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What I believe is common sense, I'm learning is not that common. The public has been left out of so many conversations on community issues, and as a publicly elected official, I want to change this. I want to invite my community in a new space, where you can listen in behind the scenes to the discussions that lead to the decisions that are impacting our lives. In a podcast I named Common Sense, I'm inviting the whole world to see these conversations happening in real time! Subscribe to listen in on these conversations!
What I believe is common sense. I'm learning it's not that common.
Running a political campaign is a grueling process. You walk
mile after mile knocking doors. You have events, candidate
forums and social media comments from those that like
you and those that don't like you. Joseph Shepard just finished
his campaign process and the sacrifice and hard work paid off in
his favor as he will soon be seated to serve a four year term on
the Wichita City Council. Joseph joined me for a sit down to talk about
his campaign, what he learned from listening to people and what he hopes
to accomplish in his time in elected office. We also
talked about broader issues concerning our community and how he is walking into
office during an incredibly pivotal time for the city of
Wichita. We covered a lot. I hope you enjoy my conversation.
Wichita City Councilman Elect Joseph Shepard.
Joseph Shepard man, thank you for coming in here bud. I appreciate it. I know this
is an ultra busy time for you, just the planning, the
prep for what you have coming and then the holiday season. So I
just really appreciate you making time to come in and chat, hang out. So I
want to tell you a story. So 2022, I decide I'm going to run for
office and have an election and a campaign
which we'll talk about your campaign and all that went on in your campaign, how
busy that was. But all throughout this campaign I
kept trying to get a hold of Councilmember Brandon Johnson
for obvious reasons. Part of his district,
a good portion of his district is inside of my district. Right. A lot
of things I wanted to work on with him. He was supporting my opponent, Commissioner
Cruz, as were you. And I told him and emails and
text. I said it's cool man, like you have a relationship, you trust her. I'm
good, I just, if I win we have to work together. So I
just want to chat. And finally he's like just come over the office. Yeah, we
had a great about an hour and a half conversation and I told him, I
said listen man, if I win you will be my first phone call because I
need you to know I'm serious about wanting to work with you. You and that
night in November election was called, said a few things to the crowd
that was there, walked out on the patio of the place we were hosting my
watch party and called Councilmember Johnson. Right on. The first person I called,
he he was on vacation with his family in Hawaii but,
but he texted me and said hey congrats, let's get together next couple weeks.
And he and I have, although we play on different political
teams, he and I have had a really,
really good working relationship, particularly at 29th and Grove and the water
contamination issues there. I have really enjoyed working with Councilmember
Johnson. So I say that to say that you're taking his
place. I am. And I hope that you and I have the same type of
working relationship that Brandon and I have had. I think it's important for the
shared constituencies in the community at large, so. Absolutely. I sure hope
we can work together in the same capacity. We will. We will. And I remember
that journey. And I remember meeting with you in the coffee shop. Remember that? Yeah.
And saying, you know what? I'm supporting your opponent, but I remember
the commitment you made of, regardless of the outcome, I want to
serve the community. I want to work with you. And I tell people all the
time, you won me over when you were elected, and you
won me over. Not necessarily because you vote the way that I would vote all
the time, but there's a level of genuineness and sincerity and
showing up and listening and engaging, and I wish we had more public servants.
Like, that means a lot to me. Because, you know, and I
think you know this because you've been around the political scene for a while, but
on local government in particular, you have two different tensions.
You have the tension of running the organization, and local government is about
services. We provide services to people. So you have the organizational
leadership, and for the county and for the city, that's 3,000 employees a
piece. You know, big. There's a lot going on. Public safety,
public works. I mean, there's just a lot. Utilities, public health,
all of it. Yeah. So you have the. You have to run an organization that's
a large organization, and then you have the political tensions.
So we have to balance both. And sometimes they do this, but this is where
services happen, where the services that really impact people's lives
happen on the local level. So I appreciate that, man. That means a lot
to hear that from you. I'm excited to work with you. I'm excited to learn
from you. You're one of the people who I'm like, listen, I can learn a
lot. And I have a short list of folks who I'm really excited to learn
from. You are certainly one of those people on that list. I just think,
again, the way that you model leadership and leaning in, I watch even on
social media as folks kind of, you know, naturally, the
court of public opinion does what it does, and you don't shy away,
you comment back. And I've kind of taken some of that. I've noticed
that about you, you know, because the traditional political advice is that don't engage people
on social media. And, man, that's just not. We work for
them. That's right. And I have learned that in social media and
comments in particular, when you engage people, you're educating other people that are
watching what's going, making people more aware. And that's an opportunity
to bring more awareness to a situation, an item or your opinion, and
to elicit feedback from people. I think it's a great tool. I know it's not
the traditional political advice, but I think you and I both like to engage people
on social media. And what that does is it changes the perception
that local government, or government in general, doesn't care
about what people think. But when you. For example, there was a young lady who
was very upset about a recent vote that city council took. I made a TikTok
video and she, she gave me the business
and I responded. And then I proceeded to DM her, gave her my
personal cell phone number. And she was very shocked about that.
And I think, you know, at the end of the day, she still had some
significant concerns about this particular vote, maybe even some of the things that
I had shared. But she was still very happy that we were able
to engage and that she now has my personal cell phone number that
only in Wichita, Kansas. I like to say that that can happen with your local
elected officials where you have our personal cell phone number. You see us out at
a coffee shop. You can come engage with us. We want you to.
Most of us want you to engage with us and meet and talk to us
about the issues on your hearts and minds. That's what public service is. That is
exactly. And that's local government. And you're doing. You're making decisions and you're
electing and hiring people to lead your local community. And these are your
neighbors, your friends, your family members. I just want to encourage you, man. Don't
lose that. There will be a time and it will happen shortly when
you're just a few months in office, when you're like, man, this is for the
birds. I don't have the energy. I don't have the bandwidth. Social media can be
a crazy vacuum. And that ecosystem is wild. I just want to encourage
you. Don't lose that, man. Thank you. Don't lose that. Because the people,
they deserve. They deserve to have local electeds that represent them, that
are willing to engage them on the good, bad, the ugly, agreement,
disagreement. People deserve that. Absolutely. That's what we ran on. That's it.
And we're going to hold to it for years. We'll talk a little bit about
social media and the campaign and just what that's like. I do want to know.
But before we get there, you are following in the
footsteps of someone that you obviously admire greatly, Councilmember
Brandon Johnson. I think that he has done a lot
in your upbringing in this community and helped shape you in many ways. And
it was interesting watching some of your campaign stuff and just watching the history
Councilmember Johnson and your relationship with him. So what's it like to. To follow
in his footsteps and to take a seat that he's been in for eight years?
It's. It's surreal. It's humbling.
Recently we had the opening of the Carl Brewer Community center, and that
was a big accomplishment for Councilmember Brandon Johnson.
And, you know, the election happened November 4th. We
opened the Carl Brewer Community center maybe in a month and a half after that.
And prior to that, I was kind of like, it hasn't hit me yet. It
hasn't hit me yet. And. And then sitting in that space and
those who know Councilmember Johnson, you know, he's not really an emotional
person. Very measured, and, you know,
I saw him shed a few tears. But I also heard the stories about
what a difference opening the doors of the Carl Brewer Community Center made in the
lives of the people who live in that community, but the people who have been
in Wichita and have seen that level of investment coming into that community.
