It was not appropriate. We've changed that to tighten that up. And now we begin to get in a little bit of forecasting. And I think it's important to look at the company and see, and I think you can do that to some degree on every company. No, you can't. But we have only lost one company that I know of that we wouldn't give them land and give them a tax abatement. And they moved to our sister city of Andover and most people that are working there, living in which time anyway. So we really haven't lost anything. We have a question from the audience.

John Friend, you've talked a lot about downtown development. But the west side of the fifth district has really grown, particularly in businesses and residential areas. And I want to know, what do you think are the concerns of the fifth district? And particularly from you, Greg, because since you've just moved here into the fifth district. Well, I'll take that first. I guess it's mine. I didn't just move in the fifth district. I've been a resident of west Wichita for over 30 years. And I've lived in fact within a mile and a half of this building for 30 years. I did live for about nine years, two doors from the fifth district. But it was time for me to go home by a house that I was going to live in probably for 20 years. And I chose a house a block and a half from the one I grew up in to live in. So this idea that I'm new to the fifth district, I know this district very well. In fact, I know that one of the primary problems in this district has been drainage. The west maple project has been put on hold for a long time because of drainage. I went to city staff a month and a half ago. And I said there were some problems in my district, some problems that did overlap into the fifth district.

And I said we need to push forward those projects and not wait a year and a half for the drainage utility to be put in place. We came up with a financing mechanism to do that to start it. The city council proved it two weeks ago based on my understanding that there was a need to solve some immediate problems in this district and other areas of the city. So again, it was the idea of being able to see the problem, to start to initiate the ball and to carry it all the way through. I think some of the other things that have to happen is that the capital improvement program has to be kept moving along. Miss Martinez issue is pushed it forward. I went back to some research on that today and every project has been approved in the fifth district was in the capital improvement program for the exact years they were approved before Miss Martinez was on the council. So that to say that she has been the one to push those through including the west side substation, which I took Miss Martinez up to the chief's office and we began the dialogue on that in his office that day. As to how we were going to implement it in from the police study. So I think I do understand the needs out here.

I think you need to look up your records Greg because 119th street I did push up from this from the CIP. They had moved it back and I did move it forward. My daughter-in-law Cindy Martinez had taken quite an interest in the substation and the police substation and she had a lot of information and went to the CPO meetings and this was even before I was on the city council. So when I got on that I was very interested in moving that forward and Greg. I guess maybe somewhat patronizing me here said that he took me to the to the see the police chief. It wasn't necessarily for this certain reason but he just was nice enough to take me and so I thank you very much. Greg I didn't know it was going to come up at this time. I think some of the needs for the west side I feel very sensitive to and that we have such a growth out here and I think that someone that says that they live two doors away I don't know. I think that his record isn't quite as great as he says he is because every council member I think that is was running from the fourth district has been complaining about how underserved they have been.

But we need the police protection out here just like everyone else does I think crime is one of our concerns and that was two years ago Greg when 119 street was moved up. And so I feel that I do have a handle on the things that we need out here. Is there a follow-up question John did you have another okay as Ted Coppel would say we need to alert our stations down the line that Mr. Ferris has a book out so it may be a while in the next question. My name is Cindy Martinez I am a sales daughter-in-law. I am also a council member of CPO 5A which is far west with Utah. I do have a comment about the substation that I'll get to my question. When I contacted the city manager in 1986 about the substation for west with Utah his comment to me was don't hold your breath. I got a copy of CIP and it was scheduled for something like 1997 or 1998. I spent 2,000 hours in that study of hard work and writing with officers and getting the facts.

And yes it has been rolled up and yes before that we were very underserved. My next comment is or I guess my question would be as a CPO council member we are frequently on the front line we get a lot of heat. We hear all the issues before they get to city council. I would like to know if the candidates know the percentage of the times that they have been in agreement with their CPO councils. And I'd also be interested in hearing Mr. Ferris's comment about why both of his challengers were CPO council members and why he feels like if they were so well served they would be challenging his position in the fourth district. Thank you. Is that a follow-up or start? That's a new question. And it's your turn. Well Ms. Martinez correctly stated that if there's one person that should take the most credit for the substation it's herself. But the reason that it was moved up was that there was a police study that was done that recommended it and that's where it all started.

