From the Alvin and Rosalie Sara Check studio PBS Kansas Presents Kansas Week the battle over Kansas congressional maps comes to a sudden halt.

Why Republican leaders admit the push for mid-decade redistricting is dead.

Also a devastating blow for Derby.

The sudden and permanent closure of Rock Regional Hospital leaves Wichita's largest suburb without emergency care and hundreds looking for work.

But first, a $574 million blunder.

Wichita's new water plant is delayed yet again due to a critical design flaw.

We'll break down the massive headache waiting for the new city manager on day one.

Right now on Kansas Wheat.

Hello and welcome to Kansas Week.

I'm Jared Cirillo.

The largest capital project in Wichita City history is now facing another major delay.

Officials confirming this week that the new $574 million water treatment plant likely will not open this year due to a critical design flaw requiring a complete rebuild of key components.

The mistake pushes the project more than two years behind schedule.

Now, while contractors have admitted fault and will cover the repair costs.

The city says it must continue relying on its aging 86 year old plant to keep the water flowing.

Here to discuss this and other stories, this week, we have first of our news stories.

Republican State Representative Susan Humphries.

Sedgwick County Commissioner Jeff Blue bar and Clearwater City Councilman Dustin Shaw.

Thank you all for joining us this week.

Jeff, let me start with you.

You are a former Wichita City Council member.

This is a huge black eye on the city of Wichita.

It's been dragging on and on.

And now we hear that the water treatment plant may not open this year either.

So, you know, I remember in 2019, we had Jacobs come in.

We had a selection committee that went through there.

They chose Jacobs, and at that time Mayor Longwell, and he basically thought that the price was the price tag was too high.

So wanted to bring in some local vendors, brought in Wichita Water Partners and their their estimates were significantly less.

And we were being challenged at the time that they didn't believe that the Jacobs didn't believe the design was going to work.

So some of this was questioned at that time.

Okay.

So when you say Jacobs, there were two firms that were bidding for this project.

Basically, there was also a community, up a group of citizens put together that also recommended Jacobs, the other firm.

Yeah.

And at that time, Mayor Longwell wanted to instead of from the RFP, he wanted to deviate to a contest and a design contest.

They were going to pay both parties for the design.

And at that time, Jacobs was frustrated and said, no, they just didn't want to do the project.

So because of this whole thing, there have also been allegations of impropriety as well.

On mostly former Mayor Long Wells Park.

Do you believe that was part of what led us to where we are at today?

I mean, the design was being questioned at that time.

I do believe Mayor Long.

Well, I don't believe it was a personal thing.

I think it was more.

Remember, he had a large focus on keeping jobs in Wichita, keeping jobs for the area, trying to work for local suppliers at all levels.

So I think it was more of that and having an outside company come in and do the largest project in city history, and the city has done the same thing with the second largest project as well, the wastewater treatment plant in South Wichita.

I was on the council when that was passed, and it was it was very big that we wanted to have local partners.

But at what point does local partners outweigh expertise?

And that's what Jacobs really tried to flex on, that they were the nation's subject matter experts in building this.

They had warned us at the time that not just anybody could come in there and do that.

And of course, you know, the city of Wichita had had no experience at that.

We had another team that told us that they could do the same thing.

And now now we are running into design issues.

I'm I'm hearing some rumors about some things may be bulldozed in and and have to be completely reworked.

So it's a it's a very serious.

Yeah.

Justin Shaw, Clearwater city councilman, let me move over to you.

You're not on the Wichita City Council, but from an outsider, kind of an outsider looking in from a city council person standpoint, what are your thoughts on what's happened with this?

Because Wichita is the largest city.

Clearwater is affected by what goes on in Wichita.

I think my biggest concern would be what you're alluding to earlier was expertise.

There was a lot of concern early on of whether or not they had the ability to pull off such a massive project.

Have they acquired that talent now, and are they able to actually finish it without bringing in someone else to take over for them?

Yeah, that'll be my biggest concern.

It's a hard project.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's the largest project the city has ever encountered.

Susan Humphreys, let me move over to you from state lawmakers standpoint, is there anything.

I'm trying to think of like oversight.

Is there anything from a state level that could be done to make sure this type of thing doesn't happen to municipalities moving forward?

Yeah.

I mean, nothing to be done with this project, clearly.

I mean, I think that's that's completely local.

I suppose people will be looking at it.

I mean, you know, we always say local control, that's what that's what we like.

And so I don't know that we would weigh into it, but certainly it's concerning.