And it was in that moment I thought, oh, my gosh, this is the
man who I'm replacing. And I remember
texting some folks saying, I'm nervous. Like,
it hit me. I remember texting Councilmember Johnson after that, saying, I'm
nervous. And in true fashion, he called and said, you
don't have anything to be nervous about. You've been ready for this. And so
I think it's a matter of recognizing that Councilmember Johnson has
done great things. He's been a mentor to me since I was 19. I'm 32
now. And he's invested in me and
believed that I was the right person for this seat as everyone else who
voted for me because of who I am and what I bring in this time
that we're living in. And so recognizing that I can take the
lessons that he has demonstrated over the past eight years and bring
what I can bring to the table and be open to
learning along the way from the other great staff within city hall, the other great
leaders in the community, and doing my very best to just stay true to
our community and our values. That's my goal. That's good. Well, we're all shaped by
our experiences. All of us are. My experience, from baseball to business
and ministry, and now this. It shapes us. It molds us. And
some ways for the better, some days for the worse. Right. But we mature and
we grow. There's a process called sanctification, where we're all growing and
being fashioned into being more as a Christian, more Christ-like,
in the ways that we perceive the world, the way we interact with people. But
your story is really interesting, Joseph. You've been shaped by a lot of different things.
Like what? Help. Help me understand. Help the public understand. Like,
what has shaped you to get you to this moment, to where now you're moving
into a new season of leadership in the community. What. Tell me about these experiences.
Yeah. My life is complex. The story
behind who Joseph Shepard is and how I came to be at 32 years
old is very complex. I come from a family that
my biological mom and dad were married for 16 years. They decided to
end their relationship after that divorce
took place, obviously, and we split up. My siblings and I
split up from my dad, and we became homeless for a very long time. Oh,
is that right? Yeah. So I've experienced homelessness as a kid, sleeping in
cars, getting washed up in McDonald's restaurants. Later stayed in a
Salvation Army and a couple other homeless shelters in Oklahoma.
And then my father won custody of us after that. How
old were you at that point? Oh, my gosh, 12. 12 years old. So old
enough to remember and went to go live with my father in Las
Vegas, Nevada, who was pastoring in the African Methodist
Episcopal Church. He was growing a church, a congregation
from worshiping in a high school gym and led them into their
first building. And that was transformational. But there was something about my father
who also had his own journey that I knew about. You know, he
wasn't always on the straight and narrow, but when he became a pastor, he had
this inclusive view. Right to do right by all and
do harm to none. And there were times where,
as most PKs would say, you. You give up a lot. Yeah,
yeah. Of your family, of your father. Anybody in ministry knows this. It's a
sacrifice for the entire home. And I would
be very frustrated with my father as a kid of like, you know,
first. Now I don't get a relationship with my biological mother. Now I don't get
a relationship with you. My dad was a tough love kind of
dad with me, and that was hard for me as well. Like, why are you
pushing me to be great? I don't understand. But he would give the shirt off
his back to anybody holidays he wanted to serve
those most vulnerable, benevolent offerings were
truly used to give back to those who were least among our congregation,
who needed help paying a bill, who needed help just closing that gap for a
little while longer. And that led to me really
just understanding that I think life is all about how you can help other people.
And, you know, my senior year in high school, my brother was arrested,
and I watched him go through the criminal justice system. I
was not thinking of college at all. I was like, I'm gonna graduate from high
school. I'm gonna get a good job. My stepmother at the time, who I affectionately
call my mom, saw something in me, so she pushed me in community college
courses when I was in high school. So when my brother went to
jail, I was like, you know what? I want to go study law. I want
to be a public defender. I want to give people, the most
vulnerable an opportunity to get a second chance, to get it right. Because I felt
like my brother deserved a second chance. And he did get a second chance. But
he ended up serving time as he should have, for some of the
wrong paths he went down. But had it not been for my brother
making that mistake, right? Had it not been for me being homeless as a kid,
had it not been for me wrestling with this idea of why is my father
willing to sacrifice time with his own kids and his own family to give to
others I would have never been able to sit with,
what does it mean to live a life pleasing, a life worth
living, where it's not about you,
it's. It. It's not about you. My father would always tell me that, and it
frustrated me, but that's why I lead with the servant's heart
today. That's why I fight for the least among us. That's why I'm
willing to sit down with people who I may disagree with, because I just genuinely
believe that there is somewhere where we may be able to come together and.
And find common ground for the common good. And I take
that with me everywhere I go. And it's really because of my life, my lived
experiences. Yeah, that's profound. I remember I did
12 years of pastoral ministry, and I remember the
commitments that you have to make in that position, the 10 o' clock
calls at night where you need to go serve someone or help someone, or
you have to leave a kid's event because of a ministry function or a
ministry obligation. And the weight that it does have on the pastor's kids
and the pastor's wife. That's why. And I think
PKs in particular, I think they understand the
honor, particularly for the pastor's wife, that has to come. And something I
appreciate very much at the church you belong to is you're always honoring
the women that have had to sacrifice and serve Pastor
Kuykendall, his wife Frankie, when she walks in the
room and people honor her. That's right. Because they understand the sacrifice that comes
in ministry is a family sacrifice. So I appreciate that. But it is interesting
to hear your story and how that shaped you and shaped your
worldview and shaped your perspective and shaped what moves your heart in
this season of service. Tell me a little bit about
this campaign, Joseph. Well, I want to back up even a step further.
When did you make this decision? You've had an interest in politics because you
have an interest in community. When was this decision made? It's like,
okay, this is the step. This is to launch a campaign and try
to win a seat. Was this something you decided years ago,
months ago? Walk me through that. Yeah. Well, those who've been following my
journey, they know that this was not the first attempt to serve
in an arena like this, and particularly for District
1, I'll be honest. The emergency winter shelter went
into Northeast Wichita. I served on the Humankind Ministries
board at the time. And Northeast Wichita,
traditionally, historically, has been black and
has lacked economic investment. And when you tell
any community that we're going to put an emergency winter shelter in your
backyard, I think that there's a lot of communities that would say,
wait a minute, we need to talk about this. But then you have the complexity
of first of all, you're not gonna. We haven't seen economic investment
at the rate as some of the other areas of our city. And now you're
telling us you're going to put an emergency winter shelter in. Our
backyard for vulnerable people. For vulnerable people. Particularly in a
place on Opportunity Drive that was created with this idea of
creating opportunity. And there were a lot of people who were wondering, how does this
create opportunity? So here I am, an advocate for homelessness, someone who's
experienced being homeless and
serving on the board of a homeless agency that part
partners with the city. Yeah. While also being black and saying, I
get it. And this is a very complex issue. And so I was one of
very few people who stood up in that very
contentious city council meeting to say, listen, I get it. And
yes. And yeah, we. We can let people die on the
streets. We. We cannot let homeless people freeze
overnight. And that created a lot of
conversation that raised the heat in a lot of areas. I remember watching that
meeting, but there. Were some conversations of, you know,
particularly some folks who were running at the time and some conversations I
didn't appreciate. And I made a decision that, you know,
I needed to think about it at that time. But it was solidified in
October of 2024 that I
was going to run when my brother was shot. That's right. Lives here
in Wichita. And there was lots of
conversations about the increased violence happening in our community. And I was very
upset about the violence happening, particularly surrounding young people. And
Midnight got a call, and I needed to get
to Wesley Hospital immediately. My brother had lost so much blood
that they didn't even know if he was going to live. And he. A major
artery was hit. And I think while you're sitting in that room
and the chaplain is coming in and. And they're praying for you because the
outcome isn't looking good. You got a lot of time to think about, well, what
are you going to do about this? And watch my brother intubated for
two weeks, couldn't move, couldn't talk. And
I knew that this was something I wanted to do to change the community for
the better. But I also felt in that moment, God was calling me to step
up and not to just make a social media post about it or not to
just hold other people accountable. But how was I going to use my privilege that
I've been given in this life to help other people, not just my family,
but to extend the opportunities to other people as well. And so I
decided like I was being called in that moment, and I talked to Brandon. I
told Brandon, no, no, I'm. I'm good. I see what electeds go through.
