a Wichita Beacon analysis of over 1,000 emails county commissioners received ahead of the vote on the mask mandate found that anti-mask emails outweighed pro-mask emails by nearly two to one.
Celia Hack
Hack covers local government for The Wichita Beacon. She is a Report for America corps member. Follow her on Twitter @CeliaHack.
Posted inLocal Government
‘Headlights to the future’: Wichita’s youth demand climate action now
Dolly Farha, 19, didn’t plan on returning to Wichita. After a seven-year stint in Massachusetts, she told herself that she wouldn’t ever come back. “To me, one of the biggest issues of Kansas and Wichita is it was created for … generations of the past,” Farha said. “Without that forward-thinking, headlights to the future … […]
Posted inLocal Government
Wichita economic development incentives topped $85 million since last September. Here’s how they work.
This summer, bulldozers, excavators and graders filled the sleepy residential North Riverside neighborhood. A once-vacant field at 11th and Amidon is becoming a new development of 40 single-family homes. Developer Jerry Jones said without the $1.7 million tax incentive Wichita offered him in February, the Riverside Housing Redevelopment District wouldn’t be single-family homes. “It definitely would’ve been a […]
Posted inLocal Government
Sedgwick County jail’s COVID protocols differ from other Kansas counties
In Sedgwick County, COVID-19 cases are skyrocketing — in July, new daily cases averaged about 62 per day. By mid-August, that number more than doubled to nearly 140. That’s beginning to impact the Sedgwick County Detention Facility. After months of nearly no cases, the number of positive cases shot up after just two weeks in […]
Posted inLocal Government
The number of seniors is growing. Can Sedgwick County keep up?
Diane Pope, 72, first ventured into Linwood Senior Center six years ago. Her husband had died years earlier, and Pope felt “just lonely, lonely, lonely.” As a shy and introverted person, she was skeptical whether she could find community there. But after stopping by Linwood for the first time, a staff member chased her down […]
Posted inLocal Government
What a long-awaited expansion to the community crisis center would mean for Sedgwick County
For all 22 years of his life, Vicente Granados knew exactly what he wanted to be: a bullfighter. Even in grade school, he dressed up as a rodeo clown for the wax museum assignment, said his sister Esther Granados. That’s how she remembers him best — the passionate bullfighter, the committed brother nicknamed “Boy.” […]
Posted inLocal Government
How should the city spend its federal COVID recovery dollars? Wichitans weigh in
Prior to the pandemic, Faith Martin saw affordable housing largely discussed in the context of homelessness or the limited availability of Section 8 vouchers. Recently, though, she’s seen the issue balloon. Her friends who are long-term tenants had to move after a rent increase. As an advisory board member for her City Council district, she […]