And we shouldn't just let it slide under the table.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jeff, anything else to add?

Just that, I think we were so excited because we'd hired, we'd contract with a lobbyist out of Washington, DC to come in here, and we got these worthy of funds.

It was interest free loans for.

Yeah, it was very, very good terms.

We were trying to exercise that, and we were really just trying to utilize the tax dollars and be as fiscally responsible as we could.

And you know, I just one thing I want to this is really hard to hear that when it is possible, it is becoming more and more possible that parts of that plant may have to be bulldozed.

I've heard that rumor.

This is going to escalate.

How can this not escalate to $1 billion more than twice?

Do you see that happening?

I don't I don't quote me, but I, I, I want to say that it was around $150 million cheaper to do this project from the original water partners versus Jacobs.

So I still don't know that it's going to run over what the original estimates were.

And Gary Jansen, also the public works director for the City of Wichita, said the city won't be on this hook.

Yeah, I do.

You see that happening?

Because a lot of these partners that are involved, they don't have the liabilities to cover a massive hundreds of millions of dollars of shortfalls.

And I would I would agree with Gary, though.

They signed up for it.

And, we held their feet to the fire at the time of contract signing, and I think we've got the language to hold them to it.

I hope they have good insurance policies, I guess.

All right, we'll move on.

Wichita's new city manager says his first priority is to see that troubled water plant for himself.

He wants to actually go there.

Dennis Moore still hit the ground running on Tuesday, diving straight into a marathon six hour council meeting where he faced immediate pressure from mayor Lily woo.

Woo demanded more accountability and transparency than previous administrations.

Last fall, meanwhile, vowed to make openness a priority, saying he is still getting up to speed on the city's biggest challenges.

Jeff Blue, log in with you.

You worked with Bob Leighton your entire time on the council.

I think Bob Leighton may be the longest serving city manager in Wichita's history.

How how does the council negotiate this now with a person?

Brand new coming in and a major problem.

Yeah.

You know, and I and I think I served longer with Bob Leighton than probably any other council member.

Maybe long.

Well, we were close, but, I, I agree with the transparency.

And Jared, you know, is what you said what the council I think there's some council members that knew things some people didn't.

So if transparent is not even demonstrated throughout the council, how do you expect it to be publicly?

I'm excited about this.

Council member Glasscock has already invited me to, meet up with the new city manager next week, so look forward to speaking about some of the concerns we have and our mutual district and area.

And, I, I do agree that the focus should be on more transparency, not just to the council but to the community.

You can see if got a $0.01 sales tax out there right now, there's a lot of people asking questions about things, and then there's going to be, we're gonna have to answer a lot of those questions.

Those comes up.

Justin.

Sure.

Tell me about your thoughts.

Have you met the new city manager in Wichita?

How do you how what are your thoughts here?

I haven't had the privilege yet, but he's got an uphill battle ahead.

Ahead of him.

He doesn't have time to get acclimated.

He has to hit the ground running.

Fortunately, he also has great staff.

Gary is wonderful in public works.

Gary is very knowledgeable, so you can rely on his opinion.

But he's he's got a battle.

The transparency has been a question for some time now, going back decades, and it's something he's gonna have to work on, but build that groundwork and move forward with it.

He's got the depend on staff.

Yeah.

And hopefully, you know, things will fall into place for him.

Susan, with with a new leader coming in to the city, is this kind of like a new governor coming into the state House at times, you know, to some degree.

But it's, you know, it's all going to be, again, local and and we try to work, of course, with the city.

I think there's around 30 or more legislators in the South Central District.

And, you know, Kansas.

And so we'll, you know, we'll try to meet with them, we'll get together.

But again, it's going to be interesting to see how the city council and county commission, you know, deal with it in other cities and everything.

So looking forward to it.

I love the transparency with everything going on across the country.

I think that's the name of the game is transparency and accountability.

Yeah.

And before before I move on former city council and County Commissioner Jeff Blue.

But when, you know, there's a lot of blame going on with all of the problems that have been happening here with not only this water treatment plant, but the city, quite frankly does not have a good track record with previous projects like Gander Mountain Water Walk and Kenmore.

You know, and certain people in the community have been very outspoken, you know, about ballpark issues, selling prime riverfront property for a dollar an acre.

At what point does or should local elected leaders be more communicative about blame?

Who's to fault for all of this stuff?

Is it you?

Is it me?

Is it the city manager?

Who who's to fault?

You know, at some point when all of these taxpayer dollars are being squandered?

Quite frankly, yeah.

You know, it seems like these things are rushed.