I'm okay. I've tried it before. It didn't work out. And it was actually over
bourbon at the Monarch that I told Brandon, I
want to do this and. And whatever the outcome is, I
want to be authentically me. And I want to run on the issues
that impact everyday people, regardless of their political background.
And I want to go hard. And that's what we did. Yeah, no, you
sure did. And that campaign was a long campaign. At
one point in time, was there five people total in. There were five of us.
There was a little bit of everything for Everybody in District 1
in that primary race. There was, yeah. And tell me about the
campaign. Did you enjoy. Now, let me. As someone who's ran
a campaign, I enjoyed the Campaign. I enjoyed the forums.
I enjoyed knocking on doors, hearing people listening to people. But there's one thing that's
more enjoyable than that. It's actually getting on the other side of the campaign and
winning. There are two different pressures, two different experiences.
But how did you experience the campaign? Did you enjoy it? And what did you
hear from the people when you were listening and talking to people in the
community? So I enjoy learning, and I learned a lot about myself.
I learned a lot about my community. I learned a lot about where
there are areas of growth in terms of even
the way we think, philosophically, ideologically.
And I learned that folks are just tired of the partisan gridlock, the
partisan political theater, and they want people
to just do the right thing
and listen. Even if you don't agree with them,
be genuine about listening and saying, how can I help?
I've learned that that goes a long way. Yeah. I'll be
honest. I love the learning piece
and how I got to a lot of those learning pieces I did not enjoy.
I didn't like being crucified for the way that I spoke and
how I articulated my words or how I dressed, or not
necessarily being from Wichita in the traditional sense, but as
we just talked about my story, when you are. When you are moving around so
much by way of being homeless or growing up in poverty or your father
is in the military now your father's a pastor, where, you know, I didn't. I
didn't ask my dad to be a pastor and to choose a profession where his
calling moved him around every four years or so.
But when I had the choice to decide where I was going to plant my
roots, it was Wichita. This is my home. It's my chosen home. And
I didn't like that. I didn't like how we had to unpack some of those
layers and challenge myself to
not respond in a way that wasn't healthy for the community. And
I just thank God that I had an amazing campaign manager. I had an amazing
team who, when I wanted to go there, would tell me,
when the instinct says fight. I mean, they would remind me all the time, Ryan,
like, no, no, no, no, wait a minute. What you said on the website was
you have an earnest desire to work with people. Even when you
disagree, they disagree with you. How are you living out this mission?
Let's stay here for a second. So it was contentious. I think most people that
follow local politics saw some of the. Some of
the factions started to develop. So we're on the
other side of that now. Yep. You won. You're in the position of
leadership. You've been shaped by these experiences. You're committed to civility and
civil discourse. How do you heal? How does this community,
District 1 in particular. Yeah. How do you.
It's not going to happen organically. It will require leadership and intentional
effort. How do you heal? Yeah. So I think, you know, if we're being
honest with ourselves, some of that healing happens over time where
we can reflect and we can laugh about some of the things that were said
or done and we can say, you know what?
Water under the bridge. Yeah, let's move forward. Yeah. And then there
are times where, you know, I'm still praying. Yeah, I'm still
praying and I can be honest about that because it's real. I mean there have
been multiple people who have reached out to me and they have tried to,
you know, orchestrate meetings with some of the folks who were in the race to
say, listen, we've got to come together and we got to do this. And it's,
it's. Yes. And I really have to pray because when
my parents called me during the campaign concerned about my safety,
that hit a nerve and that's a reality that a lot of
elected have to deal with. Your kids, I'm sure your wife, I'm.
sure we've had to have police protection. Right. And these are the real
realities that I knew going in because I've had eight years to watch Brandon go
through it with Danielle and his two kids who affectionately
I call my nieces, they call me Uncle Jojo. But the
reality is that there's a weight that comes
with that, that's a major burden. Or when folks post things
on social media in the name of it's politics grow
thicker skin. We've got work to do as a community. If we think
we can assassinate someone character in the name of politics or
this is a game that we just play. If our society has not
taught us anything in the last five, 10 years, it's. It's that there are
detrimental consequences for things that we put into the
atmosphere that have long term consequences and we've got to
think twice about. Yeah. Playing the game of politics. So I'm praying to
what does it look like to heal? What does it look like? It's good to
hear that the power of life comes from word. And it
is. And what happens is when that's violated and attacks and
personal attacks happen, you break. You don't just break. It's not just an emotional issue,
you break trust. That's right. And trust is hard to repair.
But trust is. Community is worthy of repair.
Community is worthy of that sort of leadership. And I think that.
I trust that you understand that, and I trust that you're going to be the
one, the catalyst that will try to put some things back together. You don't have
to be friends. Yeah, that's right. You have to hang out. You don't have to
go to coffee, have a lunch. But to know that, hey, there's bigger issues that
we've got to work on together. And I appreciate that you say this is going
to take some time. I need to process through this. I don't want to right
now. And frankly, you don't have to right now, but the moment will call you
to a bigger burden of responsibility to that. But it was. It
got a little nasty, man. I remember I even text you one time, I said,
hang in there, man. Come on. Yeah, hang in there. I'm grateful for the folks
who prayed with me, prayed for me, sent
affirmations because prayer is not everybody's thing. And I get that, too. Not everyone has
a religious or a faith tie. And I get that, too.
And, you know, in the conversations that I've had so far with some of those
folks where, you know, we were just not on the same page or
they were supporting another candidate, I have been. There's something that happens
with the heart, too, when you get that text message that, that says, listen, we
weren't on the same side this go around. But now that you're here, know
that I'm committed to. I'm committed to working with you for the betterment of our
community. It's like, right on. You know, there's something to be said about people
who take the. That initial leap. And so, yes, it
is going to take leadership. And that leadership does not always have to come from
the person sitting in that council seat. Sometimes that leadership comes
from community. To say, I want to sit down.
I want to unpack a lot of what happened here. And I. And I. And
I'm waiting. I'm waiting for some of those people to reach out to. Sure. Yeah.
There you go, man. I appreciate that answer and I appreciate that approach, honestly. But
I also appreciate that, you know, that, hey, there's bigger things. There's
bigger fish to fry. There's bigger things that we have to do as a community
together. People are going hungry. 29th Grove contamination continues to be an
issue. It is, yeah, we've made progress, but it is an issue. And that is
a story. There might be a day I have Brandon Johnson sit on you should.
You should. Because, man, there are some. There's some stories to be told about how
all of this had to come together and the leadership that it
took, but also the collaboration that it took from
state legislators to Kansas Health Foundation to community
leaders. I mean, it was just. It's a big lift. And it's funny
when you were talking about Brandon, how cool, calm and collected is, and that is
one cool dude, man. He doesn't. I seen him one time, though. Yeah, I
saw him one time. Yeah.
I appreciate him, though. And I appreciate that you're walking into that role. And you
know what, man? I appreciate that. I think that you and I are going to
have the same sort of working relationship that Brandon and I have had.
