On August 4^th, Kansans have a watershed moment to narrow their party’s field for governor. Issues within the campaigns are well documented like property taxes, school funding, job creation, affordability, Kansas values, data centers???, etc.

But with voters focused on issues or personality, understanding how candidates would govern may be even more important in the end. After all, governing is the job. Yet we hear so little about it in campaigns.

It’s been said, you campaign with poetry and govern with prose. If so, how do we get a better feel for a candidate’s prose while being romanticized with the so-called poetry of campaign ads, mailers, and dark-money attacks?

Framers of state constitutions called their chief executive “governor” as derived from an ancient Greek verb (govern) meaning “to steer” or “to pilot”. It was a curious deviation by Greek city-state democracies from the tyrannical archetypes of the day that imposed their will on subjects. Despots didn’t merely steer the state’s ship but controlled every facet of government through fear and violence.

Greek philosophers like Plato weren’t advocating for power-hungry despots or kings with self-indulgent appetites. Instead, they looked for tempered philosopher-kings who did not strive for power but could wisely navigate choppy political and economic waters to serve the collective good.

But in the modern administrative state of today, executing and enforcing the sheer amount of state and federal legislation required more than piloting. It requires strong co-piloting.

Good governance today is really shared governance; collaborating with federal, state, local, private, and non-government sectors. It forces decision-making into the light so we can better see the efficacy of tax dollars. With transparency comes the open flow of information, bigger tent participation, consensus building, minimized corruption, data-framed solutions, innovation, and accountability.

Today’s minted governor must be a mash-up of technocrat and bridgebuilder who steers for the collective good (outcomes > political power). While they can be, outcomes are not typically legislative-dependent. In Governor Kelly’s era, less sexy things like the Kansas Infrastructure Hub, award-wining unemployment insurance modernization, stripped-down budget listening tours, and inclusive planning for a water-secure future are good governance gems.

As for potential next governors, how well did their campaign websites give us clues of future good governance? My rankings and thumbnails follow:

Good Governance/Plato Tier

• Scott Schwab (GOP) – Most robust implementation plans (rural revitalization, property tax reform). Shares governance with private sector and rural communities. “Modernize, revitalize, fix” mentality.

• Vicki Schmidt (GOP) – Participatory approaches to sharing power, trusting experts, convening stakeholders, and listening. Transparent social media protection plan for kids engages overlooked constituency.

• Ethan Corson (Dem) – Only candidate to have a “transparency and accountability in state government” plank. Ding!

• Curt Skoog (Dem) – “Govern by building consensus”. Focused on results. Mayor mindset. Ding! Many ideas, not much “how”.

Governance Tier

• Cindy Holscher (Dem) – Independent re-districting panel is possible gem. Clear focus on overlooked constituency (vulnerable populations). Missing participatory approaches. Advocacy-based.

Ruler Tier

• Troy Masterson (GOP) – Minimal depth or breadth. Some use of data to support policies, no sources. Shades Kansas economy over last five years without acknowledging his Senate presidency since then; low accountability (maybe smart politics?). Shared governance with Trump.

• Philip Sarnecki (GOP) – All slogans. No transparency. “Business-style accountability” intriguing, but no elaboration.

It’s no surprise that Schwab, Schmidt, and Skoog landed in the top tier of governance. They all are cut from an executive cloth which is the best position to manifest good governance. As executives, they cannot pass laws and are forced to seek change from within as administrators or build bridges.

As Secretary of State, Schwab often cites his office’s role in creating efficiencies like replacing the 60-year paper review system. As Insurance Commissioner, Schmidt touts the taxpayer savings her office caused by working with the insurance industry. Skoog is clearly grounded in a local government mindset where hands-on governance is more likely to get tough things done with community consensus like zoning reforms to achieve more attainable housing.

After 6 years of legislating in the Kansas Senate, Corson seemed a surprise for the top tier until you realize he cut his teeth in the federal government’s International Trade Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Holscher’s second tier rating coincides with a longer career in advocacy politics as a Kansas legislator. Her resume lacks direct executive branch experience although it is framed with 12 years in mid-management at Sprint. She often cites her “Mom, you go fix it” moment of inspiration that fuels a more advocacy than governance mindset.

Last but not least, Masterson and Sarnecki’s inclusion in the “ruler tier” seems fitting. Masterson’s body of work is littered with notable power control moves like killing local governance, retribution against fellow lawmakers, and the courting of non-Kansas interests as past-president of ALEC and influencer of it’s flat tax cut. Not to mention his clear loyalty with President Trump – the poster child for autocratic rule – above the people he would govern.

Likewise, Sarnecki also touts Trumpian loyalty above everyday Kansans with a “winning” at all costs focus and slogan-heavy outsider business platform. It’s perfectly okay to have pro-business outcomes in a good governance model but the fallacy of running government like a business in a world where not everything of social value is profitable and not everything that is profitable has social value is…well…bad governance.

In the end, I did not know what I’d find before I started. However cursory my exam was, it is hopeful that we have a majority of candidates projecting Plato-worthy traits.

As we celebrate Father’s Day, we still face sobering evidence about how a lack of male role models can derail a child’s outcome. This is particularly acute for young males aka “future fathers”. The data is grim. Children in father-absent homes have greater risk for poverty, behavioral problems, physical abuse, drug/alcohol abuse, obesity, dropping out of school, and suicide.

For boys, it’s worse

Per Scott Galloway’s Notes on Being a Man, losing their male role model means they are more likely to be incarcerated than graduate school. A molested 15-year-old boy is ten times likelier to commit suicide than the same 15-year-old girl. School-aged boys tend to be emotionally and mentally weaker than female counterparts making them susceptible to hyper-masculinity posers in the manosphere that belie traditional masculine virtues like moderation, compassion, and restraint for misogynistic and loud ideations. Boys have also pulled back from college which carries huge societal implications as pointed out by Kansas professor, Mark Joslyn.

Today, three main data points underlie fatherless outcomes – cratering marriage rates (and birth rates by proxy), world-record single-parent household formations, and delayed adulthood markers.

Since 2020, the share of married couples are at their lowest levels ever across all demographic groups (except Asian men/women) hovering around 47% after cresting at 79% way back in 1949. That is a big reason why 1 in 4 U.S. children do not have a father at home; a staggering outlier tripling the world average of 7%. And if they do, one study shows boys only spend 30 minutes weekly in one-on-one conversations with their dad compared to 44 hours in front of a video monitor.

Likewise, full-on “adulting” for young adults (ages 25-34) is fleeting. According to a recent U.S. Census study, achieving all five milestones of adulthood – living independently, completing formal education, gainful employment, getting married, and living with a child – was the norm 20 years ago. Now the norm is only the first three economic milestones. On top of that, males had a negative association for achieving all five markers. In a nutshell, young adults are prioritizing economic security over starting a family.

The study also found homeownership costs and living in metro areas (to achieve economic security) reduced chances of family formation milestones. Basically, young adults have off-ramped to Coachella and Mykonos vacations in lieu of homebuying. To paraphrase the pragmatism of my 30-year-old daughter living in a major metro market, “it feels like housing prices are going up faster than I can save so what’s the point in saving? It’s a pipe dream. We joke we’ll be 50 before we own.”

If the assumption is that more traditional family formations will lead to less father-absent homes, then housing affordability is a great place to start. Unaffordable basics - housing, health care, groceries, gas, childcare - might be a more reliable prophylactic than Trojan. One would think connecting affordability and family formation dots will catch more fire in conservative strongholds like Kansas.

Other corrective policies have not shown much here or abroad. Tax breaks often overshoot the emerging adult. Pronatalism strikes a little dystopian. Mental health is important but lacks scale. Property tax reform targets matured households.

Another thought…

As a child of a fatherless (and grand-fatherless) home back when it was less fashionable, a big brother, stepfather, coaches, teachers, and neighborhood dads all had my back daily pointing me in the right direction to the life I lead today as a father, stepfather, husband, and worker.

To “father figures” everywhere, please heed the words of Emerson and pay it forward…

In 1983, a young well-coiffed David Copperfield conjured up a magic trick so bombastic and implausible in an analog world that 50 million viewers stayed home on a Friday night to watch the Statue of Liberty disappear before a live TV audience. It is still considered the world’s largest illusion by Guinness World Records.

Which really begs the question…why does something so clearly unreal captivate 50 million people (including me) into thinking it is real?

Copperfield lamented later in life that the word “trick” diminished the sophisticated planning and choreography behind the illusion. Good magic is hard work. Believing in magic is not. It requires little cognitive effort or bandwidth. Our “fast” thinking system uses heuristics, or mental short-cuts, to speed up conclusions. Information that comes to mind more easily, factual or not, is weighted more heavily.

But short-cuts lead to errors. That’s when our more effortful “slow” thinking system intervenes to correct these quick intuitions. The problem researchers like Daniel Kahneman found is though slower critical thinking can correct our “fast” thinking, it is also a pushover if what is right is not what we want to believe. In those cases, fast, or inaccurate, thinking wins.

So, when the giant curtain came down to reveal Lady Liberty was missing, the 20-person live audience did not immediately think their point of view simply had been altered by a rotating platform or obscured by curtain scaffolding. For those wanting to believe she can disappear, it most surely did. Belief in magic helped fill the void of their unknown.

Like Copperfield, skilled politicians are illusionists. And we are the live audience rotating on a platform seeing what they want us to see.

Two recent examples in Kansas come to mind.

Take the August ballot question to elect or not elect Supreme Court justices. “The citizens of Kansas who are qualified electors shall elect the justices of the supreme court.” On the face of it, a simple “yes” or “no” decision. The illusion is a benevolent Legislature gifting us extraordinary powers to select justices instead of the governor and a bunch of lawyers.

But what of the second line? “The rules applicable for such elections and the designation of position numbers shall be provided by law.” Translated… the Legislature, not you, will hold true power as de-facto selectors when they approve partisan district boundaries. Poof! With sleight of hand, the platform turns to obscure this point. They know you want to believe voting is the democratic thing to do. And if you hear enough noise about activist justices, true or not, you’ll weight more heavily with your “fast” vote.

Another example is one of Governor Kelly’s last vetoes in office - HB 2043 – an eleventh hour “property tax” bill passed by Republicans giving 10% of city/county voters the power to strike down local budgets where revenue exceeded the smaller of 3% or inflation. She called it a “false promise” since the concept guaranteed zero reduction in property taxes. The same for a constitutional amendment capping annual property value increases at 3% championed by the Senate.

Kelly was fair. They do not guarantee any relief. They are illusions.

And if you want property tax relief so badly and hear enough times local government is to blame, you might not see the Legislature’s irresponsible budgeting, the Senate president killing sales tax initiatives in six counties, or a real package guaranteeing property tax relief that preserves local control and public service quality.

