Do a majority of Pratt residents really oppose extending Maple Street from Parkway Drive to K-61 as Karen Detwiler and her supporters claim, or is the former city commissioner merely the apparent head of a small but vocal group of ceaseless dissenters?
Do Prattans overwhelmingly favor the $900,000 street extension as Mayor Jeff Taylor says, or is the majority of the Commission supported only by the banks, builders, suppliers and realtors who stand to gain from the extension and the residential development that might follow?
Definitive answers to both questions will probably have to wait for the first Tuesday in April when voters will have a chance to pick two commissioners and possibly vote on the Maple Street project itself. The real answer might even be that the community is pretty evenly divided on the issue and the motivations of the major players.
In the meantime, the core group of dissenters seems determined to keep public attention focused on the Maple Street project — mainly through commenting on the Tribune’s web site and regular appearances before the City Commission during its Open Agenda period.
The group kept up its pattern of protest, comment and questioning at Monday’s Commission meeting. And while some of those who rose to speak during the Open Agenda seemed earnest in their efforts to sway the Commission, Detwiler herself resorted to a disingenuous question: what is City Manager Dave Howard’s salary?
What’s disingenuous about that? Detwiler already knew the answer — or at least how to get the answer without standing up at a public meeting to ask it. She knew the answer because she’s asked it before at other Commission meetings. The salaries and benefits of almost all government employees are a matter of public record and are on file for anyone to see during regular business hours at City Hall. Detwiler knows all that.
So why does a former city commissioner repeatedly ask a question to which she knows the answer? Because she wants the answer reported repeatedly in the media without having to say, “I want the media to report that Dave Howard’s annual salary is $112,000.” That just sounds self-serving if you’re an opponent of the Maple Street project, a former city commissioner and a potential candidate for the April election.
At the meeting, Howard obliged Detwiler again as he has before, saying he didn’t mind anyone knowing that he’s paid $112,000 a year.
That’s a lot of money.
But the way both parties approached the question and its answer is more important than the answer itself. Detwiler chose pretense; Howard chose openness. That’s something to remember in April if Detwiler’s name is on the ballot.
If the Maple Street project is on the ballot, voters should remember that a community’s growth can never outpace its infrastructure.
Pratt, Kan. —