I enjoyed. I've enjoyed every step of working with him and the issues that
we've worked together on. So let's talk about your time in office now that's coming.
Yeah. So you get sworn in, what. We're recording this December 23rd.
So by the time this thing airs, you will be in the seat. Yeah.
January 12th at 5:30pm. Come on.
What, what, what's the objectives, man? Like, if you were to say,
let's look ahead four years. Let's not look ahead eight years. Let's go ahead
four years. If you were to say in four, four years, these are
the things that I had hoped to accomplish. This is the temperament in which I'd
hope to lead in. This is the objectives. I hope to get across the
finish line. Like, what does that look like for you now, walking into
a role? Because I remember this day, you know, four years ago for
me. What's that look like for you? Help define what are your objectives.
People trust local government more, so we increase the level
of trust that's there. Local government is more proximate to the community
that they're making decisions for and ultimately hope and help is
the feeling that a lot of people feel after those four years.
And of course, that can come in terms of economic advancement, infrastructure,
stronger neighborhoods, trust, strengthening communication, innovative and
creative opportunities. Right. But ultimately, those are the three basic things I
want people to say. I can trust those folks up there a little bit more,
that maybe it's not 100% there, but the needle has moved in the right direction.
I feel that I see my elected officials on more than just the
holidays, on more than just when they are running for office, but because they're
genuinely invested in what in the world is going on in my neighborhood and how
they can help. And because of local government's
Trust. And because of the proximity, I now feel that
I have hope and help because they've been able to take that and put it
towards policies and projects that make my life better. Yeah. Good. I
love that and I love the proximity piece of it is being present 100%.
Listen, you can sign it, you can win an election and go take that seat
and you can work minimally and have a minimal performance, a minimal outcomes, and you
just have a job and grab it for a paycheck. Or you can actually be
excellent at what you do. That's right. And you can honor the people that put
you there and honor the commitments that you made in a campaign that you would
work at the level that you told people you would work at. And that they
could, whether they agree or disagree with every vote and every decision or every
position, that they could look at you and say, I do trust that individual. I
trust that. I trust their integrity. And I know they work on my behalf. Agree
or disagree, they work on my behalf. Those are the opportunities. And I think you
are well intended and I think you're gonna hit the ground running in that regard.
Talk about some concerns like as we look at the
ecosystem that you're walking into, Wichita is in
a pivotal season, man. We are. It's a generational season for a lot
of different reasons. There are significant opportunities with
significant challenges. What are the things that rise to the
level of concern for you to where you walking in and you
understand this is a challenge that deserves my full
attention. What are some of those things? Well, trust is. Is.
You talked about the challenges and you talked about being in a pivotal
season where we as a city, I would argue even a county, we've got to
make some choices. I agree. They're not easy choices. I agree. But they are choices
that are going to define where we go. And none
of, none of these choices are easy decisions. But whether those
choices, making those choices are a little bit more difficult to
overcome or a little bit smoother really relies on the trust and what
we are doing to get outside of our ivory tower. And that's not to say
there aren't electeds who don't. There are plenty in our city who
do. But we've got to do more to
really build that trust and bringing people in proactively to the
conversations that when policies and projects impact their life,
they're not finding out on the back end that it's happening or that we've
had these discussions, but they've been there from day one. And city of Wichita has
done a great job this year, particularly in doing that. I love the housing
ordinance and bringing our landlords in and our renters union in to say
how do we make this right for all parties involved? We've got to do more
than that. I love how the city of Wichita has said, you know what, we're
going to have this meeting in the city council chambers. Not just on a
Tuesday, but we're going to do it on a Thursday evening. And no, it's not
a council meeting, it's the chambers belongs to you. Yeah. So come in and
let's have this conversation. I love the enback meetings where two,
five, nine in the county and the city of Wichita saying what does functional
consolidation look like? How do we, how do we maximize
taxpayers dollars while still delivering quality service?
Those are the things that we've got to focus on and bringing the community in
to build that trust. That's going to take some time and there's some work to
do there. A lot of communication, a lot of effort, a lot of energy,and
sincerity. A lot of sincerity and. And a lot of
willingness to bring people into the room and actually
listen. Yep. It's one thing to hear them, it's another thing to
actively listen and say listen. Whether I agree or disagree,
whether I understand or don't understand your concern is a valid concern.
Let me, let me walk through this process and actively listen to you to
try to understand. Listening to understand instead of listening to hear.
That's right. And then when you bring people into the room and you actually
hear their heart and their concerns. Yeah. It really is a unique
moment when that happens. I have love the en bancs
just between the city and the county. The tri government en bancs where we bring
USC 259, the largest school district in the entire state with
significant challenges. 82% of these kids live under the poverty
level in 259. And to say how do we leverage these resources together? How can
we help me be aware? Because the decisions I make should be tied to
healthy place, healthy family, healthy community. And you can't do that in a
silo away from our children in our schools. That's right. Help me
make me aware of your challenges and how do other ways that we can leverage
our resources together. Comcare in the schools, transit
in the schools. There's just ways we can work better together. But you never
get to those points of action ideas unless you actually have the conversations.
That's right. And get in the room together. That's right. And I think
that we're we're heading in the right direction. And I hope to be a contributor
to how do we move the needle even further? Yeah. And I may not know
everything, but my colleague on the bench may know more than me. And that's
okay. Yeah. This isn't a competition. We should be
working together. If there's something happening in District 2 with my future
colleague, Councilmember Tuttle, how can I help? And if
there's something happening in my district regarding childcare, I'm going to lean on
her because I know that she's a lot of work there. Right. But then there's
some other unique opportunities, particularly with housing and homelessness. I should be leaning
on Councilmember Ballard and Councilmember Hoheisel has done tremendous work. And the
mayor and I have talked and we're ready to get our hands dirty with the
foster care challenge that our community is. Boy, can you say that one more
time? One more time. The mayor and I are going to be
committed to working on this foster care challenge. And we've talked. This is something that
we are both passionate about. And we know that the foster care
challenge impacts a lot of other things that if we don't get our hands dirty
on that particular issue, it is. It's going to be more
issues that we are not ready for as a community. I have told people, Joseph,
if we just spent five years with the bullseye target
just on the foster care system, we can reverse some
trajectory that's very dangerous in this community. As you know, about 1400 kids in
Sedgwick county are in the foster care system. Only have about 650 homes. So we
have a lot of out of county placements, a lot of movement. 70% of these
kids will have a touch point the criminal justice system. Only 45% will graduate high
school. And Joseph, one out of three will end up homeless if they
age out of the system within two years. That is a real challenge.
And if you go and you talk to people in the homeless ecosystem, you talk
to people at the Sedgwick County Jail right now. You talk to people that are
in community corrections, you talk to people and really
listen to their stories. I think the community would be
alarmed to know how many of these individuals spend time in the foster
care system. Yeah. Yeah. And this past weekend, I actually
stumbled upon a story. Yousef Presley,
recently graduated from Wichita State, has a powerful story about living
in the foster care system. And the pipeline to prison. Oh, my goodness. And. And I think
everyone should go and watch that video.
Graduated. Right. And. And what is possible when the community
invests in, in somebody who has had that experience. Yousef
is an example what can happen. A powerful testament. I asked him one time,
he had heard that I was active in this space. This was. I was only
in office for a few, few months and he reached out to me, said can
I come visit? He told me about this documentary that was being created. I
can't remember the number of placements he told me, man, it was a crazy number.