And so while she was the primary individual that drove that there's no doubt that once that substation is built she should be the one that cuts the ribbon. To address first of all your facts are wrong. Mr. Reaser was never a CPO individual. Mr. Gramke who is on the CPO would not have run against me. We're very close friends. He's my point needed a planning commission and he was very satisfied with the job I've done in southwest Wichita. And I'd be glad for anybody to call him and ask him if he feels comfortable. In fact he called me the other day and he is president of the CPO in 4B. And stated that he was very tired of all the campaign rhetoric that was coming up because of this. And that he wanted to know if he should write a letter to the editor publicly stating how good a council member I'd been in that district. And I said no I said it's not an issue for me. It doesn't bother me because my record is very clear.

I've supported my CPO I think three times in four years I voted against the CPO's recommendation with the exception of the budget and the cap improvement program and those things because both CPOs was impossible to agree with both of them because they both had different ideas. So to say that I agreed with them would not be correct. So my record on zoning cases on those types of situations, excuse me I think there were two or three cases in four years that we did not agree on. Mrs. Martinez. Thank you. I do listen to the CPO and I do read all of the minutes. I think that possibly I don't know the percentage of it but I think the majority of the time I do agree with the CPO and vote accordingly. I don't know. Is there a follow-up question to that one? We have one more members of the audience approaching the microphone and we will take that question and then move to the final phase and have the candidates question each other. Hi. My name is Mary Arnold and I'd like to ask the candidates if they are in favor or opposed the proposed water well ordinance as it is written.

Mr. Martinez. Thank you. Not the way the draft that I saw I think they've had two or three drafts and I did not like the first draft that I saw. I don't know whether that was the first or second or third draft. I think that now we're trying to work together in order to come up with something that is more palatable for both the county and the city health department as well as the pump well pumpers. So hopefully we will be able to come to consensus but the way I the one that I saw first know I was not in agreement with it. Well I haven't heard anything in that area that I've been supportive of. I think that you have government sometimes and rightfully we have to be concerned about public health and public safety. I'm not sure this was an issue of whether or not we need to go in and tell people they have to tap into city water because their well is a problem etc. I don't think especially the fifth district can probably has more wells than any other district in the city that we need to be out there telling people they have to tie in the city.

My father's already told me he'll disown me if we implement that since he gets his water from a well. So we have a long long long way to go before that ordinance ever comes to the city and fortunately we don't have to rely on the health department to pass that ordinance because it has to come to the elected officials. And it'll be a strong voice from the fifth district that it's going to be assertive on that to say no we're not going to pass an ordinance that is going to require people to tie into city water. Do you have a follow up question? Yes I do. If this plan is implemented as written do you think that the health department has the sufficient funds or staff to see the program through or are they counting on this on state funding or user fees. I'm not sure how they're planning on financing as of yet it would probably more like user fees but I think that's yet to still be decided. I think you've still been working with them on a one to one basis trying to get input and trying to do to revise this so that it will be something that can be worked with both groups.

I think the only thing that they're trying to do is to make sure that the water stays pure and that's the same thing that you're interested in. So I think the two of you working together will be able to come up with a good agreement for Mr. Ferris. Well I think the issue is so absurd in the way that it's been brought forward that it's even too early to talk about funding and those types of things because it's I mean it just doesn't make any sense where they're going with a thing. And so if they come back with something that makes sense then we can ask them how they plan to pay for it. But right now it's as far as I'm certain it's back to the drawing board start over and come back with something that makes at least some sense if they're going to do anything. Jim Lynn that's in which angle? With the experience that we're having with the Gilbert and Mosley pollution problem downtown. Is it time that we begin to be a lot more aggressive on the environmental front? With ordinances like what we're talking about here.

It is very important that we move forward with that before we were so ignorant and we weren't aware of what we were doing to our water system. And so we do have to have checks and balances and we do have to have some ordinances but we have to be fair with them. We can't penalize one group over another but the water is going to have to be very very important to us in our environment is too. Mr. Ferris. Well I think we have to be very aggressive in environmental issues. I don't think this is one of them because this ordinance doesn't solve the problem of pollution. It just requires people to go through all kinds of hoops so you know to order their own lives and that's just not my feeling on the role of government. So yes we do need to be aggressive in the areas of environmental issues. The clean up of contamination, the landfill, the recycling movement, those types of things. We need to be aggressive with ordinances in those areas but we don't need to be tapping on everybody's shoulder asking them if they're on well water and if they are, you know, then they got to get off of it and those kinds of things. I didn't make any sense to me.