In the end, the most powerful illusions aren’t the ones we fail to see in magic shows and politics —they’re the ones we choose to believe.

If you are traveling through Kansas this summer and wanted to show the kids something they’ll likely never see again, you might swing by Cawker City’s World’s Largest Ball of Twine or to Lucas for the Garden of Eden. Or maybe those giant sandstone spheres near Minneapolis (a personal favorite). All rare sights that make Kansas, Kansas.

Similarly, you could swing by the 24-duplex Flintwood senior living community in Russell. Or the 250-unit Union at Tower District apartments under construction in downtown Topeka. Or any of the other 74 affordable housing developments that will dot the Kansas landscape soon thanks to the state’s Kansas Affordable Housing Tax Credit (KAHTC) administered by the Kansas Housing Resource Corporation (KHRC).

Because unless something changes, they also will become as rare as mysterious sandstone outcroppings.

Most of us understand by now we are in a national housing crisis. One born from the 2008 recession and bursting housing bubble. New housing production miserably sagged over the years, building costs skyrocketed post-Covid, and incomes lagged to leave us unsheltered or overpaying for housing.

With the average first-time homebuyer now closer in age (40) to drawing retirement than graduating high school, the housing crisis finally touched a unifying nerve in Washington recently.

But while Congress, a model of legislative futility with a 16% approval rating, created enough momentum to pass the most significant housing bill in 35 years, Kansas legislators chose to tap out the last two years.

Nationally, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act includes a staggering array of tactics designed to incentivize attainable housing construction, spur local zoning reforms, and allow greater financing for a variety housing types. In the “year of affordability”, ROAD’s bipartisan landslide in the Senate (89-10) led by odd-couple champions Elizabeth Warren (D) and Tim Scott (R) still shock. The bill needs to endure some testy House negotiations, but even the most do-nothing Congress in our democratic history understands it’s time to lead on housing.

Meanwhile…crickets back in Topeka this session.

In a moment of enlightened purpose, the Kansas Legislature approved historic funding levels in 2022 to match existing federal credits, the KHATC program leveraged a staggering $1.5 billion of new private construction from 2023-2025 generating an unprecedented 6,463 affordable homes: a fourfold annual increase from 2022. As administered by KHRC, the program broadened the number of counties it touched from 9 to 27 including rural counties seeing their first appreciable housing construction in decades. Cities redeveloped critically blighted sites. Families re-gained their dignity. Local economies were infused. Simply put, it was the most productive affordable housing program in state history.

But on the last day of the 2025 legislative session, against the backdrop of a documented statewide housing crisis, cavalcade of pleading opponents, and an incomplete economic impact analysis, the same legislators reversed course citing $1B of foregone income tax revenue over 15 years to dramatically reduce and sunset KHATC by 2028.

No veto followed. Neither did any interest to revisit in 2026.

If the KAHTC experience taught us anything, it’s that housing is a team sport – private sector and all levels of government. It must be. Particularly for struggling communities. And that’s really the state’s role here…not just to increase housing where it’s already occurring, but where it’s not.

It’s also about choices. Just weeks before the reversal, the legislature approved a monumental income tax cut that in the words of Governor Kelly, could cost $1.3 billion annually.

Something had to give. Those at the bottom know the feeling.

By many measures, one could argue the Kelly-Toland years have been the biggest economic boon the state has ever seen.

Pick any measure…$30 billion of private sector investment (most per capita in nation), almost 80,000 new or retained jobs that pay 7.7% more than the average private sector wage in Kansas, highest ever Kansas exports, four consecutive Golden Shovel awards, a recent $3 billion budget surplus, or the coup de grace…securing the biggest economic win in state history luring the Chiefs from Missouri.

Just don’t pick population growth. At least on its face.

Last month, Census population estimates were released for 2025 showing Kansas, while achieving a modicum of growth since 2020 (1.3%), lagged all neighboring states (Missouri, Colorado, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Nebraska) who averaged 2.8%, or more than double the rate of Kansas. The US growth rate was 3.0%.

It’s hard to beat population growth as the gold standard metric for economic success in localities. It’s easy to see why when a community’s fortunes are tethered to it.

For example, in growing communities, if it costs each taxpayer $100 to provide “good” schools in their community, having more people (i.e., income) effectively allows the government to either lower everyone’s taxes to maintain the same level of service or keep spending levels at $100 for “better” schools. Either choice makes the community more competitive.

Conversely, communities with declining populations are death spirals. Fewer taxpayers paying $100 for “good” schools forces a decision point on local government – increase taxes to maintain “good” schools or keep them flat for “okay” schools. Either choice is a losing proposition and just induces more middle class wage-earners to vote with their feet leaving behind a cost of operation fewer people can afford in their wake.

So, while adding jobs and private sector investment are significant precursors to growing population, why is Kansas’ population gains underachieving?

It depends how one looks at it.

Of the seven biggest developments that opened under Kelly-Toland, four dot growing urbanizing counties between 2020-2024 – NBAF/Riley (0.8%), NBAF/Pottawatomie (6.0%), Panasonic/Johnson (3.7%), Integra/Sedgwick (2.3%), and Urban Outfitters/Wyandotte (0.1%). Wyandotte springboards to 2.2% since 2022. The remaining three developments dot shrinking rural to semi-rural counties - Hilmar Cheese/Ford (-0.6%), Schwan’s Pizza/Saline (-1.6%), and Amber Wave/Phillips (-5.0%). Localized population growth is happening, but when 75% of the 105 counties have not grown since 2020, statewide gains fight an uphill battle.

Another trend affecting state population is the nation’s own growth. Population math made simple: take births, minus deaths, factor arriving and departing migrants. This formula ensured US population growth was unstoppable over its 250-year history. And in turn helped states grow.

Until now.

By 2030, US deaths will likely outnumber births. Without natural growth, only net migration remains. And under current immigration policies, net international migration has plummeted so much that the US population could shrink for the first-time in its history next year. Kansas’s own international migration in 2024-25 cratered to 7,440 from the previous year’s 13,829 due to the chilling effect on new migrants rather than deportations.

In conclusion, the Kelly-Toland wins have shown some silver linings even in the face of these obstacles. Last year, Kansas domestic net migration increased by 4,000 people from the previous year, virtually all 39,000+ people added to Kansas since 2020 occurred since 2022, and many big STAR Bond projects focus on out-of-state visitors – a proxy for temporary population growth.

Good signs that the massive economic wins under Kelly-Toland stand to bear population fruit at some point.

I know we’re racing through 2026 already, but I still can’t shake this question…

Should old acquaintance be forgot?

It’s a New Years question etched in dichotomous reflection as we find ourselves thinking back and looking ahead at the same time. A conundrum summed up by When Harry Met Sally’s Harry Burns (aka Billy Crystal) “Does that mean we should forget old acquaintances? Or does it mean that if we happened to forget them, we should remember them, which is not possible because we already forgot ‘em?”

Got it?

As we reflect on Kansas political affairs circa 2025, these four notable “acquaintances” caught my eye as maybe something we should have forgotten.

· Property Tax Cuts (cough) – The Kansas Legislature leadership had made property tax cuts the first, second, and third priority of the 2025 session. By the end of the session, they had saved a $200,000 homeowner $35 in property taxes and passed the largest income tax cut since Brownback. Furthermore, any future budget savings are dedicated to lowering income taxes until it hits 4%. Gov. Laura Kelly proclaimed this switcheroo the “kiss of death for the Kansas budget”. Meanwhile, a November legislative post audit found substantial underfunding of counties for mandated state services like elections, law enforcement, and motor vehicle registration which Counties primarily funded with…you guessed it…property taxes.

· Gerrymander Fever – Was there a more undemocratic contagion threatening the sovereignty of states than the presidentially induced re-districting for partisan control of the U.S. House? Kansas statehouse legislative leaders – Ty Masterson and Dan Hawkins – caught the fever boldly proclaiming their desire to gerrymander Kansas’ only Democratic congressional representative (Sharice Davids) out of existence in a special session. The fever was broken by a handful of inoculated GOP House members only to be petulantly banished by Hawkins to the political equivalent of Siberia. But Masterson, a GOP candidate for governor, has vowed to rally a veto-proof supermajority in 2026. Gov. Kelly says its unpopular with Kansans.

· Town Hall Flex – The federal government wasn’t the only thing shut down in 2025. In March, videos surfaced of U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall ending his own town hall early in Oakley after calling the crowd “one of the rudest audiences I’ve ever had” and being pressed on health care for veterans in light of massive DOGE cuts. Sen. Marshall didn’t answer. He walked out. Town halls are not political rallies. It’s one of the few chances our elected officials in Washington get to face the people they serve. Listening is their job. Contrast this with Kelly’s People’s Budget listening tour which drew mockery from Speaker Hawkins. Marshall is up for re-election in 2026. Hawkins is running for Insurance Commissioner.

· Farm Blues – It’s been a rough 2025 for the Kansas farmer. First, DOGE put USAID and Food for Peace through the woodchipper, decimating wheat farmer exports without warning. Thanks to Sen. Moran, Food for Peace was re-appropriated $1.2 billion in 2026. Secondly, farmers became entangled in President Trump’s tariff/trade wars. China finally resumed soybean and sorghum commitments late this fall which is important to Kansas as the leading sorghum-producing state ($1.1 billion in exports). A $12 billion federal bridge payment for farmers softened these self-inflicted “market disruptions” but stands as a conspicuous indictment of federal ag policies and the first of more bailouts.

Let’s raise a cup of kindness to these “acquaintances” and in the words of Sally Albright (aka Meg Ryan), “…remember that we forgot them.” Or would like to.

Happy 2026!

In a world of cancelled flights, SNAP ping-pong, gerrymanders run amok, and “Dancing with the Stars” blackouts, it was refreshing to see an old friend – the town hall budget meeting – could not be shut down last week.

Billed as a statewide listening tour to guide her penultimate 2026 “People’s Budget”, I attended Kansas Governor Kelly’s fifth stop at the Leawood community center in Johnson County to hear some old-fashioned Q&A about budget priorities.

Intimately adorned with only microphones, chairs, and ideas for muses, the Governor and Budget Director/Secretary of Administration (Adam Proffitt) went full MTV Unplugged to hear from Kansans. It was as anachronistic as the cello, stools, acoustic guitars, and chandeliers were in Nirvana’s famous unplugged concert in 1993 during peak grunge velocity. Many questioned Nirvana at the time for going soft. Just like the Kansas Speaker of the House, Dan Hawkins, mocked Kelly and Proffitt’s tour as living out their inner Sonny and Cher (seriously? Sonny never went unplugged!!). Nirvana did just fine…it catapulted them to record sales in their final year.

But it was not stripped-down acoustic rock songs we heard in Leawood. Instead, the respectful yet serious crowd of 80+ (total number of people, not average age) heard a budgetary medley of old hits, new material, and deep cuts.

