The Manhattan Mercury, April 1
Statehouse policing system worked in K-State student flap
Three Kansas State University students made headlines this past week when they were briefly banned from the state Capitol for a year. Their crime: They unfurled banners with a political message inside the Capitol building.
We need to first credit Lt. Eric Hatcher, who oversees the police in the Statehouse, for overturning the ban. He said it was just too long, and we agree.
Citizens have a right to express political opinions, and the government needs to be extremely careful about punishing people for doing that.
The issue here is that there is a rule against the display of banners inside the Statehouse. The students - Jonathan Cole, Katie Sullivan and Nate Faflick - unfurled four of them, naming legislative leaders, encouraging them to “expand Medicaid.” The banners, 24 feet high and 10 feet wide, hung inside the Capitol rotunda.
Thea Perry, a rural Leavenworth County resident, organized the event and was joined by Topeka Rev. Sarah Oglesby-Dunegan and the K-State students. Perry told the Topeka Capitol-Journal that the students’ right to protest was being denied by an overzealous police officer.
Our strong guess is that they knew they were violating the rules. If they didn’t, then they’re just naive. But by first unfurling the banners and then getting punished, they accomplished their goal of raising the profile of the issue. It was, in essence, civil disobedience.
We think a ban on banners inside the Statehouse is a reasonable policy - without it, the rotunda would become a glorified college-campus bulletin board. We also have no problem with giving the police discretion about how to handle violations. In this particular case, the system worked as it should.
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The Lawrence Journal-World, March 27
Think more broadly about affordable housing
If you ever wonder how unique Lawrence is, consider this: We trust government so much that we willingly gave it millions of dollars before government even had a plan to spend it. There aren’t many communities in America that would do that.
But Lawrence did so when voters approved the .05 percent sales tax for affordable housing in November 2017. About 62 percent of voters approved that 10-year tax despite the city not having a detailed plan on how it would spend the money. The city, at that point, didn’t even have a study that defined how large the affordable housing problem was. Voters were told affordable housing was a problem and passing this tax was a way to show that we are a compassionate community. That was enough.
This, however, is not a hand-wringing editorial over why voters approved the tax. There are worse problems than being a compassionate community. Besides, it probably is true that communities who try to address affordable housing will be better off than those who don’t. As long as the city is sensible - an important caveat - the affordable housing effort is probably a good long-term investment.
But it is fair to ask how the affordable housing effort is coming along. Earlier this month, the Journal-World reported on a significant recommendation from the city’s Affordable Housing Advisory board. The board wants the city to consider allowing two homes to be built on a single lot in traditional single-family neighborhoods. One of them would be smaller and would have to meet the definition of an affordable home.
In one way, the proposal is a step in the right direction, but in another it is a reminder of how much work we still have to do on this issue. The positive element of this proposal is it tries to introduce some systemic change. Too often, affordable housing ideas are focused on this project or that project. It will be difficult to make a true dent in the affordable housing issue by subsidizing a project that builds a few living units over here and another one that builds a few living units over there. The city’s study on affordable housing found that 5,200 households have rental rates that leave them cost-burdened. You’ll never catch up to that number with a project here or there.
But it is not clear that this idea of two homes on a single lot will be effective at addressing the problem. The concept is that with two homes on a single lot, the price of land becomes more reasonable because the cost of the building lot can be shared by two households. But don’t we already have a system that does that? They’re called duplexes. Duplexes have not solved Lawrence’s affordable housing problem. One reason they haven’t is because the market adjusts. When the market discovers you can put two houses on a single lot, what is to stop the market from simply increasing the price of that single lot? There goes much of your savings.
Plus, do we really think new construction is the best way to create affordable housing? It might be easier to fill up vacancies in the Lawrence apartment market. Does the city, though, even know how many vacancies exist in the Lawrence apartment market? It could be useful information to have.
It is important for the city to think broadly about this topic of affordable housing. For example, the city should continue to explore ways to create systemic change in not only Lawrence’s housing system but also its economy.
Why the economy? Perhaps the most effective way to address affordable housing is to address the other side of the equation - the amount of income residents have to spend on housing. Could some of the city’s affordable housing money be spent on figuring out why Lawrence incomes are lower than in other comparable communities?
You may ask, though, what solutions could the community conceivably find to address the income issue? Well, at the moment, they fall into the same category as many of the affordable housing solutions. They are titled: Currently Unknown.
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The Wichita Eagle, March 25
It’s time, Wichita: Make public art a priority
To witness the value of public art in Wichita, you have only to visit the Keeper of the Plains on a summer evening.
There, where Blackbear Bosin’s 44-foot steel sculpture towers above the confluence of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas rivers, you’ll see residents and tourists strolling along footbridges toward the base of the Keeper to watch the “Ring of Fire” ignite.
They snap photos and post them on Instagram. They read about the history of Native Americans in Wichita. They gaze at the Wichita skyline. They search for the troll sculpture in his hidey-hole under a grate near the Keeper.
Art enriches and elevates public spaces. It brings people together. It educates, captivates, uplifts and inspires.
So it’s time for city leaders to recognize art’s worth and make it a priority: Enact a “percent-for-art ordinance,” which would set aside 1 percent of Wichita’s capital-improvement project budget and earmark it for public art projects.
The benefits of public art are well documented. But because they’re considered “soft” benefits - aesthetic beauty, inspiration and general improvement of the urban environment - it’s easy to dismiss them as a low priority, particularly when budgets are tight.
However, some key public art projects right here in Wichita over the past several years have transformed public spaces and proved art’s inherent and lasting value:
A mural painted on a north Wichita grain elevator - designed by Colombian street artist GLeo as part of the Horizontes project - set a Guinness world record and is attracting photographers and other visitors from across the country.
An effort to decorate buildings in the Douglas Design District lit a fire under area artists and sparked a grant that will help add more murals and other enhancements to the burgeoning neighborhood.
Gallery Alley, an outdoor pop-up art gallery at 616 E. Douglas in Old Town, turned unused space into a vibrant gathering space for Final Friday art shows and other events.
And Wichita’s collection of downtown sculptures, from the “Tripodal” outside Century II to Georgia Gerber’s bronze statues depicting the historic Dockum Drug Store sit-in, have enhanced the city’s walkability.
It’s time to acknowledge that robust beginning and build on it, by guaranteeing that every public project undertaken in Wichita will involve artists and have a public art component.
Granted, because art is subjective, communities often experience public art controversies. In Petaluma, California, residents are deeply divided over a proposed installation titled “Fine Balance,” which features Victorian claw-foot bathtubs on stilts. In Wichita two decades ago, folks griped about the “circle of light” columns at Central and McLean, which many saw as a waste of public funds.
Nevertheless, art advocates are smart to push for an ordinance now. The City Council recently approved an $83 million baseball stadium development in downtown Wichita, which will include a pedestrian bridge over the Arkansas River. At the same time, an advisory committee has called for a new performing arts center, and others are pushing for a new convention center to replace Century II.
As any or all of those major civic projects move forward, it’s only right to ensure that they’re beautiful as well as useful.
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