Stations down the line. I love to say that. It's really just KMW Wichita. Stations down the line. We will take one more question from the audience. We have had a standing room only crowd tonight and the gentleman who had to stand for a while would like to ask a question. Can you address it from the microphone please? I live on the west side of Wichita and this is for both of you. Your name please. Bradley Fever and I'm not real wealthy and one of my largest concerns has been taxes and a lot of the folks that I talk to say the same thing. And if I'm wrong this Martinez or Mr. Ferris correct me but I think that the school board is now taking 60 cents of every tax dollar which is I think grown about three times the rate of inflation the last six years. Which concerns me in the future. I'm not sure how much more I'm going to be paying but I'd like to know specifically if you can tell me during your council tenancy. If you have not supported but if you have initiated anything that would lower city expenditures or taxes individually for us that would result in a savings.

I hope that's a direct enough question but I'd like to know if any of you have been creative enough to initiate that. Last year we went through the budget analysis. I asked a question about engineering fees. I said you know it seems like we're paying off a lot of consultant fees. And so I asked the manager to bring us information on the projects that and what we were spending and found out that it was costing us between forty and fifty thousand dollars a year to farm out some projects over what it would cost to have an engineer on staff to do that. So we brought it to the council the council passed it and as a result we're saving over forty thousand dollars to fifty thousand dollars a year. And we're going to study the next level of engineering to see if there's some more savings to be had there. If any of you caught the news tonight you see that we are having a short fall in revenue we're going to have to be creative in these areas. I've already mentioned the two and a half million dollars always going to the once in bed tax that also is going to save another million and a half dollars in property taxes.

There were earmarks for the museum district that is now being set aside for those projects. So that's actually a total of four million dollars that will be saved through that project. There have been the park board is another situation where I initiated that we took it through. We looked and we evaluated and talking to city staff today they're already identifying positions that they've been able to consolidate through attrition no layoffs but through attrition that have saved some money. We look at those types of things and those are our areas where I've cut expenses so that we didn't have to do it and also areas where I have gone to alternate sources of revenue which we're going to have to do if we're going to be successful in tackling a three million dollar budget. So those are some areas that I've worked on. We're paying less property taxes today than we were 10 years ago and that's because of the half sent sales has been initiated that half of it goes towards the highway and the other half goes towards the personal property taxes. The other thing that we can help to lower our taxes is by user fees be able to make people that use a service be able to pay for it and also through just every day watching the budget and not spending more than what we need and that's always very difficult but it can be done.

Gordon Basham has a follow up question and then Jim. Mr. Ferries you brought up the fact that we will be facing a budget an income shortfall or revenue shortfall a question to both of you one of the points that was made today by Mr. Ray Trail the city finance director in presenting the preliminary 1992 budget figures to you folks was that one of the areas that will have to suffer will be the area of street maintenance. My question to you is each of you is do you feel this is an appropriate cut and if not you are there other cuts warranted and if so from which departments. Well, we passed a one mill every three years ago that was going to go towards street maintenance I told staff today after the meeting that I would not accept moving that money into the general fund to disguise it to cover some other things that we were going to have to find areas in the general fund that we're going to be able to have to cut.

It amazes me that we could spend two and a half million dollars or two hundred fifty thousand dollars for example this year to study being able to downtown and now we're talking about cutting back street maintenance. To me public safety is sacred you cannot cut public safety streets and road repair is sacred you cannot cut that because that is what people expect. It is what people expect from their city government they really don't expect downtown revitalization to be initiated completely by the city council. So if there are areas that we're going to have to look and trim perhaps it's some of the far-rate reaching things. Ms. Martinez. The general budget is one thing and what we're working on with the CIP on downtown is something else but the local sales tax was down I think 4% they said and the fines on penalties were 10% down gasoline tax 7% interest earnings 27%. This in all of this may be three and a half million shortfall that we have.