The set list included (sorry, no Nirvana :( )…

“She Works Hard for the Money” – Kelly is a notorious budget wonk. She admitted her obsession with the budget, forged through years as a legislator during the disastrous Brownback tax experiment. She considers it to be the most important thing she does. Her and Proffitt contrasted the “People’s Budget” tour with the part-time Legislature’s confusing, shortsighted, and rogue budget process last session which few in the public and front-facing agencies were invited.

“Mr. Brightside” – Due in part to Proffitt’s elimination of budget maneuvers (e.g., Bank of KDOT) and accounting tricks inherited from Brownback/Colyer years, the state’s rainy-day fund has gone from zero to $2B. Kelly and him contrasted paying cash for the state’s two new office buildings in downtown Topeka vs. the Legislature’s unnecessary bonding ($325 million) and 4% flat income tax path as ominous warnings of “dark days” nobody wants to go back to.

“Carry on Wayward Son” – While there was consternation about the welfare of children (childcare crisis, foster care, pre-K, etc.), Kelly hit a different note when asked about priorities to stem the state’s loss of younger adults. The focus on big economic development gains – like Panasonic in DeSoto and Hilmar Cheese in Dodge City – and attainable housing production must remain budget priorities to give young or boomerang Kansans a place to lay their weary heads.

“Be True to Your School” – Fully funding public schools for the last seven years is certainly a greatest hit she does not mind spinning again. But maybe some notes were off key. Both the federal government and Kansas Legislature have woefully underfunded their statutory obligations to cover a percentage of special education costs in our school districts. This forces schools to rob Peter – general students - to pay Paul – special ed students. The angriest public rant (if you can call it that) also made it known retired schoolteachers have not seen a COLA increase since 1998.

“Friends in Low Places” – For an encore, I asked Kelly about property tax solutions. Not a fan of caps and gimmicks, her main advice…sit down with local municipalities. They are the ones with the most to lose. Not the state. She pondered if state “unfunded mandates” on local government is a stone worth turning over. Given 100% of property taxes ultimately goes to local government to serve their people, legislators might want to slip on down to the Oasis to visit with friends.

Budgets, not laws, deliver services. Good budgets don’t have to be rock shows. Stripped down, you’ll hear pitch-perfect dynamics of people’s needs, values, and dreams.

In a time where seemingly nothing worked as it should, it took meeting people where they are to bring meaning back to how it should.

Poor Elbridge Gerry. He wasn’t even a fan of this.

Toeing his party’s line, he approved a newly drawn Boston district that was lampooned as a mythological menacing-winged dragon, or salamander.

While a salamander-shaped district helped his party hold onto the legislature, this Bill of Rights father lost his governor’s seat, and forever lent his name to unsavory contorted lines re-drawn for partisan political gain

Thus, gerry-mandered maps were born. Power, perils, and all.

213 years later, partisan gerrymandering is having another moment.

No less than nine Republican-led and Democrat-led states, including Kansas and Missouri, have enacted or are actively contemplating rare mid-census map changes to congressional districts ahead of next year’s elections; salamanders, pinwheels, Zorros, inkblots, and other odd shapes that only a Rorschach Test giver could love will determine control of the U.S. House.

While partisan politics is gratuitously on display in today’s efforts, what is less apparent is what line on a map best serves a representative democracy.

Creation of districts for the House of Representatives was fueled by a fear of tyranny under the constitution; a compromise in our federalist framework that ensured local voices could check the power of a new centralized federal government and president.

But it wasn’t just about the fear of a king’s tyranny or an elite few. Just as important was to prevent a tyranny of the majority. Minority rights in religion, political parties, property, press, commerce, ancestry, etc. had to withstand a majority’s trampling if the newfound freedoms were to mean anything.

To that end, lines on House maps reflected non-partisan coherent geographies of common interest that could elevate the influence of minority groups politically. They represented fisherman, farmers, coalminers, mountain regions, religions, racial/ethnic neighborhoods, and any sub-set of population brought together by geography.

Natural boundaries – city/county limits, rivers, major roads, rail, mountains, public universities, etc. – bonded those interests instead of political party. Within those geographies of common interests, political parties vied to become the voice of those interests through ideologies and lawmaking.

But we don’t live in that world anymore, do we?

Unless states say otherwise, splitting geographies of common interest for pure partisan gain is legal after Rucho v. Common Cause (2019). Most states, including Kansas, do not prohibit the practice.

AI mapmaking algorithms can spit out thousands of district options in the blink of an eye. Flipping 10%-20% (25% in Kansas) of a state’s congressional seats at the touch of a button is an intoxicating power unlike any other tool available that stacks the partisan deck.

In this world, parties have become the common interest; not people, natural resources, schools, local economies, drinking water, or air sheds. The political tail wagging the proverbial geographic dog. A shape that ironically comes to mind when looking at the gerrymandered Kansas congressional district 1 barking from Lawrence to Colorado.

Where does this end?

Left to current devices, it doesn’t. Johnson County beware. In Kansas, state voters are not in charge. Legislators are. Courts to a degree. Even the last protected domain under the Voting Rights Act – racial gerrymandering – has a target on its back in the U.S. Supreme Court this session (Louisiana v. Callais).

These are much more than just lines on a map to be partisanly contorted like some carnival side-show. They represent our communities that have brought us together for longer-term needs beyond the politics of the day.

What do we really want out of re-districting? Competitive races? Partisan fairness? Respect for common geographies? All three? Technology can map whatever weighted parameters “we” want.

But until voters in Kansas and other states send a message, “we” are all racing to the bottom mocking and lampooning the very foundations of a representative democracy.

Make no mistake. It’s coming. An invasive non-native species of podcasters, influencers, tech-bros, reality TV stars, and spurned college students aboard the disinformation train destroying a healthy democratic habitat faster than out of work loggers at a spotted owl convention.

While much focus is on the vanishing checks from Congress or Supreme Court on presidential powers under Trump 2.0, the most endangered check, or species, may be the professional bureaucrat. In the biggest reshaping of the federal workforce since the Gilded Age, coerced mass layoffs impacting 284,000 workers and presidential loyalty tests have burned wide swaths of their habitat.

To some that’s not a bad thing. Bureaucracy is typically a pejorative term. One that values processes over people and impersonalized service. Red tape. That’s fair. An old DMV comes to mind. But to others, vanishing professional bureaucrats is the proverbial canary in a coal mine.

Let’s take the curious tale of Kansas Department of Labor’s (KDOL) modernization project.

Since 2002, KDOL had been trying to modernize a Byzantine unemployment insurance IT system equivalent to Atari Pong technology. Governor Brownback officially pulled the plug in 2011 before it was complete. By the time Governor Kelly could re-start the project, Covid hit in 2020 with an avalanche of unemployment claims frying the archaic system. This perfect storm vastly delayed payments to angry laid off workers while fraudsters made off with $460 million in claims. Under a new Labor Secretary with a long career modernizing local government technology, the highly secure and customer-friendly $43 million system finally launched last November. Score one for the professional bureaucrat.

But we’re not done.

Six months later, what’s left of the U.S. Department of Labor’s (USDOL) bureaucratic expertise absurdly decided to claw back $1 million of a $1.7 million grant intended to safeguard the new system from fraud because “equity” was in the grant description. Never mind USDOL was a partner in the new IT system. Never mind hunting and killing waste, fraud, and abuse is a top priority and pretext for anything that the DOGE chainsaw touches (did we say the old system lost $460 million to fraud??). Never mind “equity” would make software useable on ALL Kansans’ devices and broadband-less rural Kansans. Now fraudsters have more equitable access than Kansans!

In a nutshell, this was a layup for USDOL administrators and they missed the bunny. Badly. Given the Trump administration’s priorities, at worst this should have been a pause on further grant spending until a review is complete that sifts through the details better. At best, this should have been a play-on no-foul situation IF neutral professional bureaucrats were allowed to do their job. Either people are in over their head or just not serious about public administrating. I know running government is a little different than running a podcast.

Downstream impacts to localities of exceedingly politicized and bonkers incompetency won’t stop there - birth rates tied to transportation funds, shutting down FEMA call centers amid horrific flooding, walking back diversity goals in the home of Brown v Board. It will be endless. As a long-time public administrator, I see these as microcosms of graver concerns echoing the age of spoils.

In the 1830s, newly elected President Andrew Jackson ushered in an era of politicized civil service under his “to the victors belong the spoils of the enemy” philosophy swapping out non-partisan workers for his partisan loyalists regardless of aptitude. A philosophy Mark Twain would bluntly scorch decades later…

“We will not hire a blacksmith who never lifted a sledge. We will not hire a teacher who does not know the alphabet…but when it comes to our civil service, we serenely fill great numbers of our minor public offices with ignoramuses.”

Thanks to Twain and rampant political corruption of the Gilded Age, Congress formalized a new era of merit-based hiring in 1883 under the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. It wasn’t long before a new discipline of public administration transformed government from the dark age of spoils to a professional bureaucracy of expertise that puts American people first using efficacy, efficiency, economy, and equity as guideposts. Less room for corruption. More reason for competence.

As I’ve experienced, the professional bureaucrat can be the only adult in the room “checking” the veracity, narcissism, and sheer incompetence of politically tinged decision-making.

Losing them is a harbinger for our democratic ecosystem. There are more “I’s” ruining a government than running a government.

who we are, what we’ll do, and what we won’t.

It’s gonna be a long walk home

hey, pretty darlin’, don’t wait up for me, gonna be a long walk home.”

- Long Walk Home (Bruce Springsteen’s prayer for his country)

Rain intensified enough for me to pull up my hoodie late one night walking through Everton Park back to my hotel looking out over the Liverpool skyline and Irish Sea. If one braves the elevation climb, it’s a surprising sight in a hardscrabble city not always known for its elegance. A contradiction of sorts. Just like rain. Somber and depressive. Or cleansing and intimate. Tonight, the latter helped me process contrasts on a cool summer evening like no other.

During a break from a European study abroad with a contingent of political science and public administration students, I had the good fortune to pilgrimage to Liverpool’s Anfield Stadium to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band on June 4. Yes, that Liverpool…hallowed grounds of The Beatles. In a land of majesty, American rock royalty had finally come to the home of England’s rock royalty.

The moment would not be lost on me.

These were peculiar times for The Boss. It’s been a hot minute since seeing my working-class hero 40 years ago on the Born in the U.S.A. tour in Oakland. Then, he was singularly rock n’ roll even as Ronald Reagan would patriotically appropriate the song for America’s “shining city on the hill” exceptionalism instead of the indictment of America’s foreign and domestic policies that it was. Back then, Bruce just let his music do the talking…

“Got in a little hometown jam

So they put a rifle in my hand

Sent me off to a foreign land

To go and kill the yellow man.”