It was 80 plus placements. And I asked a simple
question and his and I still tell the story of the answer he gave me.
And I said, why so many placements? Like what was going on? And he said
profoundly said, man, I knew my mom was
broken, but she was still my mom and I wanted to go
home. So I would act out and think that they would be able to send
me home. I knew she was broken, but she was still my mom.
As a college and professional athlete, I had to live with host families all across
the country. And that was always an odd situation that was perfectly normal and
expected in short term. Yeah, it was still odd to live in somebody else's
home. Yeah. To think you're 7, 8, 10, 12
years old being put into somebody else's home or woken up at 7
o' clock in the morning by strangers to say you have to leave and get
your bag packed, we got to go to another home. Yeah, no wonder there is
trauma, right? No wonder there's long term impact and effect. So there's no
stability. I mean the rules are changing every single home you go to.
And the data suggests it. If we can just get upstream and prevent. Now
there are times kids have to be removed from a home for their safety and
precautionary reasons. We just saw an example, a
horrific example in the news recently of a four year old boy that was basically
abused to death in his home. There are reasons why the state has
to intervene and remove a child from the home for a period of time for
their safety. There are other times that we can actually plan and
get more upstream to prevent a child from having to enter the system to begin
with by giving more resources and attention and help to the family that is
in poverty and in need with more supports. And I'm not
talking about financial supports. I'm talking about community support, case management support. There's just so
many opportunities. You know, moms or dads or guardians need
help getting to and from work so it can reduce that burden just a little
bit more. I mean, hope and help, that's it. And these are the simple
Things that we can do. The county, the. The city, state,
the community, faith communities. Yeah, we can. We can all do a small
part. We may not be able to do everything. We welcome that investment of your
time and your energy and your focus and the mayor's investment into what's happening. You
and I've already talked a little bit about your heart for this space. And again,
if we can just redirect resources and attention
upstream, it will wield off the financial resources
downstream and it'll keep families together more. So
this is a. This is something that has been inside my heart for a long
time. It's gotten a hold of my soul, man. I can't turn it off because
I see it. Yeah, I see it. There's data right now. I came across data
recently that just the trauma of the foster care system. If you just look at
the metric of graduation rates, high school graduation rates, did you
know that a child that is homeless, but with their family,
either mother or father or both, they're with their family,
but homeless, they actually have a higher graduation rate than a
child that is in foster care. Did not know that. And it's something to be
said. Both of them are traumatic experiences. Both of them are in
unstable circumstances. But if you're with your family,
the data suggests that it provides more
emotional well being to get you to at least one point that we
measure being high school graduation. One of many points. It just tells you how
dramatic the foster care system is on the lives
of these young people and why it's worthy of a moral society and
moral people. I'm not talking about government, man. I'm talking about people. That's right. The
organizations and faith communities to step in and intervene the best that we can.
So thank you for wanting. Of course, you mentioned the mayor. Yeah.
Let's talk about one of the things that you were criticized for,
Joseph, was your relationship with Mayor Lily Wu
and Councilmember Dalton Glasscock. Now, I know a little bit more of these
stories and I know that you guys don't agree on everything.
Thank you. But you were criticized
because of your friendship with some of these people.
Walk me through that. How did you handle that and what is the actual answer
in response to that? You know, I'm not gonna lie
about who I am and who I have relationships with.
And I think for too long we have
sensationalized that, you know, you're here and those other people
are on the other side and they should be your enemy and you should not
be friends and you should not go get drinks and you know, Dalton and I
worked together back in student government days. A lot of people don't know this, but
we ran against each other for student body president at Wichita State. Is that right?
Yeah, I beat him. Right. I won that race. But he made
it to council before me. Let's make sure we bookmark that. Yeah,
I won that race, you know, but, but you know, one
of the first things I did was I appointed Dalton to my cabinet.
And so when people were talking during the race of like, well, how can
we trust and know? It's like, go back and look at my history. I've
always reached across the aisle and tried to work with people who don't think,
look, walk, talk, act like me, because I know that that's how good policy
is made. And I had good mentors in my life, Brandon being one of them
at that time, who I remember came to my SGA office
and said to me, I, you said you're thinking about
this and I would encourage you to really consider. Is that right?
Finding a role for Dalton in your administration. Really? Because there's a faction of people
who voted for this man. And if you want to make good, well rounded
policy, if you want to advocate for things that truly impact the 16,000
students at Wichita State University at that time, you might want to consider doing
this. Wow. So, you know, there's something to be said too, for having political capital.
You're going to have to find your way for the initiatives that you care about
to find your way to four votes. Yeah. And that sometimes means working
with people that are perceived as opposition to your issue or your initiative, your
resolution, trying to find some common ground to advance and make progress
in these areas. This is how politics works. That's right. This is how good
government works. And you just simply, if you're making enemies everywhere you
go and you, you don't have political capital, it's hard to progress your
district when it's hard to move things forward for the people that you were elected
to represent. Yeah. It's not folding over, it's not
being, it's not softening your positions on things that you care about
deeply. It's not changing your ideological worldview. It's about getting
in the room and working to advance issues and
initiatives on behalf of the people that put you there. Yeah. Listen, Councilmember
Glasscock and I, for example, are probably going to agree
on things like common consumption in Delano. Right.
I was cheering him on. In fact, when I was making calls during the campaign,
I had some folks who were like, I have A business in this district.
And I'm concerned. And I would literally say, can I connect you? Because I think
that this is a great idea and connected Councilmember Glasscock
to those individuals who are concerned and they were able to talk and meet and
get on board. We're probably going to be on board with, you
know, for example, like today, making sure that young people have a required
seat on every single district advisory board. Not that it's recommended.
In fact, most council members do have a young person. But we can work
together on like, making sure it's required. But where you're probably going to see
some spirited debate is how we craft the policy
for a homeless encampment ordinance. Right. Not that we
won't get to a point where we can both agree that there may need to
be something in place, but it's the how, it's the who, it's the why, it's
the details. So, Joseph, okay. Everything you're saying, I would. I'm going to
venture to believe that the vast majority of people that are watching this conversation take
place right now or listening to it would say that
makes sense. Yeah. Like, of course you want to get on your. Your. You
want to get on the seat. You want to get in this position on the
bench and work with the people your colleagues to
advance. So why the dismay?
Why were people. So why were they trying to use that as a
political talking point against you, that you have a
civil relationship with the mayor and Dalton Glasscock in particular?