However I feel like our economy is going to pick up and therefore our sales tax will increase and I don't think anyone was really panicked with a three and a half percent because three and a half million because they thought that somehow we were going to recover this. If we do have to be able to make hard decisions in regard to this perhaps some of the projects for street maintenance will have to be one of the things that we're going to have to give up. We're not going to let a little thing like the clock prevent people from saying what's on their minds. Would you approach the microphone with your question? Would you please come to the microphone with your question? The property taxes have lowered. You might have it lowered once since I've lived here and I've been here for 14 and a half years. The city taxes have lowered. Yes, your city property taxes have lowered but then you don't feel it because of the state, the school taxes and the county taxes. Your property taxes from the city have gone down. The city has only raised the taxes I think one time in four years.

She's right except it was two times because we had this one mill for streets but your school taxes have gone from 48 percent of your tax bill to now 60 percent. I'm not running for school board but I suggest you evaluate what's going on in the school board when you go on to the election booth. Jim Lynn had a follow up question. Well just briefly because I think you've touched on it. We talk about the economy may be improving, maybe so maybe not. I mean the 3.5 million this year we also understand it if the trends hold true, 4.9 million next year. I mean that's a lot more than cutting costs where we can. Our tax is going to have to move if we're going to give firefighters and police officers a raise or people are going to or the residents going to stand for the streets continuing to be in disrepair. Ms. Martinez is this my interest? Yes, this is yours.

Ms. Martinez said that the downtown plan was two separate funds. It isn't it isn't. They're both tax mill levies. While there may be the general debt interest mill levy some of that money can be removed from that particular fund in the next budget year and appropriated into the general fund. It's a mill levy you're paying it and while now they do are identified on two sheets of the budget that doesn't mean that that can't change. And if anyone tells you that it isn't going to cost you something for downtown they're not telling you the truth because you can't spend money without it costing you something. And some of the downtown is worth it because you get it back. And so if you get it back then it's worth it. If you don't get it back then it's not worth it. And those are the things you have to evaluate. I spent a long time with the finance director today. He gave us the worst case scenario. His projections that he gave us today are the worst that he expects. If that happened there's going to have to be either some dramatic cuts and services or there's going to have to be some increases in taxes. And I'm for some of those dramatic cuts and services and I'll be glad to identify if someone says the follow up question.

Ms. Martinez. I always hate to raise taxes. I never think that's a solution. I think you always have to cut back and that's the only way to be able to do some of this. I think we have 9% is what goes for the mill every for the CIP that we work for downtown et cetera. And I think that has to be something that has to be very important to all of us so that the tax base doesn't go down so that therefore we don't have to end up having to pay more taxes in the long run. So I think that there are different ways where we can cut back. We're just going to have to look at the budget, study it. We don't know all the answers right now because we don't know the percentage that we're going to be facing in the long run. And hopefully, like I said, the economy will pick up and the scenario won't be nearly as bad as it looks today. A question for the candidates from Mike Taylor, KTV. Colleague viewers on the bench. Frank O'Jyle has been working for the past several months to make abortion a city council issue. He would like to bring forward a proposal for local laws restricting or controlling abortions in the city.

If he in fact falls to and brings that to the council and that is debated, would you support or oppose local restrictions on abortion? Ms. Martinez. I would not support any motion for anything on a local basis because I do not think it belongs here. While it is definitely a state issue and the state should has embarrassed state of Kansas embarrassed us all by allowing abortion to go to the ninth month, the ordinance that Mr. O'Jyle is working on as opposed to viable ordinance, which simply stated is that if medically proven that the baby is a can live outside the womb, then you cannot abort that baby. In other words, if it's been medically proven that that baby is alive and could be alive and well, it takes a confirmation to two doctors that you cannot kill it. Yes, I would support that and I think when it comes to the council, if it does come to the council, it shouldn't have to because they should take care of something that simple in Topeka.

