From the Alvin and Rosalie Sara Check studio PBS Kansas Presents Kansas Week on this edition of Kansas Week.

Election day is now less than two weeks away, and it's your last chance ever for a mail ballot.

Grace period will discuss also scrutiny from Topeka to Washington, why Kansas universities are under pressure over student fees and a controversial white House proposal.

But first, after hours of emotional testimony about mold and neglect, the Wichita City Council rejects key parts of a housing reform plan aimed at cracking down on bad landlords.

That's what we're talking about right now on Kansas Week.

Hello and welcome to Kansas Week.

I'm Jaren Cirillo.

After hours of emotional public comment.

The Wichita City Council this week rejected two of the most controversial portions of a sweeping housing reform package Tuesday.

The defeated measures would have banned landlords from discriminating against tenants using housing vouchers like section eight, and created a rental registry for landlords with repeat code violations.

Tenants shared stories of mold and bug infestations, and they urged action quickly, while landlords argued the rules were punitive.

Instead of approving those items, the council created a task force to study the issues further, and they postponed a vote on the rest of the housing package for at least 60 days, leaving tenant advocates disappointed but hopeful progress that will still be made.

Here to talk about this and some of the week's other news stories.

We have Republican Sedgwick County Commissioner Stephanie Wise, Democratic State Representative Casey Hobson, and Republican, excuse me, Republican Sedgwick County Commission member Stephanie Wise.

Thank you so much.

And Kate, senior political reporter for LA Pedroza.

I'm all over the place today, right?

I'm all over the place today.

We'll get it together.

Casey, let me start with you on this, housing reform.

The three Democrat members, even though council city council is technically nonpartisan, the three Democrat members who were pushing hard for this and it failed.

These housing reforms because they say, renters have fought for years, decades, even in Wichita, about poor conditions.

Tell me your thoughts about this.

Well, it's.

Look.

Nobody wants to live in any area or any apartment that is affected with mold or any kind of, health, hazardous, you know, environment.

This is a no brainer issue.

I mean, yes, there were some people who are against most of the, landlords were against this particular measure, but nobody would want to either live or eat anywhere that is infected with mold.

So is this was the common sense approach?

I do commend all, the members that are the city council that actually voted to actually have this ordinance.

Those that did not.

Well, again, we need to dialog more to see where we can actually have common ground.

But again, this is something that, it's a no brainer.

Nobody wants to do it.

To live in that in a, an affected area in housing.

So I commend the three council members that voted for the ordinance.

Stephanie Wise, I'll move over to you.

Doesn't the city and the county or county commissioner doesn't the city and the county already have, rules and regulations on livable conditions for housing?

Do you know?

No.

I mean, Sedgwick County isn't the housing authority, and we're not very much involved in that.

So we have some vouchers that we're able to, administer on behalf of the state.

But it is not we're not really involved.

Now, my opinion would be, that it felt like it was just a swoop in.

And, you know, you're you're really making it difficult for the good landlords out there.

There's, there are good landlords and there are good tenants, and there's also bad of each.

Right.

And so I like the approach of taking it back.

They, they need to involve the rest of the community in that conversation.

I feel like it snuck up on everyone and that's why the people showed up.

You know, the council members, we're probably a little bit nervous about which way they were going to lean.

And I think it was because it didn't feel like it was well discussed.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Yeah, but I disagree with you.

This has been a non-issue for a very long time.

And Johnson has been fighting for this.

Yeah, for a long time.

So but but news has been reporting in depth for over two years now.

And nothing has changed in that time period.

I mean, at one point I asked you, Casey, in our special that won an Emmy, does somebody have to die for something to change?

And nothing has changed since then.

There was at one point even a proposed legal change at the state level, state level that never made it out of committee.

And the concern raised time and time again was what about property rights?

Well, and yes, there is a balance between property rights and tenant rights, but there's a difference when you're talking about the right to health.

That's correct.

I mean, one of the enshrined concepts in our founding documents is the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Well, you can't have life when you got black mold in the house.

That's right.

So that's why I disagreed with the, the commissioner Scott.

Republicans.

So arguing playing devil's advocate here, Republicans tend to argue that the more regulations you put on, the more rents are going to rise and hurt these people, these low income people that are largely targeted at these these problems.

True.

False.

Or I mean, but how does it help them to put them in a house that's infected with bugs?

And yeah, I just think there has to be a better way to, you know, there's there's really bad landlords out there.