A lot of times you've got a rush in the water project.

We had to rush it to get to make sure that we got the with you money from, from Washington, D.C.

to make sure, you know, we're going to take advantage of those terms.

The ballpark.

It was a rush thing because we had to make sure that, you know, we were going to get the Triple-A baseball team now.

And now you look at that, it was all net new sales tax from the Star bond.

I don't know that there's been any net new sales tax or not, no new businesses.

I'm sure there's been an uptick in some of the sales tax there.

But, you know, it makes you go back to are we going to be on the hook for that Walmart.

And you talked about being rushed.

That kind of seems like what's happening with the sales tax discussion as well.

This is going to go to a vote in two months.

The council only had about two weeks.

The city council only had about two weeks to look over this plan.

And there are many, many calls in the community that this sales tax push is being rushed.

You know, I went through this in 2014 or 15 whenever we did the original sales tax, whenever they had the, a handful of things.

And, and back then we had some people asking, and are you just looking for, a revenue source for the purpose?

You know, that was a question that a lot of people had.

And I do know that there's some good things in that sales tax.

But, you know, we went out to all the dabs.

We went up for several months prior to that.

And, and I think it maybe was a little bit rushed this time around because they didn't even make it to the dabs.

I think they only had like one community meeting.

Susan, let me ask you, as far as the sales, the city's sales tax that's going on, do you think it's what, since we're talking about that subject.

Okay.

Do you think it's wise that all of these things were being included, like the question has been asked, why are we talking about raising a tax for public safety and entertainment?

All all in one book?

Those two things don't mix.

And, you know, when that first came up, some of the talk was it's kind of really property tax.

Of course, that is something we're very interested in.

And the legislature is something we hear about all the time.

It's a top priority.

What are we gonna do about property tax?

And so when this first came up, property tax relief was part of the one when, sales tax.

I don't know what happened to that, but now you're right.

It's it's all these other it's public safety.

It's all the entertainment.

So many other things added in.

I think, the people who maybe were excited about it because it might help property tax are no longer excited about it, just unsure if the sales tax passes.

How does it help clear water for the city?

If the Wichita city sales tax passes, how does it help or hurt Clearwater Pro?

It doesn't affect us too terribly much.

Okay, we do have a sales tax in Clearwater because we are the center hub of a very large school district footprint wise, and people buy their groceries here in Clearwater.

For us, it doesn't really change our perspective.

I think the biggest problem with Wichita is they decided to do that before they message to the community that this is what we want to do, and get some buy in before we put the date on the calendar that's going to be a hard sell.

All right.

Our next topic.

It's a sudden and permanent closure for Darby's only hospital, Rock Regional Hospital, announcing Wednesday its closing effective immediately, ending emergency care for the suburb and surrounding towns like Mulvane and Rose Hill.

The closure comes just a month after the hospital filed for bankruptcy, citing up to $100 million in debt, including $23 million owed to their landlord and emergency order that had allowed the hospital to keep paying its 200 employees has been lifted, now paving the way for the eviction.

Susan Humphreys, I'll start with you.

This is this is leaving a huge hole in the local community.

As far as health care goes, a state.

You're a state lawmaker.

You've been a state lawmaker for a long time.

How does how do we deal with these types of health care?

You're no stranger to the health care debate, right?

How does this affect that?

Yeah, well, I think it's so sudden.

It's so shocking.

You know, that's part of it.

What I really would like to say is dig in to how did this happen?

And yes, we talk about healthcare.

I'm not full disclosure, you're not on the health committee, but, but I, I'm just going to say I think Medicaid expansion would not have changed this situation.

And so I just want to get that out there that that people like to say that maybe that would have made a difference in this case.

I don't think it would have from what I'm understanding.

But we need to dig in.

We need to see health care is out of control and we need to get a handle on it.

Yeah.

And I do think it's important to also bring up that, yes, this is was the largest emergency room in Derby there.

There are still some emergency services in Derby.

There's another, Wesley, I believe it's a Wesley affiliated, emergency room that's near 63rd in Rock.

Not nearly as large as Rock Regional Hospital.

But Jeff blew off from how you know, you're a small town guy, too, you know, from.

How does this affect small town?

You know, you look at a lot of the influx of capital that's been put in these rural hospitals, and then they're challenged with getting the doctors in the area, getting the staff in the area.

I was at this Derby, facility this summer.

Really?

Really.

It's my first time in there and, beautiful facility, beautiful facility, greatly staffed.