But if it does come to the council, I think it would pass because I think when people realize that this is not an anti-abortion ordinance, it's opposed viable ordinance that says if it's alive, you can't kill it. The concern on regulations like this, whether it be abortion or handguns or new dancing, is that if the city passes a restriction like that and the county does not, that what you've simply done is driven that just right across the city limit lines, you've created a problem for someone else. Do you think it can be effective passing a city-only ordinance of any type, restricting things? Mr. Martinez. I do not think it could be effective now. I think Mr. Martinez initiated or helped initiate a bias crime ordinance that is really worthless on the local level because of anything in that ordinance actually took place, it would be done in district court, not in municipal court, it's an invalid ordinance. But the point was that it's the principle of it. Now that was a principle that will never ever happen. It will never come to fruition. There's not been one case come forward and in fact in a couple cities that have the ordinance, there are no documented cases where they used it because it happens in district court.

I mean, if you create a crime of that magnitude, you're going to take care of it or you have the strength to do that. But since this is something that there is no state ordinance, it can't be done in district court. I think it's something that we need to send a message and perhaps then the county would wake up and realize that you're not talking about abortion, you're talking about life, and that maybe the state would wake up. So it's a little different type of thing than some of the other things that come on. Gordon Basham has a question for the candidates. The speaking of nude dancing, the city has spent a good deal of time and money, fighting court rulings which have essentially overturned the city's nude dancing law. Since the council sets city policy, should it continue to be the city's policy to impose a law banning nude dancing? I don't have any problem pursuing that. I think that the reason that those ordinances were initiated in the first place is that we saw a direct correlation between crime and those types of establishment between drugs, between prostitution and those types of establishment.

I think that the city judge that worked on that is going to be overturned. His logic was totally irrational. He says all cities are treated the same in the state constitution. When it comes to alcohol and we know that there are some cities that are dry and some that are wet, so obviously that's not true. So we're going to go ahead and appeal that and once it's over, I think that will be done and will be finished with it. Ms. Martinez. Yes, I agree with Greg in regard to that. As most people know, you can have nude dancing in Kansas or in Wichita, so long as you don't sound liquor. And I think the reason that they had that was because of the crime and that was happening because of the two together. And so hopefully we will be able to move on then. The following question, Gordon, Jim Lynn from Wichita, Eagle. I said to follow up to that, but I followed up to an earlier question. I wanted to get back for a moment to taxes and budget.

You all are pretty familiar with the budget. What would you cut if you had to cut? Well, that's a follow up for somebody. We're going to treat this as a new question and Ms. Perez will go ahead. Well, I think you have to look at things that perhaps aren't pulling their load. And I'm not shy about anything in the budget, including a $250,000 your expenditure for wise. There have been some things in wise that have been tremendous policies and have been a break out. I think they're going to have to prove that they deserve the entire quarter of a million if they're going to continue to get that. Fortunately, the people were smart enough not to force the city council to expend another $120,000 a year to pay ourselves. And they realized what I knew all along, but that was far too much to force into our budget. And now we're seeing we couldn't have afforded it anyway. So we're going to have to tackle those tough issues and look at those types of things that aren't pulling their weight.

I think we're going to have to look at some of the revenue side as well as the other side right now part of our problem. And you know, it's a nice problem for anybody that breaks the law speeding that we're just not writing tickets anymore in this town. And if you've gotten one recently, you disagree with that, but the statistics show that we're not writing tickets. Now, maybe people equipped breaking the law and that won't be an issue. And we can go away, but I doubt it as people go zoom in by me that that's the situation. We don't want to divert police from being police. And so maybe we have changed some roles. We've got 24 motorcycle cops. And I've asked the manager to evaluate taking those people off of motorcycles, putting them into cars, which would give us more officers on the street. And then they could rotate those people on a traffic beat. And so you would still have officers running a traffic beat, but you would have less people actually have more people actually involved in law enforcement. And I'm sure the motorcycle police are not going to be happy with that.

But I think that the concept of those types of things, they initiated with state funding, they went away, and now we're still out there with 24 motorcycle officers. And I think that those are ways we can save money without reducing services. Mrs. Martinez? I don't really know where we would start cutting. I think we would just have to look at the budget, really study it, and try to figure out what would be the thing that would hurt us the least as far as cutting something back. The penalties, I guess, and fines are down 10%. So the policemen have been riding less and perhaps because they've been too busy. We probably need to work and look at the different areas where we are down the gasoline tax, of course, is down also. Further question? Well, there is at least one more question from the audience. Jerry Bush. I believe Councilman Paris earlier said that they had decided not to discuss the tax abatement policy to it, until after the election. I think it's significant that today, the Council took action to abolish the Economic Review Committee, whose function it is to review the enterprise zone, the industrial revenue bond policy, and the tax abatement policy.