He answered the bell differently when a mourning nation called following 9/11 with The Rising. A collection of poetic imagery to honor the “smoky graves” of first responders, co-workers, families, and our innocence while evangelizing in the power of faith to rise up as seen in my clip of “My City of Ruins”.

Tonight is even more different. Like an obstinate 75-year-old icon with two shits not given, The Boss was compelled to do more than play. He had made a wee bit of a tempest kicking off his European tour in gritty Manchester a few weeks earlier calling Trump "unfit for office". The transatlantic jousting led to him being maligned as “unpatriotic” by Mr. Trump and was told to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT (all-caps are not mine). Superficially, Trump slandered his prune-like skin, talent, and IQ in a separate post.

As I arrive at Anfield, Springsteen opens not from his discography but with a civics soliloquy.

With that, he launched into 27 sing-alongs that every Brit around me bellowed with heart, fists, hands, fingers, arms, and souls. We never sat. The chaps around me from Wales, Southampton, and Birmingham were frequent flyers of Bruce concerts. I connected most with the lads from Birmingham – a faded steel city home to Black Sabbath. We talked about Ozzy, America, Trump, Bruce, and garbage piling up in their bankrupt city streets. They were no different than anywhere else I went in England…it was clear that what happens in the States matters to them particularly as political winds blow from across the pond.

It was ironic watching aged Brits from Labour Party strongholds in the north pour their hearts into songs of working life inequities while Labour – UKs current ruling party and party of workers - bend to the growing populist chorus of struggling industrial towns by distancing themselves from unions, taking on immigrants, and cutting social aid. I sensed similar contradictions in one of my Birmingham buddies (or Brummers) whose city (second biggest in UK) is crawling out of bankruptcy to make good on a nearly $2.4 billion unequal backpay settlement to female workers that is ravaging public services and stiffing striking rubbish workers.

It’s a populist echo that we Americans should recognize by now. One that appeals to a growing base of angry non-degreed white males (among others) that swept a second Trump administration back into office on economic pretenses with socially conservative motives. One of my Brummers asked incredulously – “Trump is not wrong, is he?”. And then goes back to singing and dancing like it’s 1985.

To drive parallels of our countries home even further, Labour Cabinet Minister Lisa Nandy, who represents the nearby constituency of Wigan – a once mighty coal mining town that birthed my grandmother - warned that political tensions were reaching a breaking point. “People have watched their town centers falling apart, their life has got harder over the last decade and a half … I don’t remember a time when people worked this hard and had so little to show for it.”

Sound familiar?

So, on a rainy Liverpool evening, here comes a desperately needed Boss (curiously, the common handle Europeans use when I mention him) in open dissent of an authoritarian-style regime elevated to power by those sweating it out “on the streets of a runaway American dream” for whom he so eloquently fought for throughout a career of musical social commentary. The defiant rock contours he curated and romanticized had come home to roost. The price is democracy. He pointedly warned the Brits when conditions in a country are ripe for a demagogue, you can bet one will show up.

“The door’s open but the ride ain’t free”

– Thunder Road

The whole night was surreal. An out-of-body spectacle. The patron-sainted troubadour of the disenfranchised holding a mirror up to our collective selves. Still anti-establishment. But more importantly, still perpetually faithful.

As the lights came up for their encore, a sneaky emotional overload hit.

“Born down in a dead man’s town, the first kick I took was when I hit the ground. You end up like a dog that’s been beat too much till you spend have your life just covering up.”

– Born in the U.S.A.

Woah.

Much like his Vietnam veteran protagonist in Born in the U.S.A., I was also born in a dead man’s town. A hollowed-out rusted steel town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania that’s lost an incredible three-quarters of its population since a peak of 67,000 in 1930. So symbolic, it found its way into the lyrics of early 1980s Springsteen songs – The River and Highway Patrolman. These songs portray young lives staring down the barrel of a disillusioned post-industrial life with very few answers waiting on the other end. Some get a lifeline. Some don’t. I was lucky. So many selfless people to thank for a life I did not have to have. How can it still be that your zip code is a social determinant of your life’s outcome? Born in the U.S.A., a geographical rhyme of immense love wrapped in the prose of immense protest, is the sort of cognitive dissonance that overwhelmed my weak little binary emotions after a long-charged night.

The music ended. With tears still in my eyes, I traded hugs with my Brummer brothers. We thanked each other for sharing a night together we won’t share again.

As I continued home, now what? Demonizing people was never the schtick that built a mountainous fan base for The Boss. Nor for democracy. How about truth? Our world is infinitely more connected to information than ever yet infinitely more dis-informed.

“It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap, we gotta get out while we’re young.”

– Born to Run

It’s a thread I’m replaying in the misty walk home. Truth. Without it, we have drifted far off course. Springsteen’s reverence comes from his truth binding us together with honest storybook tales. Those bonds we all felt that night stem from his 1,000% conviction to include us in hard metaphorical truths that propel us like cannonballs shot from the center of our souls.

Whether we’re saints or sinners boarding a train to the land of hope and dreams…or being called to bring on our wrecking balls, to take our best shot, and see what we got…these are human truths that my Brummer friend and I found in common that night however uncommon. Just like the harmonica-playing little girl Bruce gave his harmonica to during Promise Land.

As I exited the stadium, a fitting reminder stared down at me…

A reminder that music critic James Fenney summed up best with his review of Springsteen’s Manchester concert:

Ultimately, the night was soon juxtaposed with nationalized troops and Waymo’s burning in Los Angeles as protest symbols of AI taking hacks at the working and middle class. It continued last week with the biggest constitutional expansion of executive powers ever by the Supreme Court. Presidential powers to bully non-conformists into submission - students, law firms, federal judges, scientists, media, and bureaucrats. Who's next?

This week likely ends with 12 million mostly working Americans losing their healthcare coverage, 3 million losing food assistance, 18 million kids losing school meals, and $3-4 trillion added to the national debt.

To quote my Wales chap, “You don’t have a king. You have a dictator.”

As rain clouds hang o’er me, will love and duty call us someplace higher?

It’s gonna be a long walk home.

It all seemed so easy back in January.

Delivering property tax relief and reform for Kansan homeowners was atop every Kansas legislator’s list as if Moses himself was delivering them on stone tablets from Mount Sinai.

An expanded Republican supermajority riding high off November’s victory party rhetoric blustered that property taxes were job #1, #2, and #3. Senate President Ty Masterson chiseled it to the very top of his GOP tablets daring Governor Kelly’s acquiescence. And when three property tax bills passed out of committee within the first few weeks of the session, it appeared the mountain was moving to Moses just as promised.

Three months later, Moses came back down with broken tablets and a t-shirt, “I went to the mountain top and all I got were these crummy 1.5 mills.”

So, what in the holy land happened?

When I wrote Handicapping the Property Tax Derby three months ago, it correctly predicted “Building Biscuit” - one of the three entrants at the time - would win the derby on the basis it was probably the easiest thing to do with the least amount of collateral damage to schools and fiscal health even if it’s real impact was disproportionate to a legislator’s pontification index. For vulnerable homeowners statewide, I would have liked nothing more than to be proven wrong. But my cautionary prognosis - “this horse has the best legs for a stretch run but little return for wagers.” - was hopeful a dark horse would emerge with more juice down the stretch. Try as they might, “Building Biscuit” fended all of them off to stand alone, flaccidly, in the victory circle.

So, I say again for all Kansans…what in the holy land happened??

· Lawmakers grossly oversold their agency. It shouldn’t be a big secret by now that the State can only be so transformative with property taxes. They impotently controlled a miniscule one percent (1.5 mills) portion of your property tax bill for state and university building maintenance. In the end, it was the only unilateral thing they could play with and correctly eliminated it to their credit. The fact it only saves $35 on a $200,000 house is a kick in the shins to retired and fixed-income homeowners. Other bills like HB 2011 and the Dems SB 217 targeted the other portion of your bill under State auspices - 20 mills for local schools – but the juice was not worth the squeeze.

· Dueling chambers – For some reason, the Senate revived the same 3% cap on property value increases the House rejected last year. House leaders rejected it again calling the constitutional amendment gimmicky given it doesn’t force cities to cut any property tax. Instead, the House deftly proposed an innovative $60 million fund to incentivize local governments to lower property taxes (HB 2396/ASTRA fund). One stick. One carrot. One philosophical logjam.

· The well is running dry – As time wore on, enough lawmakers realized they were either not willing, or unable, to cash checks they’d have to write for property tax relief. This session came on the heels of a massive signature $1.3 billion tax cut in 2024 including twice as much property tax relief. Don’t forget, for every dollar of property tax relief they had to backfill with an equal dollar of income/sales tax revenue so schools and public building maintenance didn’t’ suffer. With the specter of state coffers going red by 2028, the well is drying up like an Ogallala aquifer.

· The flat tax “okey doke”. With everyone spellbound on property taxes, Republican leaders pulled a classic Rajon Rondo “okey doke” ball fake very late in the session by slipping past a Kelly veto block to deliver a phased-in 4% flat income tax. Talk about deep fakes. Kelly proclaimed it the “kiss of death for the Kansas budget” as it sucked the well even drier for property tax relief and unmasked conservative’s true colors that placed regressive income tax cuts over property tax promises made to everyday Kansans. It ties the hands of future legislatures to respond not only to property tax relief, but to any number of shifting priorities and economic realities for years to come.

In the end, there was no Promise Land for property tax relief. But maybe that’s the lesson. The State will not part the Red Sea meddling with mill rates. Not now. Those debates, as I have stated before, are best in city halls, county courthouses, and school board rooms.

The real issue, and the State’s real power, lies in property assessment reform which they control through Kansas statutes and the county appraisal system.

That’s a talk they certainly could walk.

Unlike classical Greece (or even Missouri!), it’s not often the people of Kansas get to hold a “referendum” on state legislation. In fact, they can’t. At least not on their own.

Under the state’s constitution, we operate a representative democracy electing legislators to make decisions on our behalf and ultimately hold them accountable every 2-4 years. This indirect democracy can be viewed as a paternalistic relationship between electeds and electorate. A reassuring pat on the head from politicians that lawmaking is their province, and they will call us when needed.

So anytime our legislature agrees to offer us a chance at direct power on one issue, we should stand up and take note.

And anytime our legislature agrees to offer us a chance at direct power in perpetuity, we should stand up, take note, and run with our hair on fire to polls before they change their minds.

Which is why we should really take notice of what the conservative-controlled legislature did last week when the required two-thirds majority passed SCR 1611, a proposed constitutional amendment asking voters on August 4, 2026, if we should elect (not just retain) our seven Supreme Court justices. Not only do we get invited to dinner, but it’s a permanent invite and we get to buy the groceries!