How do we how do we address that while not layering on the regulations for the people out there that are doing a great job and perhaps have tenants that maybe cause some of the issues, right.

I mean, there's there's both sides.

And I think that that's why taking a more balanced approach of, okay, maybe we don't just sweep in with it.

We need to talk.

We need to talk through it.

And nobody deserves to live in those conditions.

Nobody does.

But when we apply one solution so broadly, we're not just taking care of what the problem is.

We're impacting people that didn't cause a problem to begin with.

I think, a prediction here, and who am I to say?

But I think the only part of this measure that will pass is the registry.

The landlord.

Reg, I think everything else is going to die, and the registry will of bad landlords is very likely going to be the only part of this that will pass, which would be a drop in the bucket.

What's really needed is based on the reporting that we have done our health codes.

Yeah.

If there were simple basic health codes with an agency and trying to enforce them, what we found as we were digging into this is, you know what, you go to the Sedgwick County Health Department.

Well, no.

That's kids.

You.

No, that's not what we're not in charge of that.

That's not our job.

And you go in this circle.

Oh, it must be.

There's people over there.

No.

Maybe it's those people.

There's nobody in trying to deal with it.

There's no specific housing code dealing with the health impacts of bad housing.

Yeah, well, no, I had one less.

Sure.

Go ahead.

So there is a joint board between city and county that this would land in, right.

There's three vacant seats and there's three vacant seats.

Our city of Wichita appointed seats.

So I think that when you have this come to the council, we need to make sure.

Do we have the people in the seats that are going to weigh in that have been weighing in, or are we leaving vacancies?

I mean, I just I think that we need to be better prepared.

I don't think we have enforcement.

We don't have the capability to enforce these regulations.

So it seemed early to pass something so quickly.

And I think that's where I'm getting at, where, you know, we can I think everyone agrees there's a problem.

I think landlords probably agree that the good landlords want to to not have that stigma.

Right.

Absolutely.

So anyway.

All right, Kansas universities are facing increased scrutiny, both from state lawmakers in Topeka and officials in Washington.

The Kansas Senate Committee on Government Efficiency is raising sharp questions about the dozens of fees that students pay on top of tuition, covering everything from libraries to specific programs that lawmakers are demanding more transparency from the Board of Regents.

They're asking that if fees create surpluses and why costs are rising in the first place.

Meanwhile, Ku Chancellor Doug Girard was called to give feedback to the white House on a controversial proposal tied to federal funding.

That deal offered federal benefits in exchange for major concessions, like a five year tuition freeze, limits on international students, and banning D-I programs.

The deal has been rejected by most universities nationwide as a threat to academic freedom.

Stephanie Wise, any comments on this?

It does seem like that a large portion of universities are strongly against this in the country.

I might have to pass the ball on it.

I don't know that I'm the subject expert, but I do think that what both sides of any, of any of these conversations is that we just want transparency.

So I think if we're asking for transparency, I think that that's not much to ask for.

But I will pass the ball and let someone else speak.

Maybe that's spent more time on that topic.

Casey does the state of Kansas have anything to do with fees that students pay of?

I go to school.

I think they do have they do have some say, but I agree with the commissioner.

Yes, all this boils down to transparency.

Okay.

If that the universities are collecting fees, you know, they should be transparent about it.

And everybody, at least every I can see where, you know, where the money is going.

What the second story, with respect to, you know, the, the, Chancellor, you know, try to strike a deal with the white House.

Look, there's so many universities that come out against it because of academic freedom.

You know, of course, personally, with respect to the changes, with respect to D, I of course, you know, that's an area that, you know, we need to we need to embrace, you know, you know, our diversity, equity and inclusion, we need to embrace it and not to move away from it.

You know, I know the white House is, you know, trying to do away with it.

You know, I think is a huge mistake.

Understood it.

Interesting that the white House is asking them to stop or lower the number of international students they have at a time when many places are seeing falling or stagnant enrollment and they're propping up the finances with international students, you lose those international students, they lose that funding that they need, which means they're going to have to charge American students, in-state students, more money to get that college education.

So that I kind of I'm like, okay, financially, I'm not sure that makes a whole lot of sense.

As far as college fees, the state is involved.

The Board of Regents is the one who approves the college fees.

They had a whole hearing on this to train members of the, special Committee on, Senate Committee on Government Oversight this week.

And they didn't have a whole lot of understanding of how this works.

And they have various people kind of training them on that.

The state Board of Regents does have final say.

