The city of Wichita has filed a petition in district court to challenge the validity of a petition submitted by the “Save Century II” citizens group.
In a statement, the city said it supports the petition process and in giving citizens the right to express their opinion with a vote, but the city is claiming that the petition is legally invalid and does not serve the citizen’s best interests.
The statement said the city council is supportive of continuing dialogue with all residents about the future of the Century II Convention Center. The council wants to hear from as many interested residents as possible before moving ahead with any definitive plans, and the city is committed to a citizen advisory vote to help guide future decisions.
The “Save Century II” group presented petitions with around 17,000 signatures to city hall earlier this month. The petitions were circulated in response to a development plan announced by the Riverfront Legacy committee that called for Century II to be torn down. The petitions are calling for a policy that would call for a vote of the people before any decisions are made to demolish or replace any historic buildings, including Century II and the former downtown library.
The city is arguing two main points in its petition to the district court:
1. The proposed ordinance is overly broad, unconstitutionally vague and fails to define or provide any criteria to define what buildings are “of historical importance or architectural significance”. The proposed ordinance would create an impractical precedent for the current and future City Councils as, in effect, they would be required to submit to public vote any renovation, lease, construction or general maintenance of its public buildings. As the petition is written, any building could be determined to be of historical importance or architectural significance. The petition is invalid because it requires the City to call for a binding election before any city-owned building with historical significance is significantly remolded or demolished. State law does not permit the City to call for binding elections for these types of decisions.
2. The Save Century II petition would demand an administrative ordinance and thus not be authorized to be adopted by the referendum policy as defined in the Kansas referendum process. An administrative ordinance is one that seeks to allow citizens to make governmental decisions which require specialized training, experience in municipal government and knowledge of the fiscal affairs of the City. Such ordinances are improper as they seek to infringe of areas of governmental control which have been determined by the legislature should be addressed by the city governing body and not the electorate.