I think for a very small faction of people, it was a
genuine concern. I do. Help me understand that. What
was the concern? I think the concern was that sometimes the policies that
we see, and I won't limit this to just the mayor or Councilmember
Glasscock, but sometimes the policies that we advocate for
can feel like an attack to our mere humanity and that
having an extra vote on the council to support that is
detrimental for families, detrimental for folks just simply wanting
to exist and have the freedom to be. And as I've said to multiple people,
I understand that, but that's not who I am. And who
I am is not defined by who I've been mentored, by
who I have relationships with, that I
am so secure in who I am and even who I'm still
growing to be, that no one is going to be able
to guide me to make a decision that I don't believe is
innately within my moral compass or values. I just don't
believe that. But I also believe that there was a large
faction, a very loud, maybe even loud, small faction
still who it was just a political talking point for them to
deter people from voting for me or supporting me or being willing
to sit down and engage. And it's unfortunate that, you know, there were some folks
who I reached out to and those folks had no interest, never
knew me a day in their life, never even had a conversation with me. But
on the basis of this is what such and such said about you,
no go. And didn't get to take the time to get to know my
story. I was knocking doors in a community during the campaign, and they had
my opponent's yard sign and I wouldn't knock that door. And we sat down on
that person's porch and we talked for an hour and a half. And they
said to me, here's what I'm concerned about. You're taking money from developers. And I
heard you have relationships with the mayor and Councilmember Glasscock, I
do believe you're gonna win this race, but I'm supporting your opponent simply because I
don't want you there. And I said, whoa, whoa, whoa. So we were able to
have a really good conversation. And by the end of that conversation, that
person went, I had no idea. So
it's just indicative of how important it is for us to take
the time to get to know people's stories and positions for
themselves and not what people are saying on social media. And we've got to do
a better job of doing that. Well, I want to give you some encouragement. My
wife gave me some encouragement when I was in my campaign and the political pressures
were coming to ramp up the aggressiveness and be mean spirited and lose the
civil discourse that I had ran on that I felt like we needed in this
community. And my wife and I was really. Because I wanted to win,
because I wanted to be at the table to shape outcomes. And. And it was
really a tense moment personally for me because I was battling my.
The identity, who I was as a man
and as a faithful steward of the worldview, the biblical worldview,
and what that looks like for me in relationship with people,
with the political piece. There was this tension that was developing between these
two identities. And my wife said, just be you. Please.
Just be yourself. And if you're not enough
for the people that elected you there, you should be okay with that. But be
yourself. Just be you. And that freed me. Good wife. Freed me in the campaign.
She's wonderful. It freed me in the campaign. It freed me now
in my time in office, that this tension between running the organization,
the politics sometimes does this, but I am going to be me and my
worldview is consistent and my. The lens in which I see the world is
consistent. And sometimes it frustrates people on the left and
sometimes it frustrates people on the right. But I'm going to be me. That's right.
And I want people to be able to trust the worldview in which I make
the decisions. And you'll always get my best effort and you'll always get the integrity
of the decision. So I just want to encourage you, just, just be faithful
to you and the people that put you there and not faithful to the political
piece because I think that's really, really important. I've been given four
years. I'm not worried about the next four. We will
cross that road if and when we get there. If you even want to. Yeah,
like, you know, but ultimately, ultimately I've been blessed with four years to do right
by community, to make good decisions, to leave the community better than I found it.
And that's my focus. And you know, like I said when I went into it
this time, I was gonna do it my way. And that was ultimately
of, I'm gonna be me. I'm gonna own who I am in all of my
layers. I'm a complex person with identities that folks would say, you
know, should counsel each other out. Like a lot of people didn't understand.
You are. You believe in God and you go to church, you're
faith centered and yet you believe, you believe in these policies. And I
was like, yeah, I believe all of us are multifaceted,
complex human beings where none of us live single issue lives.
And we just need to do a better job of owning that complexity
and doing a better job of mobilizing why we believe what we
believe. Let's talk about city and county. I'm
the county commissioner in the fourth district. Yeah. I've got 105,000 people in
my district. And you will be the city Councilmember in the district one.
That's right. And I think you have 60 some thousand. 65. 65,000.
And a good portion of them are also my constituents. That's right. We're going to
work together. Yes, we are. How can. That's me and you and the
people that we jointly have been elected to serve. Broadly
speaking, city, county, we are becoming a more urbanized county.
Government is not expedient in its reform and
pivoting to meet modern needs. There are
significant challenges. There are opportunities to become more efficient and better at what
we do. Are there ways that the city and county. I'm not a consolidation
person where I think the city and the county, city of Wichita and the county
need to merge into one government. That's not where my head's at. We may
get there in another generation. That's not my generation. That's not my purpose.
But I do think there's ways that we can work better together. Yeah. Have
you given much thought? You and I've kind of talked in passing about, hey, I'd
love to chat with you about this, this and this. Have you. Are you open
to modernizing local government and systems and looking at how
we can functionally consolidate departments or services? Well, we have
to and I think there's a major appetite for it
and I love. During the campaign I called it shared services and when we talked,
I love, and I've been saying it, functional consolidation. I think that
explains kind of the direction that we want to go a little bit better. But
transit is one way that we could do that. Absolutely. When we think
about the amount of people who are working second shift or third shift or
for whatever reason don't have access to a vehicle or don't currently have access to
their driver's license right now, I think being able to expand that
transit to be regional, making sure that there are more shifts, making sure that there
are shifts in other places across the county, making sure that they are running on
a consistent schedule or expanding the hours or have access to
direct drop off sites in front of grocery stores or direct drop off
sites in front of some of our major companies. What we do is we,
we create economic prosperity for families, especially those in
poverty who are working really hard to get out of that cycle of
poverty but don't necessarily have access to the resources to do it.
So when we are thinking about the people. Right. Functional
consolidation is one thing that the county and city can explore
meaningfully together to say how do we bring prosperity to everyone? I
appreciate that on transit. I think you are spot on. More of regional transit at
minded conversations. I will tell you this is I'm three years
in now. I came in with a lot of ideas and these ideas
are still moving forward. It's just very slow. You're going to learn that it's a
very slow process. In business. If I
don't reform and pivot and modernize, the market doesn't reward me.
That's right. I will either stagnate or eventually go out of
business. We have to reform and pivot. In a lot of businesses. Government
doesn't work at the same pace because people are compelled to use the service and
we're not, we don't have. There's no urgency in pivoting and reforming. And
you'll. I think you're going to see this really quickly. And there's days I feel
like I'm going to spontaneously combust because I'm built to go and go quickly
and nothing like that. For better or worse, nothing
moves as quickly in government when it comes to reform.
But here's what I hope you see is the same thing I saw. None
of these things will happen organically. We're not going to get someone
in finance payables to say, you know what, we should
consolidate parks and rec and cultural attractions. Let's just do it.
None of those things happen. We have great staff at the county. You have great
staff at the, at the city with a new manager coming in, which we're all
really excited to hear what this, what his thoughts are on some of these things.
But it's not going to happen organically. It will take leadership from the
elected level to drive this reform, to push this reform,
because we hear this from our, from the people we represent. 90% of
the people I talk to. Like, that's a great idea. What, what, what's keeping you?
What's holding you back? Yeah. And there's a lot of political reasons, but there's also
a lot of practical reasons. These are heavy lifts. So things like transit
and regionalizing that conversation. Things like the cultural attractions that the county
has. We have the zoo. That's right. The largest outdoor tourist attraction in the state.
We have Exploration Place with a generational project happening over there with
EP2. We have interest Bank Arena. That's right. Could you imagine downtown
Wichita without Interest Bank Arena? Those are the three big assets that we have at
the county, and all three of them are right smack dab in the city of
Wichita. That's right. Yeah. We've been so siloed in how we do these
things, and all I'm asking for is, nope, there's a better way to do this,
to work together on these things. So, Joseph, I'm so
refreshed to hear you say, yeah,
let's just have the conversation. Not committing to one thing or another, but let's get
in the room. The community demands and deserves the conversation.
You know, I come from a culture. I spent five years national nonprofit, was a
startup. So I come from a culture of. And just by way
of being a preacher's kid, too. Right. Like you said, you got to, you got
to try some different things if you want to grow your congregation. If you Want
to reach a new demographic and ultimately
10 experiments will work. You got to try 100 to figure out which 10 are
going to going to stick and experiment and
allowing our city staff and our county staff to try new things.