Some of those college fees are levied by the university.

They're for things like activity fees, which would be you know, paying for the student rec center and student health center and that sort of stuff.

Others are levied by the student government for various student activities that they offer as well.

So but there are still a lot of questions about do we have two people charging for the same thing, that sort of stuff.

And so I imagine that we are going to hear quite a bit more about that as we get into the legislative session.

And, you know, it's interesting being a former council member myself, not only are fees rising that students have to pay to go to school, but, something that I was really uneducated on before I was ever on city council in Wichita was that government funding is also rising for these schools.

So not only are they raising their fees on students for tuition, but they're also getting more government funding from the city of Wichita or Sedgwick County.

Whatever the reason, they're getting more funding from the city and from the county and stuff like that is because they're desperately trying to replace funds that they've been losing over the last 20 to 30 years from the state.

You go back to the 1990s and they were paying the state was paying the majority of tuition for Ku and K state and Pitt State and all of the other regents universities.

They're no longer doing that.

They're now in the minority of the amount that they're paying.

And so you're seeing other agencies, other governments stepping up and putting more money into that pot.

Casey, the state has reduced funding.

We need to put more money into it.

And and she's absolutely right.

We mean, on a state level, we definitely need to continue to fund higher education.

We actually state of Kansas, we actually do a good job in terms of marketing our universities to international world.

And we need to bring in talent, you know, into this place, you know, to utilize our universities.

So I just to go back as well.

Again, we also need transparency as well.

So that's the bottom line.

We'll move on to the next story with the November 4th general election less than two weeks away.

Now, Kansas top election official is urging voters to be prepared.

Secretary of State Scott Schwab is reminding voters that Kansas remains a voter ID state.

He is also highlighting a major change.

This is the final election with a three day grace period for mail in ballots beginning in 2026.

Mail in ballots must arrive by election night.

Citing the current government shutdown, Schwab is urging voters to avoid mailing ballots altogether through the post office and instead use secure county drop boxes.

While acknowledging low turnout is common in local races.

Schwab is reminding voters that these elections have the biggest impact on daily life, and he's urging everyone to review their sample ballots.

You know, that's something we talk about all the time these, these, these elections that draw the least amount of voters.

These are the you know, you can't pick up a phone and call President Trump.

You can't pick up the phone and call Roger Marshall.

You can pick up your phone and call Michael Hazel and Brandon Johnson and Lily Wu.

Hopefully they'll return your phone.

But you know these.

But these are the elections that impact our daily lives the most streets, water, clean air and that it's something that both as a teacher and as a journalist, I have preached for decades.

And I think people really voters especially really started to wake up to that during the pandemic when they realized that what was having the most effect on their life was not President Trump, you know, giving a news conference in DC with his surgeon general showing you how to make a homemade mask.

It was their local health committee, which was really run by their city council or their county county commission level stuff.

And that that really is what was having the most direct impact on their lives.

And that is day in and day out.

You know, I always say that politics runs everything in our lives, whether we want to believe it or not.

The number of people who tell me, oh, politics is boring.

It doesn't affect me.

It affects everything from the roads we drive on to the clothes we wear, the makeup on our faces.

For those of us who wear that, the glasses, everything is impacted by politics at one level or another.

Casey Mail-In ballots.

The topic of the story here.

Or is the state going in the right direction with mail Mail-In ballot?

No.

It with no, it's not because you cannot actually penalize someone who actually had actually voted, but could have actually voted by mail, but placed a ballot in the mail a day before Election Day.

And just because it came after the election deadline, therefore it shouldn't count.

I think it's a is a wrong mistake.

I think that if it gets challenged in court, I think that it would be ruled unconstitutional because it would actually violate the equal protection law under equal protection clause in our Constitution.

Where do we draw the line, though?

I mean, I realize that technology has changed the way we vote completely, and technology is a good thing in some cases.

But where do we draw the line in?

I mailed my ballot, but it got stuck in the mail and it didn't arrive until seven days later.

Bipartisan group of state lawmakers decided the line was three days, and they decided that was ten, 15 years ago because of a problem with the post office delivering mail in ballots appropriately.

Now, shortly before they decided to end that, that three day grace period, they passed another law that says that I, as an individual, cannot collect more than ten Mail-In ballots from friends and family to to take in, which just makes it that much harder for somebody who's housebound to get their Mail-In ballot turned in on time.

They're not supposed to mail it.

Okay, well, maybe my friend at the next door or my granddaughter when she comes to visit or whatever will deliver for me.