That is not to say electing the Supreme Court is totally advisable.

On its face, SCR 1611 is a de-facto “referendum” on the current merit-based selection process controlled by bar-appointed lawyers and governor-appointed citizens. Passed by 70% of the electorate in 1958 after Gov. Fred Hall’s infamous triple-play scandal, the system was enacted to keep Supreme Court selections free of corruption, moneyed interests, and political bosses.

But if you use your sunflower-colored glasses and squint through the Oz dust of debate, you might also see a glimmer of hope for something else…direct democracy!

Today, 26 states provide for some form of direct, or pure, democracy that bypass legislatures with citizen-initiated ballot measures for new laws (initiatives) and/or vetoes (referendums) through collection of signatures (petitions). Laws without lawmakers.

Sadly, Kansas does not; Gov. Joan Finney was the last to earnestly push the issue in the early 1990s. Technically, SCR 1611 is not direct democracy either, but it’s close. It has no citizen-initiated lawmaking. But citizens gain a direct line to pick justices who enforce the biggest law (Kansas constitution) and the weightiest legal question of our time (women’s right to an abortion).

So why stop there?

The Kansas Constitution already allows citizen-initiated ballot measures for cities, counties, and school districts.

All adjoining states - Colorado, Nebraska, Missouri, and Oklahoma - allow it; and all but five states west of the Mississippi. 64% of states with part-time "citizen" legislatures, like Kansas, allow it.

Most of all, big issues supported by a majority of Kansans but ignored by legislative leadership - Medicaid expansion (72%), recreational marijuana (65%), a women’s right to choose (65%), assault weapon bans (55%) – could be put to a vote of the people once and for all.

Even Senate President, Ty Masterson (R-Andover), and expected 2026 gubernatorial candidate who led the charge for SCR 1611 believes “it’s time to give the people the opportunity to assume that power and tear down firewalls and shine the light of democracy we all claim to support.”

I couldn’t agree more. If legislative leaders are truly ingenuous about tearing down judiciary firewalls for the people, their own firewalls should be next.

Sound the trumpet fanfare…the race is about to begin!!

Fresh off citizen vitriol for rising property taxes during their 2024 campaigns, a fortified Republican super-majority Kansas Legislature have loaded their prized horses into the starting gate for this year’s Property Tax Derby.

Kansas GOP leaders eye this as the final jewel in the coveted Tax Cut Triple Crown – sales, income, and property. In previous sessions, they successfully bet on both Governor Kelly’s food tax horse (Axe The Tax) and their income tax horse (Trickle Down) sired from the Brownback stud farm.

Elected jockeys have three levers at their disposal to determine the pace of property taxes in the derby. The State totally controls the first lever (assessments) and oversees county appraisals for the second lever (property values) which are really at the mercy of market forces. The most powerful lever (mill levy) is nearly all in the grip of local government.

Property taxes fund 60%-100% of local government budgets, but less than 1% of our state government. Property tax revenue is the lifeblood for local services such as schools, police, roads, parks, transit, libraries, etc. with some even hemorrhaging. Conversely, they mean virtually nothing to the State budget.

With that in mind, let’s handicap three GOP entrants while Democrats snooze in the barn.

· “Cap The Tax” (SCR 1603) – Senate Taxation Farms first entry is a Constitutional Amendment capping taxable property values at 3% annually thus artificially controlling property value – not the free market. This well-intentioned concept has all sorts of unintended consequences. Said cap is lifted for home sales and improvements causing vastly different taxable values on the same block while discouraging mobility and investment for an even tighter housing market. Local budgets get squeezed by inflation over 3% but still could effectively make themselves whole by pulling their prodigious mill levy lever. Ultimately, voters must approve if it gets that far. Given the House killed a 4% cap last year, this horse may get stuck on the rail again.

· “Building Biscuit” (SB 35) - Senate Taxation Farms’ second entry would repeal the State’s paltry 1.5 mill levy that goes towards deferred maintenance of state buildings. This is the most local government-friendly entry because it does not jeopardize local revenue. Building maintenance would shift to the State’s general fund made up of income and sales tax. Without a dedicated mill levy, universities are rightfully nervous their proverbial can could be kicked down the road. Homeowners would save a whopping $35 annually on a $200K house. This horse has the best legs for a stretch run but little return for wagers.

· “School Levy Sugar” (HB 2011) – The entry from House Taxation Stables has a similar profile to Building Biscuit. Instead of building maintenance, 1.5 mills are wiped from the State’s 20 mills for local schools. Relief for homeowners is even more paltry ($22 on $200K house). Ostensibly, local schools would be made whole through the State’s sales and income taxes. But it puts their can on the line to be kicked instead of universities. Without Supreme Court oversight for a current school funding case, this horse is drifting a little wide at the turn.

If these don’t excite everybody, look for late entries like last year’s prized thoroughbred – exempting residential value from the State’s 20 mill school levy, expanding the homestead exemption, OR the ultimate horse trade – Medicaid expansion.

To paraphrase the State’s highest-paid employee (Bill Self), don’t worry about the mules, keep loading the wagon and don’t crash local services.

On the morning of his federal trial this week for raping and terrorizing vulnerable Black women in the Kansas City, Kansas neighborhoods he patrolled for 35 years, ex-cop Roger Golubski fatally shot himself. His story, much like last year’s Marion police newsroom raid, is another national black eye for law enforcement in Kansas abusing the public’s trust.

In 1829, Sir Robert Peel coined the phrase “policing by consent” with nine principles for democratic policing while establishing London’s first police force. In a nutshell, we consent to the idea of trusting some members of the community to exercise powers required to keep the peace on behalf of the community. In return, we willingly pledge our cooperation. Police do not serve the state like an occupying army. They serve the people.

This philosophy is foundational in most American police academies. At its core are accountability, transparency, and social ties. When these break, we break.

Years of racial disparities for wrongful convictions, incarcerations, excessive force, and lethal shootingsculminated in the fateful spring of 2020 when George Floyd became a tragic household name. Anti-police riots spawned a “back the blue” counter movement.

People on both sides did not consent to what they were seeing.

As a result, many bipartisan reforms took place from DC to statehouses and city halls to regain the consent of the public – bans on neck restraints and no-knock warrants, body-cam proliferation, de-escalation training, critical response teams with mental health professionals, civilian oversight boards, and ramped-up community policing.

None of these have necessarily proven to be blanket panaceas. Amidst local success stories, fatal police shootings have risen along with police killings. Better data on police incidents are shared but lack enough standardization to drive dependable policymaking.

Meanwhile, another proven reform – women in policing – careens into politically charged climates because of DEI implications and questioning women in combat.

Part of the debate revolves around the national 30X30 Initiative. Formed prior to 2020, it has risen awareness on the benefits of women in policing with a goal of increasing their representation of recruits from 20% to 30% by 2030. It also wants to ensure police policies and culture intentionally support the success of women officers throughout their careers. The 30×30 Initiative is based on the importance of achieving at least 30% representation to empower a group to influence an organization’s culture. Wichita, Overland Park, and Salina have joined over 200 localities in taking this pledge. However, Topeka’s incoming police chief recently endorsed 30X30 amidst GOP pushback on quotas for women.

Given policing’s staffing crisis, local leaders would be remiss not to make a bigger play for half of the state’s population. After 2020, Wichita was 14% below authorized full-strength, Topeka 13%, and Overland Park 11%. Also, research shows women police are less apt to use excessive force, perceived as more honest and compassionate, named in fewer complaints/lawsuits and hold strong communication skills - an advantage for a job considered 90 percent social work today.

Nationally, 14% of sworn officers are female. Kansas is only 12% with use of force incidents climbing. Two jurisdictions with falling use of force incidents include Junction City and Leavenworth. Curiously, they have two of the highest female officer rates at 27% after hitting single digits in 2003. By contrast, the Kansas Highway Patrol added just three female officers since 2003 and currently sit at 6%.

Moving towards a 30% female recruit goal aligns with a representative bureaucracy ideal where credibility, fairness, trust, and performance are heightened as civil servant composition reflects the population composition they serve.

Will our consent be more about climbing 5-foot walls or breaking glass walls?

For the police are us. And we are the police.

At over 230 deaths, Helene is now America’s deadliest hurricane since Katrina ripped a hole in the Superdome in 2005. For inland areas supposedly immune from catastrophic storm surges, mountainous “climate havens” like Asheville, North Carolina were startled to bear the brunt of apocalyptic-like flooding.

On its heels, Hurricane Milton is expected to cause far more damage as it rams into Florida’s denser population centers. 

Sadly, federal assistance is being politicized and threatened less than 30 days from a national election shrouding a longer-term policy issue for those caught in the middle.

Climate migration.

As weather disasters continue to intensify, 50 million Americans will leave risky areas (abandonment areas) for less risky areas (climate havens) in the coming decades. 30% of Americans cited climate change as a motivator to move in 2024.

With Kansas facing a demographic vice due to historically low birth rates and low retention of younger Kansans, being on the wrong side of the climate migration equation will exacerbate fiscal health and quality of life concerns for many communities. The last time climate, public policy, and despair collided here, 2.5 million people migrated from the Dust Bowl.

So, it might be worth asking just how well positioned is Kansas, or your community, for this great climate re-shuffle?

For starters, we couldn’t be any more inland if we tried. A geographical refuge from rising seas, hurricane torrents, and wildfires; a free space on your climate haven bingo card.

What about those Kansas winds? Few places are better positioned for renewable energy being the nation’s third largest share of wind-generated electricity. Even Tornado Alley is shifting. Tornado frequency and wickedness have found a new home in the Mississippi and Tennessee River valleys drawn like a magnet to the warming Gulf’s moist air. Ironically, southwest drought conditions help by sending dryer air over Kansas.

On the flip side, droughts currently cover almost half of Kansas (46.4%) due to heat and water shortages. Farm crop yields are projected to decline across the state in coming decades. Unlike some Great Lakes’ climate havens next to the world’s largest freshwater supply, farming practices and climatic changes have transformed our great underground lake (Ogallala Aquifer) into a trickle thus nudging western Kansas closer to climate abandonment.

Nothing makes people move more than flooding. Since 2000, 3.2 million people have left climate abandonment areas due to high flood risk with another 7.5 million projected by 2053.

However, flooding repercussions are acutely local. Research shows when 5-10% of properties in neighborhoods become flood risks, people start to move. This tipping point leads to climate abandonment. This same research shows one-third of Sedgwick County may classify as abandonment areas by 2053, one of the nation’s largest increases.

The bottom line is state/ local governments have the ability and responsibility to help their citizenry adapt to climate change, avoid out-migration, and advance social equity.

It’s not too late.

Last year, Kansas lawmakers finally stopped kicking the can by enforcing conservation measures and approving unprecedented funding as another Dust Bowl looms.