It is not a bad thing as long as we are doing
so in a wise manner. And where we are not going to
burn down the county and we're not going to burn down the city. Well, I've
kind of used two litmus tests and the litmus tests are number one.
Are there if we functionally consolidated or shared
more services or found a better way to do these two different functions.
Are there more efficiencies that can be gained? That's right. Are there
cost savings and is the service becoming better?
And sometimes Joseph and I think this has to be acknowledged too. Sometimes it's
just better for one of the government agencies to do it on behalf of the
other government agencies. The county operates EMS on behalf of 20
cities in an incorporated Sedgwick County. That way not every city has
to have their own EMS. Yeah. The county operates 911 on behalf of all 20
cities. And so it's one government doing instead of multiple
governments doing. I'll tell you man. And you and I. Or we need to go
get some coffee. One of the things that 29th
and Grove Water contamination exposed that you and I have got
to Councilmember Johnson, I've been working on this. This is going to get passed
off to you and I am in the room with you on this thing, man.
Am. Is what it exposed. The 40 year water
contamination issue where people literally were not told that
there was poison beneath their feet. Yeah. Is you had the
state and KDHE, Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
You had the county which has the public health department and then
you have the city which has environmental health. Three different
organizations, none of them really talking to each other
all that well. And the constituents in the middle had no idea who was
doing what and why. Yeah. This is silly that you have three
organizations with separate interests. Separate. We
can at the at least on our level. Yep. There is no reason
why the county has the health department and the city has environmental health. Well.
And we've learned. Right. There's detrimental impacts when we are siloed doing
different things and not communicating. We've got it. We've got to figure out how
we put these things in at least the same stratosphere. So there's
communication happening. One of many examples. You have animal control.
We have animal control. You have the largest fire department in the state. We have
the fourth largest fire department in the state. They co respond on 6,000 calls. Be
careful, bud. That'll get you in trouble politically. But yeah, you see, I'm just smiling.
I noticed. That's good. You're really good. But these are conversations that we have the
community expects us to have in the way in which we have these conversations is
what's most important. That's right. There's the way in which we do this. And
it's about awareness and communicating. And again, this litmus test. Is there
efficiencies to be had? Are there cost savings to to be had? Can we perform
better service to the people that are paying for these
services and their tax dollars? And so, man, I thank you that you're actually
willing to have these conversations. Excited to have these conversations. They won't
happen organically. We'll have to force the issue on some of these things. I'm happy
to work with you on that. And yeah, I mean, it's a new day. It
is a new day. You've named it. We've got to do things differently and doing
things the way we've always done them. Wichita is just in a very different
space. We're in a exciting place. I think so, man. But we can't
always say no because we've always done it this way or no. We tried that,
you know, X amount of years ago and this is what it's like. It's
2025, soon will be 2026. Our community has
grown since all the time in many, many ways. And so we've got to try
different things. There are things that are on the docket right now that you're going
to walk right into. And it's probably not appropriate for you to. For me to
ask you a whole lot of details on your personal opinion because you'll be sitting
in the seat and have to build resolution around things. But you have the
Wichita forward sales tax plan view and you're going to be. You're going to walk
into office in the middle of January and then in March, this community.
Now, you didn't vote to put this on the ballot, but you're going to walk
into this. And what comes of this in March is going to
have a consequential impact
on the decisions that you make and how you're going to choose to fund things
moving forward. Whether it's a yes vote or a no vote that
prevails, it's going to impact the decisions that you make. How
do you feel about this thing? Are you. Are There questions that are still
unanswered in your mind or how do you, how do you process this with this
sales tax plan? You know the number one concern that is on my mind, which
I'm sure is on your mind too, because we share a lot of constituency base
is the aggressive nature of a sales tax and how that's going to impact
not just low income poor people, working class families. And I think we need to
be thinking about that. That said, again, this is a very
complex topic because that is
a concern. And there is another concern that
our community is growing. The expenses are growing, the revenue's not
keeping. Sure. So we got to do something. Yeah. Right. And. And
I'm fearful of, of the third option
which is cuts. Yeah. We can't cut our way into prosperity.
And guess who hurts the working class families. Lower income
poor families will hurt tremendously. Yeah. And I just hope our community
does the work to educate themselves on, Sometimes you're
presented options and you don't like either option. But your job is
to select the option that is best for
your community. And I hope we do our research. I am not an expert on
the city of Wichita's budget. So it's not appropriate for me to talk about what
should or shouldn't happen in regards to cuts and how they build their budget.
I'm not. I've got my hands full of county budget. Yeah.
I would tell you that the regressive piece of
it on the sales tax is something that has to have a conversation. We have
to have a conversation about what that looks like because our we are elected
to help families and to make sure that families are
in positions of prosperity and not positions to where they're becoming
more vulnerable. What I do like, and you know this about me,
is I equally believe that the level of property taxation that has
taken place in our community over the last five years has put
a real strain on working class families. And even our renter class,
40% of our that are seeing increases in rent rates,
those on fixed income, those that are working class families. It has been a significant
challenge. So fight. So you are right. I do not foresee
future city council saying, you know, we got to raise property taxes to
meet these needs. I don't see that as an option because I think that has
actually become to a point where we've seen diminishing returns. Not everybody agrees with
me on that. But I get these calls, I see these emails, I see
the data that comes to see people that have had 15,
20, 25% over the last five years increases and not their
evaluations, their property tax bills. Yes. And it has been rather
significant and I don't think they can contain much more. Yeah, Ryan, I will never
forget. And this has recently changed. Right. My personal opinion,
when, when the proposal came out and I saw that there was the property tax
and I had the opportunity to speak with, with folks and I was like, why
in the world would you all put that in there? Like what? I'm just being
honest. I was frustrated. I was like, this is not, you all are not
paying attention to what our community is asking for. We just lowered the mill
levy. Why are we going back and asking for another property tax break? And then
I had an opportunity to go. It was early December. I went to a meeting
and it was, you know, in northeast Wichita and I listened to a
grandmother. Yeah, man, it's real. Say
I'm one paycheck away
from just saying, forget it, I'm going to sleep in
my car, I kid you not, because I'm being
priced out of my home. And so I am
significantly concerned about our elders. Those on fixed
income. And those who are on fixed, fixed income. And when I, when I went
back and I reflected on it, there were several people when I knocked their doors,
I mean, widows who are like, I, I'm living on a fixed income
and I don't know what I'm going to do. This is a real concern. It
is, man. And listen, invariably, I'm just going to give you, I'm going to warm
you up right now. I mean, invariably when this comes out, people are going to
making comments. I'm going to get DMs, hundreds of them, because they don't agree
with me on this position on that property tax, listen, property taxes,
this is the mechanism that we use in local government and local schools to fund
local government and school services. If I was inventing this system 100 years
ago, probably not with the mechanism I use, but this is what we have. That's
right. But it has reached a level where it really is providing, in my view,
diminishing returns for a lot of people that are vulnerable and working class families and
those unfixing. It is real. It is real. The people that I hear a lot
from are not some tax zealot conservative Republicans. I'm telling
you, the people I hear from are in Riverside. The people that I hear
from are in northeast Wichita, that, that these are
progressive Democrats that are saying, hey
listen, we have, we have got to get creative. We have reached a point that
when I pass, I'm at an impasse. And it is real. And all I'm asking
for people that disagree with me on this is just to acknowledge it is
real. And get proximate because I was one of those people. I was one of
those people, I will say, you know, and I just owned it. I was,
I was really struggling as why we wanted so much of this
percentage of the sales tax go to property tax relief.
