Aujanae Bennett wants to see her Northeast Millair neighborhood flourish — children playing in the streets, clean lawns and driveways, pride in the community. But the 41 city-owned homes dominating the northwest corner of her neighborhood are an obstacle to that, Bennett said. Over the past four years, she’s noticed the homes have been vacated […]
Wichita
Posted inEducation
Students are back at Wichita colleges, but the COVID-19 picture remains murky
It’s Olivia Compton’s sixth spring semester in college, her third in the COVID-19 era and her first at Friends University. At this point, she has an air of having seen it all, even as the omicron variant shatters what looked like the light at the end of the tunnel for the pandemic during the fall […]
Posted inLocal Government, Watchdog
Wichita police’s new contract ignores appeals for more transparency in misconduct cases
A new three-year union contract for the Wichita Police Department includes pay raises and retention bonuses, but critics say it fails to address demands for improving transparency around police misconduct. The contract with the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) will cost the city at least $9 million more than budgeted, in part to fund salary […]
Posted inEducation
Cutting through ‘the chaos’: What happened at Wichita’s school board meeting on Monday
The Wichita Board of Education is off to a rough start for the new year. The board had been set to ceremonially swear in three new board members and one incumbent at its first meeting of 2022 on Monday at Wichita North High School. But that meeting never happened after the three new board members […]
Posted inKansas State Government, Local Government
‘We’ve become the substitute state hospital’: Four years later, Sedgwick County still calling for state mental health hospital
For decades, the Sedgwick County Jail has been overcrowded. A federal lawsuit in 1986 that capped the jail population and required a plan to deal with overcrowding at the facility was only the start. Since, multiple expansions and facilities have been built in an attempt to alleviate the numbers. But throughout 2021, the jail continued […]
Posted inEducation
Why Wichita USD 259 is fast-tracking repairs to this 99-year-old high school
Wichita East High School students and teachers are back to class for the spring semester, but some of them are returning to different classrooms. After discovering structural issues in the building’s science wing in the fall, school officials are shuttering the wing’s 18 classrooms until repairs can be completed. Teachers from those classrooms are continuing […]
Posted inLocal Government
From tall grass to tires, here’s how Wichita handles over 10,000 nuisance complaints a year
From a lawn with grass 12 inches too high to vacant homes with broken windows, the city of Wichita’s Neighborhood Inspections division takes complaints about major and minor neighborhood nuisances. For some residents, what appear to be minor code violations can hint at more serious issues. Aujanae Bennett, president of the neighborhood association in Northeast […]
Posted inLocal Government
Five questions with Wichita’s two new incoming council members
This November, a shake-up to the Wichita City Council was clinched by the election of two political newcomers. Wichita’s City Council District 6 elected Maggie Ballard, defeating one-term incumbent Cindy Claycomb with 55% of the vote. Wichita’s City Council District 3 elected Mike Hoheisel, defeating nine-month incumbent Jared Cerullo with 50% of the vote. The […]
Posted inLocal Government
Accomplishments, regrets, advice from Wichita’s outgoing City Council members
Nearly four years ago, Wichita City Council member Cindy Claycomb was sworn into her seat after winning a landslide election for her District 6 seat. Nearly nine months ago, City Council member Jared Cerullo took office after the existing council appointed him, in a 4-to-2 vote, to fill a vacant District 3 seat. Now, Claycomb […]
Posted inEducation
School lunch is a food and people business. Wichita USD 259’s challenge is finding either.
Rows of racks in Wichita USD 259’s vast School Service Center on Hydraulic Street in northeast Wichita are the second-to-last stops before distribution to the district’s dozens of schools. In the adjacent industrial kitchen, pizzas roll through conveyor-belt ovens, while enormous mixers pipe mashed potatoes into a machine that seals the food into large plastic […]