And even as some counties drag their feet, practices such as stormwater bio-retention areas, woodlands restoration, renewable energy ordinances (wind and solar), incentivizing infill development, adopting resilient building codes, expanded tree canopies, floodplain buy-out programs, etc. are already deployed in many parts of Kansas.

Because as they already know, there’s really no such thing as a climate haven.

Citius, Altius, Fortius.

The original Olympic motto – translated to Faster, Higher, Stronger. – was never in more splendid display as the past few weeks in Paris. If the Olympic spirit was a religion, the athletes were its evangelists.

Time after time, we were moved by sheer will or talent. A strangely inspired connection to people we didn’t know yesterday but who we scream at to go faster, higher, or stronger today.

Maybe because Olympic ideals represent the best of our democratic ideals. Regardless of circumstances one is born into, or obscurity toiled in, the liberties and rights we share when fused with self-determination and love of something allows anyone to catch their dreams in a bottle. Sport or otherwise. Podium or not. A Jeffersonian meritocracy.

Which made me ponder another representation of democracy. What if Kansas politics and government were in the Olympics? For aren’t they us too? Shouldn’t we be shrieking at our TV screens for them to go faster, higher, stronger? What would that look like?

·      The Governor’s “Pommel-Horse Guys” - One of Team USA’s biggest cult heroes is the paragon of pommel-horse, Stephen Nedoroscik. The bespectacled Clark Kent of gymnasts who removes his glasses to compete helped end the men’s team medal drought by specializing in one event. A hired gun so good he can literally feel his way through a routine. Conversely, a nearsighted part-time legislative branch may step outside their Team Kansas lane this fall to create their own proposed statewide budget which is an event traditionally (and statutorily) reserved for the professionally trained full-time “pommel-horse guys” in the Governor’s executive branch.

·      “Ollie and Big Air” Legislators – In 2024, Kansas only saw two of its 165 legislators celebrate birthdays with Gen Z vintage; a disconnect of young voices in lawmaking when 20-29 years is 14% of the state’s population and only 1% of the Legislature. But that number could double in November. Both Angel Roeser R-Manhattan and Alexis Simmons D-Topeka entertain very competitive chances to win their House seats and be synonymous with the youngest podium at the Olympics: women’s skateboarding (14-16 years). How about some Vans under the dome?

·      “Uncontested” is still the G.O.A.T. – Team USA saw their share of expected iconic dominance from swimming’s Katie Ledecky to gymnastics’ Simone Biles. But none can wear the G.O.A.T. necklace quite like “Uncontested”. This month, 80% of the Board of Education, 69% of both House and Senate, and 50% of Congressional races had NO opponents! Likewise, 37% of November's Legislative races are unopposed. As we painfully know when “Uncontested” enters a race, it's lights out 100% of the time for opponents. And change.

·      Comeback Kids – Nobody loves an epic comeback like America. And darned if we didn’t get two. USA’s Cole Hocker’s 1,500m and Kansas City’s Quincy Hall’s 400m? No. Independence’s Derek Schmidt and Baldwin City’s Nancy Boyda in the 2^nd Congressional District. Democrat Boyda, seeking a return to the seat she held 15 years ago vs Schmidt, the former Republican Governor nominee, will need to dig deeper than a possessed Hocker or Hall for her storybook ending in this gerrymandered district.

A few years ago, the Olympics added “together” to the end of their motto. For you only move faster, or climb higher, or become stronger, in solidarity. Like an Olympic  North Korean and South Korean selfie, will Kansas politics come together to show their best?

Born in the depths of Covid-induced boredom with unbridled enthusiasm, my quest to rewatch and rank all 169 original Seinfeld episodes finally crossed the finish line this summer.

You might even say I became master of my domain.

Sure, there are plenty of “best of” attempts to chronicle Seinfeld episodes, seasons, characters, etc. to appease my fan-man appetite. Their analysis just never quite fit my reality. More urban sombrero than chocolate babka.

Giddy-up!

The Seinfeld Funny Meter

The task was exceedingly self-indulgent: devise a rating system based primarily on my laughs, sit back, sequentially watch all nine seasons of the world’s greatest sitcom, and rank them accordingly.

Fluent in Sein-language since its 1990 inaugural season, my relationship with Seinfeld had waned on the back-nine of life’s work. Yes, you could even say there was shrinkage. There were outdated premises, ebbing tastes, Kramer’s racist rants, and many cultural sea changes - #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, MAGA, LGTBQ, etc. – to color my lens. Had my perspective shifted so much that I couldn’t find humor in the irrational fears, obsessive thoughts, compulsive behavior, stereotyping, and things about humanity we are ashamed to acknowledge but which Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer magically played out for us in the pre-Blackberry 90s?

This summer’s New York Times bestselling soul-searching and repentant memoir of a tortured Michael Richards (aka Cosmo Kramer) only further warped conclusions in my mind of what Seinfeld was or what it had become to me.

Would Seinfeld, in the pantheon of American sitcoms, become a rusted signpost forever moored to a cringing past like Three’s Company or The Cosby Show? For if it did, the “nipple” on my soul could be exposed for all to see like Kramer’s errant Christmas card photo shoot of Elaine (“The Pick” S4/E12).

Only a rudimentary and unpatented Seinfeld Funny Meter, below, stood between me and answers to these questions.

As you can see, rating tiers are by half-number increments with 5.0 as the ceiling (12% of all episodes) and 1.5 as the floor. Yes, this presumes a modicum of laughing always existed. Heck, only 13% of shows sank into the “No Soup For You” or lower categories. 3.5 is considered average laughing, and only two seasons fell below that line (Seasons 4 and 9). All others, even maligned Season 1, cleared that bar, as shown below:

Season averages may come as a surprise to some, but it’s important to note that this system took into account every episode—ga-ga’s and snoozers—and is based primarily on laugh ratios.

Another small surprise…the average of all episodes (3.71) was shockingly just north of the average. Folks, this is not an average comedy.

Was I not ga-ga anymore?

(Note: If you want to see which episodes achieved “That’s Gold, Jerry! Gold!” status, my list is at the end along with favorite scenes)

The biggest aberration may be Season 4. Many point to it as one of the greatest of all seasons, sandwiched in the middle of a three-year run that cemented their place in American pop culture.

But in this system, Season 4 tanked. Its strong classics (“Did you double-dip your chip?”, Jerry getting caught in a mistaken nose-pick, Calvin Klein stealing Kramer’s beach perfume idea, “We’re not gay!...Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”) and a clever true-to-life story arc pitching a sitcom about “nothing” to NBC suits were undermined by a ton of “No Soup For You” misses as well. Let us forget “The Handicap Spot “where we hated more than just The Drake and the Los Angeles Smog Strangler trip in “The Pilot,” which only strangled my laughs.

But the most telling reveal of the Seinfeld Funny Meter came in Season 3. Just as they were coming out of their infancy, masterpiece after masterpiece propelled it past all other seasons. Eight episodes reached the pinnacle 5.0 rating almost tripling any other season.

Why?

A New Zeitgeist

As an early adopter, the characters and their setting were more authentic to me in the early seasons. That was Seinfeld. Insecure. Simple. Physical. Unvarnished theories on the world (Kramer revenge-loading a bag of cement in a laundromat washer). Relatable real-life experiences (Elaine sleeping on Jerry’s parent’s back-breaking sofa bed without air conditioning). Looking for your place in the world (George's "You know, we’re living in a society!” after losing his turn at a Chinese restaurant pay phone).

Reflecting back, the early seasons also coincided with my release into the real-world which provided perfect coming-of-age fodder for a fledgling urban planner. In those days, young people did not exactly flock to big city centers like they would in the following decade. Seinfeld’s 1990-93 was the first real window of urban America that Hollywood TV dramatized…well…nothing. Hill Street Blues it was not.

Many of us suburban dwellers were very familiar with nothing. Except now that nothingness existed at a garage-less mid-rise apartment hub on 129 W. 81^st. In a deli with soup. In wooded Central Park with joggers. All within walking distance, a cab ride, or transit to amenities like bookstores, coffee shops, bakeries, bars, eateries, laundromats, and movie theaters (even a Kenny Rogers’ Roasters would foreshadow real-world gentrification issues to come). All with your best friends and an eclectic array of side characters. I see you Maestro, Jackie Chiles, and Uncle Leo.

In short, I wanted that life. More, I needed that life to be who I wanted to be. And Seinfeld was the cheat code.

By the fall of 1992, Season 3 hit the air just after I arrived in Washington, DC’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood to pursue a graduate degree in urban planning. DC is where I first witnessed an underground resurgence of college graduates and gay neighbors from all over the country setting up beachheads in dicey quadrants of the district, several years before Friends in 1995 and Sex in the City in 1998 would do for millennials what Seinfeld did for Gen X: romanticize big city living. It all would serve as a precursor to 2000–2010 being the first decade in generations where more college graduates moved to downtowns than the suburbs.

“I think I want to be a city planner”

As I re-watched the magic of Season 3, no episodes were as influentially funny to my city planner local government persona as these three below; unprecedented breakthroughs that spoke to me then and even louder now for their foresight.

• The Parking Garage (S3/E6): This episode is most memorable for being filmed entirely in one setting and mostly in real-time—a suburban mall parking garage on a Saturday afternoon—repeating a groundbreaking technique used in their risky but critically acclaimed “The Chinese Restaurant” (S2/E11).

The first thing you notice in this episode is the haggard and sour disposition of Jerry in a New Jersey mall on a Saturday afternoon helping Kramer find “the world’s cheapest air conditioner.” In 1992, malls still stirred the nation’s collective blood on weekends. Not this group. The humor lies in the gang selling a little of their Upper West Side soul to be interlopers trapped in an auto-dependent world of suburban convenience, cheap consumerism, penny loafers, and physiques, ultimately wasting precious weekend hours.

The biggest crux of the story—they can’t find their car because “everything looks the same. We’re like rats in some experiment!”—is a direct censure of suburban monoculture. Uses not mixed. Pedestrians blunted. Sprawled parking. Windowless conforming buildings. It’s as if Jane Jacobs wrote the script. If the storyline is not metaphorical enough, Elaine’s fish perishing in a plastic bag of water while she, Jerry, George, and Kramer perish as fish out of water is the chef’s kiss.

In the end, the real joke was that this episode’s theatrical repudiation of the modern mall, which had been emasculating downtowns like theirs for generations, foreshadowed a real decline in malls and the palpable resurgence of downtowns just a decade later. 2007 marked the first year since the 1950s that a mall had not been built in America. Other reports predict only 150 will be left by 2032, compared to a high of 2,500 in the 1980s.

Now that’s funny.   