And the reality is, but once you're proximate to those stories, how
do you look a senior and say, figure it out,
Figure it out. I've had a lot of these moments in my time in elected
office to where I walked in with one opinion and then I learned
and I listened and I started to hear about stories and
anecdotes and examples and testimonies. And my opinion may not
have shifted 100% one different direction, but I got more creative in how I
was able to do something because I wanted to make sure that, that I was
honoring the people who these decisions were impacting. So
listen, I, Dalton and Lily would both tell you that I, up until the day
they took the vote, that I was still texting and
saying, hey, consider this. Please consider this. Would you make this adjustment? Please make
This adjustment. The Wichita Ford folks I was, multiple
times I've asked them, make this adjustment, please. This is a better plan. Yeah,
this is the plan. This is the plan. And I,
and this is a city plan. It's, it's not a county led plan.
So I have told all my colleagues at the county, I've said it publicly, I'm
going to be a good partner. And I, and I, I trust the people at
the city of Wichita are going to do what's best for the constituents that they
represent. And I'm supportive of whatever comes from this vote
and I'm excited to get in the room and work with the individuals to make
sure that we are, that we are doing something and these electives doing something that
is going to better our community. So. And now it's in the people's hands. Yep,
it's in the people's hands. And it's incumbent on the Wichita Forward group to now
explain, these are the details. This is the transparency you've been asking for.
This is how this mechanism works. And I also think there's going to be an
opportunity for council members to create resolution, to safeguard and to put some
people at ease too. So I'm really excited. I've kind of got my
popcorn on the side watching it. I'm excited. And
you know, like you said, if this does pass. It will free up roughly
$197 million in the CIP. Now, we won't blink
and, you know, 197 will come available, but that does give us an opportunity
to look at how we uniquely invest. And I trust the experts in our
finance department to help guide us through what that looks like in terms of can
we move certain dollars over to the GO or general operating and,
and what can actually be within the cip. But ultimately,
my commitment is finding that relief for families who are going to be
significantly impacted. And I know Councilmember Hoheisel has been a major
champion from the bench on that. I'm going to be supportive of working with him
and finding that relief and making sure that again,
our families in our, in our city are not feeling the burden. We
do. We do. And this, I think this is a point that I want to
move on to the last point because I want to honor your time and you've
been so gracious with your time. Thank you. Because I know you're busy.
We do, we do things for those that are most vulnerable in our community
to safeguard them. And we have SNAP and we have housing
vouchers in many regards. SNAP covers those that are
150% poverty level. So we do have. And we have
Medicaid. So we do have some things for those that are most vulnerable in our
community. And they. And that's needed, very needed to protect the people that are
most vulnerable. Where I see the people that are struggling the most
are those that are the working class families that are having a hard time. And
there is no support, there is no help for that. So that's why this property
tax relief and that plan does make sense. I would have actually advocated for a
little bit more and makes more sense. Yeah, a lot of people are saying that.
Yeah. But again, it's not my plan. But I
honestly, man, I just think that this is an opportunity for the community to have
a real conversation. That's right. It's a real conversation. Agree or disagree,
I'm hopeful for the conversation. Right. Okay. Joseph, last thing, man.
There's so much. I would, you know, there's things. We'll do this again. Absolutely.
We might do like a one year checkup. Let's do it. Let's do it. Yeah.
You and I are going to talk. More gray hair then or something. You should
see my pictures, man. Yeah, I have. His office has not
been well on my, my aesthetic.
There's so much I would want. I. Dude, I would love to have a real
conversation about things like race in America, race in the city of Wichita.
Because you and I have had conversations about these things, dei man,
conversations like that. And you and I can go round and round about these conversations,
and in a way that I think is productive and to talk
that we don't have time for those times. But I just want you to know,
man, anytime you and I have had conversations, be it
over coffee or in passing, I have really, really enjoyed your
perspective. Same. You and I don't agree on all things, but, you know, we do
agree on there's a civility in the relationship approach. And I'm going to
always listen to learn from you. And you will have a committed partner at the
county for me that is going to sit down and work
on things that impact the people that we are. We are called to represent and
elected to represent. So, last question, man. So you're walking
into this space. How's your heart? Ooh,
that's a good question. I remember telling Lily this, man,
because she. I mean, some people love Lily Wu, some people don't like
Lily Wu right now. That's just. She's the mayor of Wichita, and that just comes
with the territory. Few people can deny
that she works her tail off, man. She said
anything and everything. She is there. I remember about six months in,
because we meet on a monthly basis. And I remember saying,
hey, I'll give you some advice. Take it or leave it. But I. I think
you're going to run yourself dry, man. I think I was like, why don't you
take Sundays off? And she's not married and she has no kids. She's got a
great dog. That's, you know, that's who she takes care of. But she goes, I'm
in this season. I can go this hard because of the season of my life.
And I said, I get it. I totally get it. Totally get it. But
you've got to be able to Sabbath and cease and rest. And I was like,
I'm. Please take Sundays like I can. And she hasn't. She keeps going
and she works hard. I want to tell you, too, because I think you're in
a similar season in your life where you have bandwidth and capacity. I do.
And that's why you ran. And I think your constituents will see that in
you as well. But your heart over
time, we are built for Sabbath. We are built to have a time where we
shut down a little bit, to recalibrate. You can't lead well if you're not
healthy. That's right. Walking into this role is that something
you're thinking about, like your heart and where you're at and what it looks like
to balance the pressure. There is no work life balance. There is none. It doesn't
exist. Yeah. But how are you going to guard your heart? Yep.
Ironically, I've been thinking about this over the last month, and
like I said, none of us live single issue lives. So I am a council
member, and I'm more than that.
And I want to make sure that
I am finding things that bring me joy. I think naturally I will find joy
in the work. I think our mayor finds joy in the work that she's doing.
And so I think a lot of it will be natural. Very similarly. It's
like ministry for me sometimes. Right. It really feels like. And
the reality is, you know.
My heart is in a really good position right now because
of the opportunity to make other people's
lives better. And that's a very. What a privilege it is to be
tired because you've been given the opportunity to make other people's
lives better. That being said, I believe
rest is resistance. And I believe you cannot drink
or pour from an empty cup. And so making sure that I'm
taking the time to just lay on the couch to watch that,
you know, stupid TV show. Sure. And
saying no. Yeah. Unfortunately, no, I won't be able to make
it. And that's a hard thing for me, Ryan. Like, no is a hard thing
for me. But I'm learning, thankfully, because
the most proximate people in my life, who I love, who I want to make
sure is there four years from now, are saying, like, this is
not. This is not going to be sustainable. Right, the pace. Right the
pace. But. But we also have an obligation as public servants to
help the public understand that we are people, too.
Yes. We serve. Signed up to serve. And that doesn't mean
we. We get to run ourselves dry. And that the mental
emotional exhaustion just becomes the new norm for us.
And I've been able to learn from previous
electeds who have taught me that and who would be
very strong advocates for that. Former Commissioner Cruz would be one.
She and I talked about that. Right. Who. Who would tell me, like, don't you
do it to yourself. Yeah. You know, be willing to say no. And so I
hear her in my mind, I hear people like you. In my mind,
I hear people like Councilmember Johnson in my mind. Rest is
resistance. Yeah. So don't be afraid to say no. You got to be healthy to
lead. But. That's right. Thank you, man. Thank you. Wish you the best of luck.
Thank you. I appreciate it. I'll have your help, so I'll be real successful. We'll
do good. All right. Thank you,
Same.