Oh, but that person has already done their test.

Now what?

But that brought up Stephanie, that brought up, problems with ballot harvesting, with organized groups, political action committees, gathering people and going to people and telling them to vote this way or one way or the other, and then gathering all those ballots and taking them all at the same time.

And and as someone who now gets to sit and verify those votes, I also get to see the votes that aren't counted because, filling out the forms wrong, signing the wrong, ballot on behalf of their husband and the wife signed the wrong one.

And and so I get to see how many votes don't count.

So I, I would just agree that in-person is always better making an event.

I think that we're trying to be as accommodating as possible with any offering of Mail-In.

But I think that you're right.

Like, what's what's the right number and or what's enough.

Right.

And if there's so much controversy or questions about it, should we eliminate mail in the mail altogether.

And I don't think that we don't want to do that.

Right.

You want everyone to have the opportunity to vote, but we have to have, it's just like parenting rules are good.

You're right.

And enforcement is good and accountability is good.

We need to recognize Election Day.

Everybody knows it's coming every single year.

Plan for it.

We can't, especially this year, depend on our mail service as timely as maybe it once was.

So I would just encourage people to make time, get out and vote.

I'm going to do it in person.

I always do it in person.

I've never mailed in.

I get to see the ones that don't count and it makes me really sad.

Yeah.

Go ahead Casey, quickly.

Well, yeah.

With respect to, you know, should we get rid of, you know, mail in ballots or what about those that actually don't live in the state?

You know, those college students, you know, it's a good place.

That's the problem right there.

You know, I strongly believe that, you know, if you cast your vote on or before Election Day, you know it and you put it into the mail, if it's time stamped, it should be counted.

I mean, yes, it takes, you know, now it takes more than three days to get to to, to the election office, but at least we are actually guaranteeing that your civil liberty, your civil right, is actually, you know, not violated.

Right?

Right.

Kansas water officials are pushing to change a rule that they say is actually incentivizing water waste.

The Department of Agriculture wants to modify how local conservation groups calculate water allotments for landowners.

Right now, a farmers historic water use is the key factor that's leading some officials to say deliberately over pump just to secure a larger allocation.

Later.

The proposed change would remove that metric altogether, instead considering landowners history of conservation, lawmakers will take up the issue in January.

Casey, let me start with you.

There's always been an argument, a fight between Wichita or more urban areas and agricultural areas over water in this state.

That's correct.

And, yeah, we have to, do all that we can on a state level to make sure that, you know, we are protecting, you know, our, you know, water supply here in our state.

That's something that definitely we're going to take a look at, come to next session.

With respect to the water, you know, conservation.

Yeah.

All right.

To our state, if you look at the Ogallala Aquifer, 10 to 15 years, it's what's left.

10 to 15 years because we've over pumped it for so many years.

We are in desperate need of conserving water, of recharging that aquifer.

Somehow, now we've managed to recharge the aqua beds for Equus beds here in the literature area fairly well.

We've got to figure out a way to reproduce that out west.

Some of that may come down to the types of crops you know, that farmers are planting.

You know, move away from the water intensive crops into more, you know, dry, hardy crops that will withstand the drier weather out there, some of that possibly conservation.

But one of the things that they've been doing is they've had these limas local enhanced management areas, which is voluntary group.

They work together.

They consider a number of different things.

They take your five year average and say, okay, this is your five year average.

So this is how much you can have each year, that sort of thing.

And one of the key factors in that is how much the farmer has used historically.

And so the Department of Agriculture, when they're talking to the lawmakers this week was like, you go out to western Kansas, it's not harvest season, it's not planting season.

And you'll see them out there with an empty field pumping out water.

And you ask them why.

And they'll say, it's because I've got to keep my at my average use up.

And that's what they're wanting to end.

You know, in their words, it's a waste of water.

Interesting.

It's very interesting water, something that I talk about in my district a lot.

As you know, I have the western side of Sedgwick County, so a lot of the rural areas and a lot of the farming, community.

And, you know, it's something that I as a someone who doesn't like a whole lot of regulation.

It's something that, you know, we need responsibility here, and we need to understand what our water, situation is and how to be, you know, stewards of, this natural resource that we need to protect.

We don't have a whole bunch of streams and and natural water resources to pull from, so we need to be educated.

I think the state is trying to, be more, in front of this, but when they talk about how many applications that they have for different infrastructure grants for the smaller communities, they can't afford it.

