Monday, February 21, 2011

Agreement No. 2

This agreement makes more sense.

The first severance agreement between Ark City and Lane Massey, the former director of administration, was tilted heavily toward Massey — he kept his right to sue and to speak out if he wanted to. He also got paid through March 31 regardless of whether he worked through March 31. The updated agreement appears to pay him only through Jan. 14 - the day he actually left work.

Sounds like city commissioners are OK with this agreement, at least as an improvement over the first one they claim they knew nothing about.

Immigrant tuition

Why do we want to refight this battle?


It may not seem fair to allow undocumented immigrants in-state tuition, until you consider that many of them are children brought here by parents or adults with no say in the matter. And this:

"To qualify for the lower tuition rate, the undocumented students must have attended Kansas high school for at least three years, earned a diploma or equivalent certificate, and started the process of seeking citizenship status in the United States."


Isn't there room for some compassion and reason in the law?

Friday, February 18, 2011

Attorney's office

I'm beginning to hear some rumblings against the idea of closing the county attorney's Ark City office. I actually thought I would hear more when the story broke last week.

While I can see the technical reason for the move, I'm beginning to think that the political and psychological damage would not be worth the few thousand dollars a year in savings on utilities.

In fact I'm hearing that this might instigate a push to reopen a tag office in Ark City, which apparently created quite a squabble when the county closed it years ago.

This feeds into the Ark City Winfield rivalry and the perception that Ark City gets snubbed not being the county seat.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Engine sputtering

Our new Congressman, Mike Pompeo, voted against funding a military aircraft engine being developed by General Electric Aviation.

This was his position during the campaign, despite heavy lobbying efforts locally from GE and elected officials to support the so-called alternate F-35 engine. It would have been hypocritical of him to vote for the engine project, unless the facts had changed significantly.

But does this represent a pattern going forward for Pompeo? The question it raises is how much will Pompeo (and other lawmakers) protect economic interests in their own district? We are in a bit of a new era here with overall federal spending reduction being the ultimate goal, (and at the state level to some degree) even to the detriment of backyard benefits. Even Obama says he will veto any so-called earmarks, money individual congressmen stick into legislation for projects in their districts.

But how far can this go? Wichita relies so heavily on aviation and aviation relies heavily on govt. contracts. Pompeo does support Boeing's tanker bid, but how far would he go to fight for something like that (Tiahrt fought tooth and nail). So many things like Ark City levee system, Strother Field development/maintenance, to name a couple, get funded by federal dollars. They don't just come here ... somebody has to advocate for them.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Pompeo's position

I wrote this story on Pompeo. I would commend him on keeping an open mind about the F-35 alternate engine that might help keep jobs at GE Strother Field in the future. His and House GOP NO. 1 priority is to slash federal spending to reduce the deficit - but what about spending that is descretionary that affects jobs in your own district. Tough call. We love to hate spending, unless it helps us!

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Koch brothers bothered

David and Charles Koch, who own Koch Industries based in Wichita, are in the spotlight for their spending on political campaigns and causes that favor their conservative and business interests.

Politico has this story on the scrutiny and the Koch's effort to combat some of the negative publicity.

Part of the problem here is the law that allows Kochs and others to funnel money to groups that influence elections, or try to, but don't have to disclose their funding or funders. It happens on both the left an right political spectrums, of course, but the bigger influences have been on the right, including Koch-supported groups like Americans for Prosperity (probably because they are better at it)

The Kochs and others seem to want to stay private and not have to answer questions while trying to influence the political system in big ways. No wonder they get criticized and scrutinized. They like to compare it to George Soros efforts on the left, but that comparison is weak for two reasons: Soros openly talks about what he does, and he supports causes that ostensibly go against his own business interests.