In Wichita, we don’t know who we’re dealing with

Wichita takes a big risk entering in a public-private partnership without knowing its partners.

When entering a public-private partnership, the City of Wichita tells us it vets its partners thoroughly. But this can’t be the case for the partners in the new Wichita baseball stadium and surrounding land.

That’s because we don’t know the identities of all the partners. All we know is that one Lou Schwechheimer is a majority owner. When asked what proportion of the team he owns, the city replied, “Over 50%.” Either the city does not know the number, or is not willing to tell us. ¹ There’s a big difference between owning 51 percent of something and, say, 95 percent.

We are supposed to learn these names at some time. The development agreement passed by the city council on March 19, 2019 holds this:

Section 2.03 Conditions to the Effectiveness of this Agreement. Contemporaneously with the execution of this Agreement, and as a precondition to the effectiveness of this Agreement, to the extent they have not already done so, the Developer will submit the following documents to the City:
…
(c) the identity of the manager of the general partner of the Developer;
(d) a list of the Principals of the Developer

I’ve asked the city when the agreement might be executed and become effective.

Once the city receives the names, will it release them to the public? If we’ve learned anything lately, we know the city withholds information from the public. Even when it does not need to.

Will the list of principals reveal the share of ownership of each of the principals?

Is the list of principals that own the team the same as the owners of the surrounding land the city is selling?

What if we don’t like principals? What if they have unsavory reputations or a poor business and credit history? What do we do then?

—
Notes