I guess to put it in the hands of staff and wise, wise is overruled less than that's been the policy that they've adopted before anyway. I think it's significant to note that the subcommittee of wise that handled this before three of the five people of other companies have benefited by tax abatements. And I wonder if this isn't a big problem of conflict of interest for the same people in their crotities that get the big spatial tax favors from the system, set the policy on how it's handed out. Ms. Martinez. The Economic Review Committee was turned back by the county. They're the ones that first decided to not have that, and it was a dual board with a city and with a county, and that's why we went ahead and abolished it also. There were a lot of other problems too. A lot of people were not attending. They could never come to any consensus. There was a lot of disagreement within the group, and therefore it seems like it wasn't functioning and nothing was really getting done.

Mr. Parris. The Economic Review Committee, as it was today, was a joint board originally. It was just a city board, and for some reason we invited the county to participate, and they chose not to, after some people were elected. But I think that you need to understand that we didn't just throw out the Economic Review Committee today. What we did was say that its functions would continue, really like it has, that we would call that together as we needed it. That we would not have a structured board that was on the books that tried to meet once a month when there wasn't specific issues. And it's my hope that when things like a new tax abatement policy come up, that we will use it like a task force to look at those things. We've been very successful with citizen task force. We've done it on a number of issues, and I hope we can do it for that. And then as we evaluate those things, we can see, as we go through that process, if there's a need to bring it back together. We don't necessarily have to have the county to do that board, but we didn't just throw it out today. We said we're going to bring it back as we need it.

And I hope that the council sees fit to send the new tax abatement policy to that board. And don't reason why the county wasn't a part of the board anyway. That was kind of a later thing, and they never really wanted to participate. The other thing, one other comment is, don't you think it is better to have boards appointed by the city council that are subject to the open meetings laws than somebody like wise making policy that don't have to comply with either? Where's Martinez? Yes, I think they are better if they're appointed by the council, but this particular one did not seem to have enough things to keep it functioning. And like Mr. Ferris, it can always be called back or with new people out of the same people on it. Mr. Ferris?

Yes, I definitely think that citizen committees are more effective than special interest committees, and why does not represent a broad base of the community. And I think that we, as district representatives, can appoint people that represent a broad base. So I think that it's very important that we remember that the city council makes the rules and policies not wise, and that we have to use our citizens input to have that information and not just receive it from the top, but receive it from our peers, which is the citizens. To get people to ask questions is to say that the previous one was the last one. Sir, in the red jacket, did you come forward? I'm Murrow Collins, and he's talking about cutting. How come you don't want to give a police and the firefighters only about three or four percent, but you went into the conversation and give the city manager 11 percent? I'm glad, very glad to answer that question.

If you go back to when the city manager was hired, and if we applied the same rules to the city manager that in the same raises that we'd given the employee groups, he would be making 13% more today than he is. The city manager does not get a raise every year. In fact, I've been on the council for years. He's gotten two raises, and I think that amounts to about $10,000. Now, it's a lot cheaper, obviously, to give one person $10,000 than it is to give $400,000. But you've made a very good point about going into executive session. Just to describe the way that it should happen, we go into executive session, and we always discuss the city manager and executive session. It's not appropriate. We do not chastise. We do not evaluate any employee in open session. Any relationship we have with employees is kept confidential. When we evaluated the city manager, it was done in private session, as it should have been done. The problem was that we didn't put it on the agenda the next week as it should have been.

There was no meeting the next week, and it got lost in the paperwork. I'll take as much blame for that as anybody. I should have noticed that it wasn't on the agenda. The mayor should have noticed that it wasn't on the agenda. We should have all noticed. Now, we should tell you that the manager did not have a raise during that six months, so that while it wasn't on the agenda until it appeared in our alternate budget, our revised budget, that's when it came to light and the media made a big deal about it, because we have to be in some severe negotiations at the time. But I'll stand behind the raise that he has gotten over the years, because he has been paid less in raises than the employees have. This is Martinez. He had not received a raise for two years, so his percent would be five and a half and five and a half for the last two years. Using the same criteria that you use for all of the employees, today he would be making $118,000 instead of $100,000 that he's making. What's the police and fire department make when they put their lives online and he doesn't?

