EDITORIAL: The Case to Be Made to the Citizens of Salina

By Tom Wilbur

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury:

You, the citizens of Salina, are the owners of this city. Your taxes, utility bills, fees and votes sustain city government. You elected the City Commission; the Commission hired the City Manager, who oversees city administration. In business terms, he is the CEO.

So the question is simple:

Have Salina’s leaders been good stewards of our money—and have they been open, accountable and straightforward about their decisions?

I am not asking whether they are good people. I am asking you to judge their performance.

Somebody must be accountable. I think they have been weak.

Exhibit One: Our Water

Do you drink Salina’s tap water?

If not, ask yourself why.

Residents have complained for years about taste, odor, appearance, and overall quality. Meeting regulatory standards should be the floor, not the goal. Salina should provide the best water possible to every household. Why have we accepted this as the standard?

We have spent substantial sums on water and wastewater infrastructure, yet portions of the system are aging, complaints continue and major investments are definitely required. Maybe a couple hundred million dollars worth.

Were citizens given an honest, timely picture of the system’s condition and the cost of delaying replacement over all these years?

Residents also deserve understandable information about treatment chemicals: what they do, why they are used, their concentrations and their potential effects on plumbing, appliances and health.

For roughly a quarter-century, the Utilities Department has operated under Martha Tasker’s ‘leadership’.. Longevity can be valuable, but citizens are entitled to examine the results. City Manager Jacob Wood has defended retaining the current Utilities leadership. He says no change will take place. Why?

What condition is the system in today? What maintenance was deferred? What problems developed? What will correction cost? What qualifications and performance standards should apply to the person responsible for one of the city’s most important departments?

Those are not personal attacks. They are management questions. These are life questions. Our water sucks.

Exhibit Two: Schilling Groundwater Contamination

Schilling closed in 1963, but contamination associated with its former operations did not disappear. Groundwater contamination has migrated underground, creating plumes that extend beyond the original source. The questions are straightforward:

Where does contamination remain? Where has it migrated? What concentrations exist? What remediation has occurred? How effective has it been? How long will cleanup take? Who is responsible for the cost? What risks remain?

This problem has existed for generations. At some point, Salina deserves to know when managing contamination becomes cleaning it up.

If tens of millions of dollars are available or committed for remediation, citizens deserve a clear accounting of where that money is, what restrictions apply, what work remains and when it will be completed.

How many more years are we supposed to wait?

For God’s sake, do something. Now.

Exhibit Three: River Renewal

River Renewal has grown from a river-improvement concept into an undertaking involving approximately 6.5 miles of the old Smoky Hill River channel.

Millions have already been committed to planning, engineering, design and related improvements. In 2010, voters rejected the proposal by roughly 65% to 35%. Yet today we are discussing a project whose ultimate cost could be a hundred million dollars or more.

Citizens deserve answers:

Who has been paid? How much has been spent? What is the realistic total cost? What will annual maintenance cost? How much will local taxpayers ultimately pay?

Most importantly:

When does a project become so different in scope and cost that citizens deserve another vote?

I believe that time is now. If City Hall believes the current project has broad public support, put it on the ballot. Let the owners of Salina decide. I know what the answer will be. Because I can actually read the room.

Exhibit Four: The Animal Shelter

If we are grading management, the animal-shelter situation deserves an F.

Citizens raised concerns for years about conditions and management. Many felt dismissed or ignored. The documented violations, investigations, personnel problems, operating costs and legal expenses demand one basic question: How did it get this far?

The City Manager oversees city departments, and the City Commission oversees the City Manager. When failures become systemic, accountability cannot stop with the lowest-ranking employee.

Leadership owns leadership. They should be fired.

If another organization could have provided humane services at lower costs with stronger accountability, why was that alternative not seriously explored sooner?

Questions have also been raised about how the final consultant report was handled and whether officials tried to influence its presentation. Those questions should be answered through the original documentation. Patrick Hoffman, our City Attorney, apparently tried to manipulate the final report, on behalf of our City Manager. That’s shameful.

If findings were altered, suppressed or misrepresented, there should be serious accountability. If not, the records should show that. Either way, citizens deserve the truth.

Exhibit Five: Cozy Inn Litigation

You do not have to take either side of the Cozy Inn dispute to ask whether the city’s handling of it represents good stewardship. This a point where the City Commissioners lost our trust.

How much has Salina spent on outside attorneys? How much staff and Commission time has been consumed? What is the city’s total exposure? What opportunities existed for resolution? What measurable benefit has taxpayers’ continued spending produced?

Add up the full cost of prolonged litigation and consider what that money could have funded: waterlines, streets, police, public services or tax relief. For many citizens, this is now about more than a lawsuit. Doug Rempp has tried to stop it several times.

Exhibit Six: The 2027 Budget

If the proposed 2027 budget shows a deficit of roughly $700,000 while property valuations rise, taxpayers deserve a clear explanation. Property values increase. The tax base already grows. Citizens pay sales taxes, utility bills and fees. Yet we are still discussing a deficit and higher property taxes. If population has declined, as it has, while city staffing has increased, that also deserves examination. Government cannot respond to every shortfall with more taxes, fees, bonds, debt, financing or consultants.

Before asking citizens for another dollar, City Hall should examine administrative overhead, outside legal expenses, discretionary spending, staffing levels, duplicative programs and projects unrelated to essential responsibilities.

Government must:

Prioritize. Spend within its means. Become more efficient. Reduce unnecessary overhead.

Clean water, safe streets, police and fire protection, sound infrastructure, sanitation, and essential services must come first. Fund the necessities before the extras.

Exhibit Seven: The Pattern

Step back and consider the pattern: Millions spent on consultants and outside legal expenses.Discretionary spending while essential infrastructure ages. Staffing and administrative growth despite long-term population trends down. Projects that begin at one cost and become far more expensive. Remember the log-jam? And persistent questions about transparency.

When citizens are told, “We’ll get back to you,” who ensures they receive an answer? When a project changes, who explains why? When consultants are paid millions, does anyone measure whether their recommendations worked? When money moves between funds or priorities, can ordinary taxpayers understand what happened? And when government makes a mistake, does leadership say:

We got this wrong. Here’s what happened. Here’s how we’re fixing it.

Or does it minimize, recharacterize, defend and deflect? And just lie to us?

Transparency means making government understandable to the people who pay for it.

The Verdict

A government can lose public confidence without committing a crime. It can lose that confidence through unanswered questions, cost overruns, closed-door decisions, deteriorating infrastructure, prolonged litigation and repeated excuses. So, I put this question before the jury—the people of Salina:

Have this City Commission and Salina’s senior leadership demonstrated the transparency, judgment, accountability and financial stewardship expected of those entrusted with hundreds of millions of dollars of public money?

If your answer is no:

How much longer are you willing to accept it? This is your city. This is your money. This is your government. And the final decisions belong to you. We do not have to accept deteriorating infrastructure while spending on wants instead of needs. We do not have to assume that every financial problem requires another tax, fee, consultant, bond or transfer. We can say no.

No more excuses. No more misplaced priorities. No more business as usual.

Let us return to the real work of local government: improving our community, protecting citizens, caring humanely for people and animals, investing in essential infrastructure, living within our means, and restoring public trust.

The evidence is before you. You are the jury. Now render your verdict. Make your voice heard.

See you Monday at the Salina City Commission meeting.

[Tom Wilbur is a contributor to and shareholder of Salina311].