I've heard a lot of very positive comments, but I don't know if it was just a bad business plan from from my understanding, I think maybe a lot of this was Arpa money and things that weren't just going to continue.

And then when it ran out.

So it's a shame and hopefully somebody else can come in there and take advantage of the facility and utilize it for the community.

Yeah.

Justin, any thoughts on the closure of the hospital in Derby?

Well, it's a loss to Derby, but it's also a loss to all the staff who work there.

Yeah, 150 jobs, 150 jobs.

And they're very well praised.

I know a number of people who went through treatment their last several years, and they always praised the staff.

It sounds like they were struggling financially from the day their doors opened to the day they locked the doors.

But it's going to be a loss for Derby and that staff bond district because it's part of it.

Yeah, that's that's that's a good point because there is a dinosaur.

There's there's one Star Bond project already and there's talk of another Star Bond project on the other side of 63rd Rock hasn't gotten started yet, but, that'll be interesting to see how that affects Derby.

The controversial push to redraw Kansas congressional maps appears to be dead now.

House Speaker Dan Hawkins admitted Monday that he does not have the votes to pass a new map or override a veto from Governor Laura Kelly.

The GOP effort was aimed at splintering Johnson County to oust Democrat Sharice Davids.

Davids cheered the news, saying that Kansans don't want politicians, quote, rigging elections to cling to power.

Susan Humphreys, I'll start with you.

Since you're on the state legislature, tell me about this.

It's been, it passed.

It actually passed in the Senate, but struggled in the House.

So that was what passed in the Senate was, the vote or the petitions to have a special session.

And they had enough petitions.

We did not.

So we didn't have the special session where we would have taken up the redistricting as well as a couple other issues.

And I think it became clear, like there were people I signed the petition to have the special session.

I'm interested in the other issues also, but how were people actually going to vote on the redistricting?

That was still an unknown.

And I think since we didn't have the special session and now they've been kind of collecting votes and where people are they they meaning leadership and others.

Realize we don't have the votes especially we have to have 84 votes to override the governor's veto.

And she most certainly would veto this.

In fact, she said ahead of time she would veto this.

And then do we even have 63 to pass it?

I've gotten I don't I've gotten a lot of emails and personal, contacts that people are not in favor of the redistricting, even in my district, which is, it's a conservative district, that people ask, why did you vote for it?

I didn't vote yes for it.

I voted that I would be willing to go to a special session.

Okay, but how I was going to vote on the redistricting.

I've not.

Nobody's asked me that, actually.

So it's it's important to point out we did attempt to have, a Democrat state lawmaker on today's show and, he backed out.

So, we tried to have an up opposing opposing viewpoint.

But it was it.

Democrats have said largely this is not necessary.

Why why are we doing this anyway?

Republicans are only kowtowing to President Trump's line.

What do you say?

Yeah, what I say to that is that mid decade district.

And usually it's in the year 20, 30, 40.

And so this would be in the mid and that's what people don't like.

But you know what.

It is constitutional that we would do it.

Our Constitution doesn't preclude us from doing that.

Now the question is is it right to do it right.

But but I think it's a reaction to in states like Illinois or states like Massachusetts, that they have a decent percent of Republicans, maybe 30 or 40%.

They don't have one congressman or senator that that would be in their party, that would be Republican.

Their whole congressional delegation are Democrats because they have gerrymandered their maps.

So that we have, let's face it, both sides.

You're not.

But the aisle just Republican states haven't really done it as much yet.

But now they are thinking, well, others do it.

Maybe we should do it too.

And you know, that is not all that persuasive for me, to be perfectly honest.

Yeah, it's kind of the all the two wrongs make a right, you know, Jeff, blue ball from a local.

You're a local guy.

I realize we may not have much to say on this, but tell me your thoughts.

Well, I've been true to redistricting on which all city council just.

Just because of the way the time ville and, my district didn't change that much in either one.

But we did do a review with the Sedgwick County Commission here a month or so ago.

And we looked at our numbers.

And normally we want to each county commissioner to represent around 105,000 people.

And we were within a thousand of that.

So our numbers were from what we'd looked at, the data we had, it wasn't a full up census.

We were looking at property tax data, we were looking at addresses, but we didn't find a huge change in the numbers for our industry.

And it's important to point out, though, that's strictly numbers.

That's not based on it's not party affiliation.

No.

Anything like that.

Yeah.

No, no, it's it's strictly data that we're utilizing from our tax appraiser's office.

Yeah.

Just unsure.

Anything to add on this conversation here?