No, I'll tell you, I know it worked down there and on Saturdays, on Sundays, you may not agree with that, but I say you go down and follow him around for a day and see if you can keep that work. Martinez and runs a $250 million corporation. That's the city of Wichita's budget. He hires and fires and is responsible for close to 2,000 employees. There is not an executive in the city of Wichita that has those credentials that does not make an excess of $150,000 to $180,000. He's chosen that profession. City managers in other cities this size, comparable experience, comparable size are making between $95,000 and $135,000. Now if you want a good city manager who has saved you literally millions of dollars over the last five years that he's been here, then you have to pay to get somebody like that.

If you want a rinky dink like they had at the county, you can get him cheap. Yes, I do think that Mr. Churches does earn his money. Any time you hire anyone of that caliber, you would have to be paying him $100,000 like your paying Mr. Churches or something probably a lot higher than that. I think in the long run he has saved this city a lot of money. He does work very vigorously. He puts in, he's there on Saturdays and Sundays, he puts in more than 40 hours a week. I think that you have to be around him and know him. He's very objective. He does a very, very good job for your city. And I wish that more people knew him to appreciate what he has done for you. Well, how come my taxes are there? Then if he'd saved just all that much money. Well, that's another follow-up question. I'll be glad to answer that. The city taxes have gone up less than the rate of inflation. There's city taxes. Your tax bill has gone up three to four times the rate of inflation. But that's not us. You know, still and I are running against each other, but we agree on one thing. It's not us. It's the school board who is raising your taxes. It's the state who has raised your taxes.

You need to be asking those questions why my tax bill has gone up to your state legislators. You need to be asking it to your school board. Not the city council, because our taxes in the city have gone up less than the rate of inflation. Now, I think the gentleman in the back is a police officer and he would like the taxes to be a little higher so he can receive more money. And I understand that. I really do. That we do need to be able to pay those people. But it's not the city that's raising your taxes. This is Martinez. Don't know what I can say any more better than that than than what Greg has, but that's very true. The city has kept their taxes down like I said before property taxes are lower today by 10% and they were 10 years ago. We have had very few raises and overall I think you are getting a good amount of money's worth out of the money that you paid to the city. I've got one more thing I'll sit down. How come we can't have an ordinance where we can go out of town and pick our city commuter from out of the state and bring them in and pay them the next hour. Was that a question?

You want to recognize that as a comment? You could. You bring it down and ask the city. We have a public agenda every Tuesday. It's a first item on the agenda and any ideas like that we're willing to listen to it may not pass, but we're willing to listen to anything any ideas. We're all grateful to you for bringing Mrs. Martinez and Mr. Ferris so close together philosophically. Enjoy to hear them share their appreciation for the city manager. Now we enter the phase of our evening in which they will question each other and perhaps we'll find whether there are differences between these two candidates for the same office. The sequence of these questions which one included two minute response and a one minute follow-up response will be the reverse of the opening statement. So the first question will be for Mrs. Martinez from Mr. Ferris. Thank you. One thing is still and I do have I think mutual respect. I have a great deal respect for Stella. We don't agree on most of the issues, but we do we do like each other and I do appreciate Mrs. Martinez. I do have a problem with something I read in the paper though.

Stella I saw last Sunday that you stated that you would not raise property taxes to pay employees, police and fire particularly increases. Yet in the last budget 100% if we would not have given the raises to the police and fire we would not have had to raise taxes and you voted for that increase. So are you for increasing taxes to pay for police and fire or are you against it? I think that you know that the reason that we had to raise that was because of the lawsuit and it didn't go directly to the firemen or to the policemen. So therefore I am not for raising taxes because in the long run I think that everyone loses. If you raise the taxes in order to pay the firemen or the police department they're going to in essence they also have to pay taxes and they're going to end up the losers. I think that we can raise funds through user fee where everyone has to pay for whatever the service that they're getting and in essence that way we can help to raise their pay raises. So.