• The Alternate Side (S3/E11): All of the storylines here revolve around a nuanced parking regulation utilized in many big-city neighborhoods where on-street parking is a premium. The alternate side refers to alternating which side of the street you can park on so a municipality can street sweep at a given time of the week. This not only prevents the damming of stormwater flows by road debris and promotes aesthetically pleasing streets, but it is also a best practice to improve water quality in streams and rivers by reducing pollutant run-off. A common good in a dense setting.

Comparatively, the episode does not troll on suburban life like “The Parking Garage.” Instead, it picks this unremarkable underground practice of running cities I came across in DC and reacquainted with while visiting my daughters in Chicago.

My experience in local government also confirmed that parking is a close second to potholes for making people lose their shit. And nowhere is this more comedically dramatized than the unhinging of jobless George trying to fill in for the old guy who moves cars to the alternate side, but which cascades into shutting down a Woody Allen movie production, crashing Jerry’s rental car, and delaying emergency vehicles for Elaine’s chummy 66-year-old stroke victim. It’s these organic workarounds of innovation by real people, not planners or government officials, that make cities function and urban dwellers such an adaptable species. Respect it. Because when it breaks down…chaos, disorder, and madness.

These pretzels are making me thirsty!

• The Subway (S3/E13): A variation to the single-set breakthroughs of “The Chinese Restaurant” and “The Parking Garage,” this episode tells the same-day story of each of the four cast members from the standpoint of their related subway experiences. After my experiences on DC’s Metro, I would come to appreciate this episode more than any in the series.

Each cast member has their own reason for taking the subway that day—Elaine’s lesbian wedding, jobless George’s job interview, Jerry’s trip to the impound lot, and Kramer’s parking ticket restitution. Yet, all will be deviated (or deviant) in some manner. Give the writers credit—they nailed the oddities and idiosyncrasies riding light-rail. These are not caricatures. From Kramer’s opening slapstick choreograph for a seat, fighting over the left-over newspaper scraps, the busker performing for tips, Jerry falling asleep on strangers, George getting stuck in the doors, and Elaine’s profanity-laced inner monologue of a claustrophobic meltdown, there are fantastic nods to all who ride big city public transit. Sans the urine smell.

Public transit is a giant piece of smart growth infrastructure that makes a city run efficiently, reduces car dependence, enhances the walkability of neighborhoods, incentivizes compact development, induces better air quality, and equitably enables people of all incomes to live and work in a city. That’s a planner’s perspective.

Seinfeld’s perspective is funnier. It’s real.

This wouldn’t be the last time the show uses public transit as its muse. One of the greatest Kramer scenes of all-time is from aboard a transit bus as only he can re-tell in “The Fire” (S5/E19).

While Season 3 was a coming of age for me, the ultimate affirmation of inter-relatedness between my inspired path and Seinfeld came in Season 8 with these words:

Get out!!

The epiphany of a 2.0 GPA-fueled Steven Koren for a potential scholarship in “The Van Buren Boys” (S8/E14) vaulted city planners into the forefront of what was arguably the zeitgeist of 1990s America. All at the lampooned expense of our professional cousins, those “art school dropouts” known as architects—the exalted alter-ego of George since  “The Stakeout” (S1/E2).

Finding the Spaceship

By the end of Seinfeld’s run in Season 9, a formulaic groove had set in, an era not necessarily known for greatness or risk-taking. Not unlike our own lives, the characters bathed in more cynicism, bad behavior turned mean-spiritedness, and not giving a shit as they ironically matured. The storylines and their convergence grew more contrived. Character growth, particularly for George and Elaine, unpleasantly retreated, along with my laughs. “The Nap” (S8/E18), where George undertakes a remodel underneath his Yankee’s office desk for midday naps, is a good example of a less relatable quirky predicament that leaves me smiling but not remarking and howling around the water cooler.

Overall, this trip down memory lane was mostly low-stakes fun and games, a 20-minute reunion every day. But unlike Elaine searching for humor in an ambiguous New Yorker cartoon or Mr. Pitt's search for a spaceship in 3D art, deeper meaning was less elusive.

I still laughed and laughed harder than ever. But it wasn’t the easy laughter of a loyal groupthink follower along for a familiar ride with my bros; this felt more purposeful, more personal, more appreciative of humor that transcended time as the wheat separated from the chaff. There is value in revisiting the past—if only through the prism of a sitcom—not just for the sake of nostalgia or comfort, but as a way of processing where we came from and where we’re going.

In the beginning, I would have been very happy to conclude I hadn’t changed. That I laughed just the same. But by the end, I would have been very disappointed to learn I hadn’t. Or not realize the significance of a life’s inflection point.

We all possess certain biases in our lives, and therefore in our humor, amplified by changing vantage points. The things we see. The things we want to see. Like a living Rorschach test. We all see something different. We see ourselves.

Apologies to those who say Seinfeld is about nothing.

Decades later, the show is outrageously, egregiously, and preposterously about something.

“That’s Gold, Jerry! Gold!” Episodes

Season 2

11.  The Chinese Restaurant (“Cartwright??)

Season 3

1.  The Note (“I think it moved.”)

3.   The Pen (“Stella!!”)

6.   The Parking Garage (“There’s too much urinary freedom in this society.”)

11.  The Alternate Side (the rental car reservation)

13.  The Subway (“C’mon move this ?$%@# thing!”)

16.  The Fix Up (“Is there a pinkish hue?”)

17.  The Boyfriend Part 1 and 2 (“That is one magic loogie.”)

18.  The Limo (“Astroturf? You know who’s responsible for that don’t ya? The Jews.”)

Season 4

 10.  The Contest (“I’m out!”)

12.  The Pick (“If we pick, do we not bleed?”)

16.  The Outing (“We’re not gay…not that there’s anything wrong with that.”)

Season 5

2.  The Puffy Shirt (“But I don’t wanna be a pirate.”)

14.  The Marine Biologist (“The sea was angry that day, my friends”)

20.  The Hamptons (“It shrinks?”)

Season 6

11. The Switch (George’s plan)

Season 7

3. The Maestro (“Who told you to put the balm on?”)

6. The Soup Nazi (“No Soup For You!”)

Season 8

8.  The Chicken Roaster (“BAD CHICKEN!! MESS YOU UP!!)

Season 9

13.  The Cartoon (“The pig says, “My wife is a slut?”)

Top 10 Funniest Scenes (by decibel level)

1.        “And you wanna be my latex salesman?” (The Boyfriend, Part II S3/17)

2.        “What is that, a Titleist?” (The Marine Biologist, S5/E14) Jerry’s reveal in 2024

3.        Elaine’s inner subway monologue (The Subway, S3/E13)

4.        Kramer bar scene w/ the sniffing accountant (The Sniffing Accountant, S5/E4)

5.        "I’m not an orgy guy" (The Switch, S6/E11)

6.        Kramer is driving the bus (The Fire, S5/E19)

7.        "The jerk store called..." (The Comeback, S8/E13)

8.        Jackie Chiles compilation (The Maestro, S7/E3)

9.        “We’re not gay…not that there’s anything wrong with that.” (The Outing, S4/E16)

10 TIE.  “You want the truth?? (The Truth, S3/E2) and “Cartwright” (The Chinese Restaurant, S2/E11)

Last semester, I asked my sustainable city planning class to close their eyes and visualize the typologies of 5 cradle-to-grave residences: birth residence, high school residence, current residence, parent’s residence, and oldest family member’s residence.

About 80% visualized two or more of the four basic residential typologies – single-family detached, single-family attached, small multi-family (<20 units), and large multi-family (20+ units).

Yet, local zoning laws are almost exclusively tilted towards only one type - single-family detached. It is not uncommon to find 80-100% of residential zoning dedicated to the most expensive and land-consumptive typology.

Unsuspectingly, my students demonstrated two profound points: equitable housing choices are a basic need in life and ignoring zoning reform will be done at the peril of your community’s prosperity.

Yes, “upzoning” just might be the coolest thing out there right now.

I mean cool like Fonzie cool. (keep reading)

It's an interesting twist from 25-30 years ago when the opposite, or “down-zoning”, was cool. Here in Topeka, and many other older cities with redlining legacies, a down-zoning reckoning ball demolished decades of uncool up-zoning. Upzoned neighborhoods were sort of the last vestige of de jure segregationist practices - intentional government actions that determined where people lived based on their DNA.

Zoning residential areas for race was ruled unconstitutional in 1917 by Buchanan v. Warley only to be outflanked until the 1950s by racially-based private deed restrictions in subdivisions all across the country like Duncan McDuffie’s Claremont in Berkeley, California, JC Nichols’ Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri, or William Levitt’s Levittown in Long Island, New York. It was not until the Shelley v. Kraemer ruling in 1948 that enforcement of race-based deed restrictions was found to violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Chances are, if you own property in a pre-1950 subdivision, words describing “who” can reside there still live on in your deed’s covenants.

When enforcement of restrictive covenants proved too costly and unmanageable by developers and homeowner associations trying to protect their subdivisions of largely white homeowners from people of color, incompatible ethnicities, and intensive land uses, they turned to their local government for zoning.

Zoning was a perfect mechanism to enact such practices because it is a geospatial hammer carrying the force of law. Most importantly, it can be adjudicated cheaper by local government instead of developers and homeowner associations on their own.

So while local governments were quick to sidle up to real estate interests and embrace exclusive “R” single-family zoning districts in new subdivisions that barred housing typologies associated with lower incomes and people of color (e.g., duplexes, townhomes, apartments), they equally became complicit in adopting more inclusive zoning districts in existing integrated neighborhoods even though most of them were predominantly single-family.

For example, Topeka’s earliest “M” multi-family zoning districts were entirely concentrated in areas rated “C - Definitely Declining” or “D - Hazardous” by the federal Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) redline maps. In turn, HOLC yellow/C and red/D areas were categorically denied access to home mortgages by banks starving them of capital and property value appreciation.

The Old Town Neighborhood of Topeka is a good example. Back in 2003, you can see the blocks I’ve circled in red still contained mostly single-family in the first map even after being upzoned to multi-family districts (“M”) for decades as shown in the second map which itself reflects the 1930s HOLC “Definitely Declining (C)” rating in the third map. In this regard, local zoning maps became proxies for HOLC maps and turned areas into self-fulfilling prophecies of homeowner abandonment.

By the time I arrived in 1997, decades of what I describe above had calcified upon thousands of properties within Topeka’s most impoverished and working-class core neighborhoods. Residents regularly stared too much into an abyss of lost population, tax base, and influence and decided it was enough. They voted in a wave of new leaders led by Mayor Joan Wagnon to do something about it. Their first order of business, and by extension mine, was downzoning.