Otherwise, the amount of applications to the amount that are actually being able to be served is, is not good.

So I don't know what the fix is there, but there's absolutely a problem to talk about.

And, we need to conserve our water and drought.

How does drought factor into this equation at all?

You know, we just dealt with the city of Wichita with our main source of drinking water, the Cheyney Lake.

Fortunately, it got filled up very quickly.

But my goodness, the percentage I don't think anybody thought that would happen.

But how does drought factor into this or does it at all?

I assume it does factor in because you never know.

Every year is different.

You know, to speak to our climate.

You know, some years we might have drought, some years we don't.

So does it factor in?

I assume he does.

Yeah.

I have been reporting in this state in covering news for a number of a number of years over, over a period of three different decades.

And in that time I've seen three major rounds of drought.

We know in this state, droughts are going to happen.

There's no question about it.

We know they're going to happen.

We have to plan ahead for them now.

All right.

Thousands protested in downtown Wichita on Saturday as part of the nationwide No Kings movement.

Demonstrators marched from the courthouse to Douglas and Broadway expressing opposition to Trump administration policies.

Participants cited a range of concerns, including immigration enforcement and women's rights.

Organizers stated the large turnout indicated that people are paying attention and seeking governmental change.

Tyler, how did you, see this as a street reporter on and did did we see a lot of activity?

Do you think this was bigger than the last protest?

That's why it was actually for Wichita, about the same as we saw on the last no, Kings Day really didn't see much of a change.

And I think that's really emblematic of politics within Kansas.

Most folks who care have already made their decision on where they fall on that political spectrum.

And protests probably not going to change their minds, too much.

But we do know that protests do have an impact on what public policy happens.

Whether you're going to change your neighbor's mind, whether it may end up having some sort of impact on what happens from the government.

I don't know the story.

And we do know that statistically, if you look at history, it does have an impact, even if it's just the government saying, okay, maybe we're going to wait on this a little bit longer and do it behind people's backs or whatever.

But we do know that historically, protests do have an impact on what governments do.

Yeah.

Representative Hobson, first of all, I was actually proud that we actually did, you know, protests did take place because that's America.

You know, we have a right to protest.

We have a right to express our opinions.

Of course, Wichita and other cities here in Kansas participated and were part of a 7 million total, you know, throughout the nation.

I think that, you know, the message is getting out to, you know, the administration, Trump administration that some of the policies are, you know, are not very pleasing at this time, will have any effect, though on on Trump's for knowing who he is.

I don't know, I don't I doubt it, but but then again, it's about us coming out to voice their opinions and voice their opposition, you know, and that's that's something that, you know, as a nation, we should be proud of.

Stephanie Wise, I don't know that I have anything else to add.

It was a good conversation starter with my, almost 14 year old, and we were working downtown, and she got to see some of it.

I didn't drive through the main drag, but, it was a lot of conversation.

It made her really nervous.

And we had to talk through safety and the fact that we everyone got to have a really safe, no Kings Day.

And so I'm proud of that as a Republican, that that was a safe time for people.

And, you know, it did it did seem like there was, Republicans.

You know, the argument is obviously very political, but, from a standpoint of Democrats and Republicans, we are the most divided we I can ever remember in this country at this point in time, certainly the most divided within our lifetimes.

Anybody sitting at this table historically, you know, historically, you have to go back to the to the antebellum years, the 1850s, leading up to the Civil War to find a time when we were this divided as a nation.

Yeah.

And isn't that where the no king's name came from was?

No, not that I don't know at that time or didn't go back to the revolution even further.

Yeah.

One other topic I wanted to bring up.

We have, about a minute left here is the city council races are coming up.

Tyler, I wanted to mention to you that, or see your thoughts on this.

We, there was an Eagle article that came out just this morning about dark money being invested in city council races in Wichita.

This isn't the first time this has happened.

From a political reporter standpoint, what are your thoughts now?

The first time won't be the last time.

Until and unless state and federal law changes.

I don't see those changes happening anytime soon.

The fact of the matter is, is that as journalists, you and I believe that sunshine cures a lot of ills.

We know historically that the more information we have, the fewer hijinx, shall we say, happened behind closed doors.

But state and federal law right now, don't make it.

Don't, allow us to find out some of that information at this point.

All right, that's a wrap for this week.

Thank you to Casey Harbison, Stephanie Wise, and Tyler Pedroza for being here.

I'm Jared Cirillo.

We'll see you next week.

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