Well, I'm not a Democratic legislator, but I can speak plenty to this.

My question would be how much is enough?

We are already gerrymandered as it is the gerrymandered Congresswoman David's district in 20.

It's now 30% Democrat, 42% Republican.

And she still won by 11 points.

How much is enough?

Do we need to take that seat away?

Because 46.5% of Kansas is Republicans, 24% is Democrats.

The rest are other.

If we're being fair about it, that's two safe Democrat seats.

One safe.

Sorry, two safe Republican seats.

One safe Democratic safe, one toss up, one for the best winner.

And out of the four Congress seats in Kansas, three of them are Republican.

75% of the seats are Republican.

So it does seem like that is generally falling into how Kansas is a voting state, mostly conservative, and Kansas is responsible for Kansas.

We can't do what Illinois or California in New York is doing.

We're responsible for Kansas.

Yeah, but you don't agree that they I mean, if you don't think Kansas should be that way, that it should represent our population, probably the other state should too, ideally.

But they're responsible for them and we're responsible for us.

Great point.

Would you believe me if I told you that Texas was a blue state?

It is going to now.

But by the numbers, it is a blue state.

It's 46.5% Democrat, 37.7%, Republican.

But it's very much the same as Kansas, largely center.

The blue is centered in the the Dallas and the Austin and the Houston, the, major population centers.

You get out in rural Texas and it's just as Republican.

This is the key.

There's the unaffiliated, you know, do they lean blue or do they lean red?

You know, that's really if you're going to decide if it's a blue state or red state.

How did the Senate really explain.

But in Texas, it gave literally the House members it's 68% and the House is Republican, even though they only have 37% of the state, at 69% in the Senate.

And they have two thirds of the congressional delegation.

That's not fair and balanced.

Yeah, that's very true.

We'll move on.

A new push is underway now in Topeka to crack down on child endangerment with proposed legislation that would make it a felony if the victim is under six years old.

The proposal comes as the state's Child Review Board reports nearly half of all unexpected infant deaths involve a caregiver with a history of substance abuse.

Supporters say the bill isn't just about punishable punishment, rather, but about deterrence and saving young lives before it's too late.

Susan Humphries, I'll give you a word on this as well.

It seems odd that this we even have to talk about this.

It should be a felony when you're when we're talking about children.

Right, Brett?

No matter whether six or whether they're 16.

Yeah.

And I think the question is endangerment.

What does it mean.

What are those definitions.

And so I'm familiar with the group that's brought this.

I've actually had them speak in several committees that I've been a part of.

And so I understand what they're saying.

And so right now, if it's just a lump, if you're under 18, it's certain, the sentencing guidelines are a certain way, but now they're dividing it up.

So if a child is six or under, then, then the penalties are harsher.

And there's also, accelerated penalties if there's things like drug involved, we're driving or, you know, you can do different things.

So, we'll see what happens.

I assume that might go through the committee that I'm the chairman of, which is the Judiciary Committee, which actually this session, I have quite a few people that want to accelerate.

They want to do harsher penalties for lots of different things.

And this is one of those.

So it still has to get through committee before it goes to the full floor.

Yes, exactly.

Okay.

That would be the House.

And then it would go over to the Senate.

Senate would have to have a committee hearing on it and make any changes or whatever.

Jeff Lubell quickly here with about a minute to go, I believe it's the same definition.

It's, you know, it's somebody under drugs or a child wasn't in a car seat or something.

You know, I think I think it's all about the definition, interpretation.

Yeah.

Just in short, I'm happy to see that they're looking at prevention as well as penalizing, for harsher, stiffer penalties.

I'd almost rather see them start with prevention and see how well they could see down the road before we start making it harsher.

But, you know, movement is always helpful.

Yeah.

Love to know what you mean by prevention too.

That'd be great.

They called me out in the, the reflector article.

Prevention measures that they were specifically citing.

They didn't say what they were in the article.

Okay, interesting.

Oh, about 40s left.

What's with the dates in January?

Session star.

Susan, tell me what's what's top.

Oh, it's going to be, I think a 30s accelerated session.

We're going to do 90 calendar days, not 90 workdays.

That stretch on into April and May should be done the end of March, except for a veto session.

Lots and lots going on.

There are advisors who help write.

The laws have been very busy.

I think the budget is always going to be the main thing.

That's our main job.

We're the appropriators of the fund.

So that's they're already working on that.

So it's going to be exciting.

That's a wrap for this week.

Thank you so much to all of our guests for joining us I'm Karen Cirillo.

We'll see you next week.