While I found Topeka's core neighborhoods to be much more integrated and not nearly as far gone as similar Washington DC and Richmond, Virginia neighborhoods where I had previously worked, zoning inequity was still inequity. From 1997 to 2004, we downzone or re-zoned over 6,000 properties based on neighborhood land use plans I helped get approved by those neighborhoods and City Council. Topeka finally put all city homeowners on equal zoning footing for the first time in its history. An honorable cause that contributed to the stabilization of hundreds of blocks and today’s improved neighborhood health scores. It is a legacy I am very proud to be a part of.

20 years later, Topeka’s downzoning should be undone.

Or as Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli might say, “SIT ON IT!”

Long before young adults were waiting longer to marry and having fewer children, older adults 65 and over were about to outnumber children under 18, and single-person households kept rising, The Fonz was normalizing unconventional housing choices.

You see, the iconic leather-jacketed uber-cool greaser of television’s most successful sitcom of my 1970s childhood, Happy Days, lived in an apartment above the Cunningham family’s garage on the same property as their single-family house. Lending to his coolness, it was illegal. But it offset Mr. and Mrs. C’s mortgage costs and gave suburbia a housing choice for working-class mechanics it didn’t have otherwise. Little did we know that not only was the property theatrically posing as a quintessential early suburb of 1950’s Milwaukee but as a bellwether of today’s zoning reform front lines.

In today’s zoning parlance, Fonzie’s apartment was an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU. Other familiar names include carriage house, garlow, granny flat, mother-in-law unit, etc. By any name, it’s a smaller second housing unit subordinate to the larger primary residence.

From all accounts, Fonzie’s 500-600 square foot studio ADU was deftly hidden within the neighborhood’s character. Nary a complaint was heard from neighbors for 10 seasons. Nor from Mr. and Mrs. C who used his rent to help supplement their budget during hard times at the family hardware store and save for Ritchie and Joanie’s college tuition.

Did we say it was illegal?

70 years later it is an idea that is largely still illegal in most of America. California, Oregon, Washington, Connecticut, and Maine led state-enabling acts for ADUs. Some cities like Minneapolis and Alexandria, Virginia have done away with single-family zoning altogether in the face of NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) lawsuits. That is why state legislation is so important to provide political cover when most local governing bodies crumble under NIMBY proselytizing.

How about an ADU for your elderly mother or father to age in place with you?

Illegal.

Your children transitioning into adulthood?

Illegal.

A renter to defray mortgage costs or supplement your income?

Illegal.

Not cool Mr. C!

Unless you’re in Prairie Village, Kansas where ADUs are about as welcome as ants to a picnic.

However, Topeka is the latest of a few Kansas municipalities to go down the zoning reform path with ADUs where 88% of their residential zoning is exclusive to single-family only. As they mull a proposal to open 100% of their residential zoning to ADUs under certain conditions, its significance should not be understated; if only 5% of the newly opened areas contained ADUs, around 2,500 units would be created or 30% of their 20-year multi-family demand. A leap beyond the current 1% pace of the last two years. Other benefits – aging in place, multigenerational living, and passive income for homeowners – are no less significant.

Nor should the benefits be overstated. It’s a start. A very important and commendable start. Its potential for moving the housing supply needle locally will take a hit by requiring owner-occupancy for one of the units and more on-site parking. But performance criteria baked into the ordinance will keep approvals in the hands of professional planning staff who will ensure ADU designs are context-sensitive for the neighborhood so as not to get too bogged down or politicized.

But make no mistake, the camel’s nose would be in the tent. Supply - or should I say the type of supply - is the single biggest reason there is an affordability crisis. Reforms to zoning codes and comprehensive plan policies to reduce development costs and increase attainable housing supply should be complimented by:

• allowing more “missing middle” typologies like duplexes, townhomes, and small apartments

• increasing densities and eschewing off-street parking in proximity to transit routes (i.e., transit-oriented development)

• expanding mixed-use areas

• axing on-site parking mandates (maximums only)

• relaxing minimum lot sizes, setbacks, and density caps

• continuing to incentivize ADU construction

These are all political “will” things that don’t require a budget amendment. They vastly increase the number of lots for new housing, accelerate the housing supply, open the pool of developers for small businesses or mom-and-pop, prosper a community’s bottom line, and become a relief valve for homeless pressures.

Exacta-mundo!

So, is a new upzoning reckoning ball coming for single-family zoning?

Or will cities and states continue to chase the illusion of growth with overblown parking requirements and large lot single-family development that are comparable to Ponzi schemes saddling future generations with maintenance and replacement costs they can’t afford without…you guessed it…more single-family and parking-heavy developments?

In Topeka, the demographic tea leaves get harder and harder to ignore the need for a greater diversity of housing choices as demonstrated in the Planning Commission presentation last month. These trends reflect national trends where “natural growth” - births over deaths - is becoming a thing of the past. Immigration will be the difference between population growth and decline nationally, just as in-migration will foretell a city’s prosperity.

Responsibly providing housing choices for the retention/attraction of younger cohorts, fewer families with children, smaller households, and a decidedly older population without building more infrastructure to maintain will be imperative to a community’s attractiveness and bottom line.

Wouldn’t it be cool if openness to naturally occurring affordable housing is closer in reach with the stroke of a pen and some new map colors than a tax dollar?

The Fonz? Or the Ponz?

Heeey!

Recently as I drove my Silent Generation father-in-law on an out-of-town trip along I-70, he made a peculiar observation. “I never noticed this before but there’s plastic bags everywhere. My gosh. It looks terrible!”

Peculiar because he’s typically not a passenger seat guy. Peculiar because he’s the last person I expect to hear pseudo-environmentally conscious commentary from. But knowing he’s a person who takes seriously where his local tax dollars go and his community’s appearance, combined with a newfound passenger seat status, I took heed of a lesson in local self-determination enshrined in the Kansas Constitution otherwise known as “home rule.”

Put simply: his right to solve a local problem locally.

This session, the Kansas Legislature attempted another end run on home rule with House Bill 2446: a wide-ranging, but straightforward, one-page bill designed to prohibit cities and counties from regulating “auxiliary containers” — plastic straws, bags, cups, packages, bottles, etc. for the transportation, consumption, or protection of food, beverage, or merchandise.

Two weeks ago, Kansas Governor Laura Kelly vetoed the “plastic bag” bill, stunningly without a single reference to preserving the environment, spoiling waterways, toxicity of microplastics in our bloodstream, emitting greenhouse gases, or the Great Pacific garbage patch that’s grown bigger than Kansas itself.

Instead, she reserved her 45-word veto to extoll the virtues of local control and accountability enshrined in the 1961 home rule amendment to the Kansas Constitution where “powers and authority granted cities pursuant to this section shall be liberally construed for the purpose of giving cities the largest amount of self-government.”

Cities no longer had to gain approval from the state for their laws. Local government was given power to reflect their citizens’ needs and values free from state interference.​

The logic of home rule presupposes a municipality is unique — what makes sense for Dodge City may not make sense for Manhattan — and will ultimately act in its own best interest lest people vote with their feet or for new representation.

The challenge of home rule is abiding by it.

Effective March 1, the City of Lawrence is determining their best interest as they implement a ban on single-use plastic bags, the first of its kind in the state. They affirmed their desire to think globally and act locally about the 29–36 million discarded plastic bags proliferating annually in the nooks and crannies of their city.

Conversely, passage of HB 2446 would have nullified their residents’ wishes and the wishes of any other city’s residents to self-govern.

Slopes are slippery. If the Legislature begins to assert their voice for local issues in one city, it becomes easier the next day to assert their voice on a local issue important to your city. Previous or current slippage into local control includes smoking in public places, age of tobacco purchasers, political sign regulations, zoning to increase housing supply, solar roof panels, homeless camping, and controlling pet populations.

Maybe some of this is dawning on legislators. For being the only Great Plains state not banning plastic bag bans, the bill had a surprisingly comfortable veto-override proof margin in the House (72-51) and Senate (24-16)

Maybe they’re realizing a statewide ban eliminates enough discarded bags annually in Kansas to circle the earth six times.

Or that it’s harder to escape the irony of condemning federal intrusion into state affairs when you do the same to local affairs.

Long before the Chiefs were cementing their dynasty this month and Ted Lasso was bringing Kansan-infused witticisms to the TV-streaming world, the State of Kansas was unknowingly laying groundwork for another transformational event with a foot and a ball: FIFA’s World Cup soccer tournament in 2026.

In 1998, hosting “the largest event in human history” was unimaginable – until the Kansas Legislature and Salina-born Governor Bill Graves created the STAR bond program for big economic development and tourism projects. Sales tax generated in STAR bond districts pays off government bonds used to build the project. The key was to attract visitor-driven sales and income tax – a huge tenant of economic development’s best practices.

The Kansas Speedway and Legends Mall in Wyandotte County – the first STAR bond district – became the state’s number one tourist destination, a cash cow for what was one of the poorest counties in the state, and homebase to Major Leagues Soccer’s Sporting KC, Kansas’ first and only professional sports franchise. This was the impetus behind Kansas and the KC metro area out-kicking other big-time metropolises to be one of 16 North American host cities for the World Cup. The stint spans six games, including a prestigious quarter final match elongating visitor stays.

But to invoke a Coach Lasso-ism, the $30ish million ask of Kansas taxpayers from KC-based organizers KC2026 made some “more nervous than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”

KC2026’s ask represents about 19 percent of their budget for transportation, security, and marketing operations. A Senate committee recently recommended $28 million for these items on top of $10 million approved last year for a Sporting KC stadium upgrade to support base camp for one of the 48 participating countries.

With all games being played at Arrowhead, Missouri-based businesses and governments stand to reap most of World Cup’s benefits, which is why the State of Missouri has been asked to more than double Kansas’ investment.

Will it be worth it for Kansas – especially for localities outside of the KC Metro? It’s a fair question.

Supporters say it’s a chance for Kansas to put its best foot forward on an unthinkable scale, given the event draws 9-10 times the viewership of the Super Bowl. For sheer eyeball magnitude, nothing comes close.

It’s a chance to build upon Kansas’ rising global footprint and goodwill; we export $14 billion of Kansas-based goods such as aircraft parts, beef, wheat, and soy, and eight of our top 10 trade partners – Mexico, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Australia, Brazil, and the U.K. – are virtual World Cup locks, bringing dignitaries and throngs of loyal fans representing 64% of global buyers for Kansas-products.

Also, a projected $163 million return for Kansas exceeds the typical 80 percent return on investment for public incentives.

Together, the World Cup should be viewed as another global and local export. Just like chilled beef and airplane engines, or a $4 billion Panasonic battery plant in DeSoto and $1.9 billion computer chip plant in Burlington. They all import outside dollars that would not be here otherwise, converting into income and sales taxes for reinvestment throughout the state while lessening the tax burden on all Kansans.

That’s the thing about economic development. It’s not a zero-sum game. It’s cumulative. One thing leading to another bigger thing. Just as nobody in 1998 could have imagined this, we should #believe the same beyond 2026.