I remember the call. The city manager told me to buckle up. A rezoning for a smelly new potato-salad factory was coming my way. On a street with nothing but houses. My life as a planner flashed before me like the grainy black and white final scene of “Frankenstein” — angry village mobs ...
Like nearly everyone my age, when the calendar turns to Sept. 11, I think about where I was on that day. Unlike many, presumably, I also wonder about deer hunting. For that, I have to thank the small community of Anthony — a town of about 2,100 people an hour south of Wichita. In September ...
In the aftermath of the horrific Winfield murder-suicide that claimed the lives of four children, neighbor Lisa Spoon did what citizens are supposed to do in a democracy. She contacted her elected representatives and asked them to consider changes to state law that would prohibit convicted ...
As we approach Labor Day, the unofficial start of the general election season, it’s worth looking back at a strategic decision Kansas Republicans made decades ago. In the early 1970s, as part of efforts to modernize the executive branch, Republicans advanced a constitutional amendment ...
Should Kansans demand the petition initiative? Recent election results point to a resounding “yes.” Currently, the only way to change the Kansas constitution is for the Kansas Legislature to initiate. This year, they asked voters to abandon merit selection and choose Kansas Supreme ...
This August marks the twentieth anniversary of my family’s arrival in Kansas, after I was hired to teach at Friends University in Wichita. After two decades here, what have I learned? That’s a complicated question and answering it fully would take a book (which I’m working on). But one ...