All the questions are serious. Well that's not true. If we had not given the increases no matter what else happened we would not have had to raise taxes. The cost of the increases to the police and firefighters was $1.6 million. That's what it costs to increase their salaries. Now if you remove that from the budget there's no tax increase. Now sure we did all those other things but we could have done all those other things without increasing taxes if we had not paid the police and fire more money than we did. So the question is my follow-up is how did you vote to raise taxes when you're saying now that you wouldn't raise it in the future? I voted to raise taxes because we had to because of the lawsuit and it did not go directly to the firemen or the police department. Question from Mrs. Martin is too mysterious. Thank you. We kind of rehash this one but maybe we'll get an answer. This time all of the candidates running in the district you moved out of have said they're running because their district hasn't been well represented and this was through the primary as well as the general election. What would you do differently or change to improve your performance in district five if elected?

Well and it has been rehashed a little bit. I think that during the campaign there's a lot of rhetoric that goes out. I think if you look in the cap improvement program and what projects and if you want to talk about maple and meridian, Harry and meridian 31st and meridian. If you want to talk about 55th Street South all of maple from the river to Sheridan. You can go in and you can look at MacArthur's been repaved. We've just completed approving the South Seneca drainage project which is the number one project in all of South Seneca. I think that once people realize the problem is that those projects have happened so quickly in the last two years that people are still under the impression that there's nothing happening. If you look at the CIP and go back and look five years ago, six years ago, there were no projects in district four. Now there are more projects and I'm going to have to work hard to change that trend in district five so that district five now can benefit from what I was able to do in district four.

By bringing more projects and more road projects and that there's been more money, more dollars spent in district four in the last four years than any district in the city of Wichita. I have a document to be glad to share with you. Anybody is welcome to look at it that will show you those facts. Why do they feel so underserved and why did every candidate come out and say how badly they felt that the area had not been properly represented? I don't think that you answered my question. How would you be able to improve from what you did in the fourth district to the fifth district? There won't be any improvement necessary because the fourth district is and you know they can say anything they want during a campaign. And it's always good to tell people that they're not getting enough and that you're going to give them more during an election. And so I think and I think if you corner them, those two candidates and I spoke to both of them didn't even know what projects have been done in district four.

They didn't even know they'd been completed. So perhaps you need to be asking them when they get on the council if they're going to drive around their districts and look and see all of the new road work. In fact, I got a phone call not long ago complaining about all the road work in district four. They couldn't drive from here to there because there's so much construction. So I won't need to do anything different. I will just need to transfer that leadership and working with staff getting projects in the CIP, not just things that are already moving up in their national progression, but things that are in the CIP that are not in the CIP installed or finding ways like on West Maple to find revenue sources that we can do those projects when we've been able to do and able to do them for a number of years. Thank you. It's still on Martinez and Greg Ferris, candidates for city council in Wichita's fifth district. Thanks also to our panel of journalists, the Jim Lynn of the Wichita Eagle, Mike Taylor of Cake TV, Gordon Basham of KMUW Radio, and to the district five residents who joined this live here in the Orchard Park Recreation Center. Special thanks to KZSN Radio for the use of their remote broadcast equipment, which made this live broadcast possible.

And thanks to Stan Scott, the CPO office, our official celebrity timekeeper this evening. This was the third in a series of election 91 candidate forums. Two more forums remain in this series Tuesday and Wednesday evenings next week. Tuesday night candidates for city council in district six, Wednesday night candidates for mayor of Wichita. The forums are at seven o'clock, both nights in the downtown Wichita public library. Technical supervisors for tonight's program were Ross Pierce and Ralph Cram on behalf of KMUW Radio Cake TV, the Wichita Eagle, and the citizens participation organizations and CPO staff. This is Gary Schivers inviting you to join us again next Tuesday evening. Now back to Dan Taylor at KMUW. This is KMUW Wichita with the supported radio from Wichita State University. 56 degrees outside our studios. We have a little time left. Let's get some TMJ and avoid it. We want you at this hour, this portion of television is provided in part by a running grant from Colleen Kelly, Johnston.