Wichita voters delivered a clear and unmistakable message when they rejected the proposed 1-cent sales tax — and they delivered it loudly.
With one of the largest voter turnouts in recent city history, nearly 80% of voters said no. That kind of result rarely happens in public policy debates. It wasn’t a narrow coalition that rejected the proposal. Voters across political parties, neighborhoods and demographic groups came together on this one.
I’ll be candid: I opposed the sales tax proposal. But I didn’t start there.
At first, I was intrigued by the idea. I’ve seen how targeted sales taxes can help communities. In Kansas City, for example, the Central City Economic Development sales tax directs investment to neighborhoods east of Troost Avenue. For decades, segregation policies limited where Black residents could live, concentrating them east of that dividing line. The result was generations of disinvestment. Today, that tax helps those neighborhoods recover by funding economic development and revitalization where it’s needed most.
That’s the kind of creative thinking I hoped to see in Wichita.
Instead, the proposal felt like a collection of unrelated projects bundled together in hopes that everyone would find something they liked. Instead of thinking creatively about addressing some of our communities toughest problems and needs.
For example, Wichita is facing real affordable housing challenges, and the proposal’s commitment to addressing them was minimal at best.
I wasn’t concerned about the “regressive” nature of a sales tax. The additional outlay members of our community would pay was estimated at about $50 per year. I believe members of our community would gladly pay that amount for projects they really feel help our community.
But that connection wasn’t there. For many northeast Wichita residents, there simply wasn’t much in the proposal that felt was truly for them.
What was missing was real community input. Even city leaders later acknowledged the problem. Mayor Lily Wu said the proposal was “big, broad and fast” and asked voters for a level of trust many weren’t ready to give.
The campaign itself didn’t help. Even though the advertising campaign that labeled “No” voters as communists was quickly pulled — the damage was too much to overcome.
But the overwhelming defeat of this proposal should not end the conversation about Wichita’s future.
If anything, it should begin a better one — starting in neighborhoods, listening first, and building solutions from the ground up that reflect what Wichita residents actually want and need.
