January 2001

Jan. 25, 2001
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Jan. 22, 2001)

You still gotta play...

Well, as you might suspect by now, some of us Railsters, the folks who hang out at the Statehouse even when nobody is here in hopes we'll hear the voice of a political muse and actually know what is going to happen next...are confused.

You see, we've been reading the same scare stories you have for the past several weeks.

The Kansas Lottery, it seems, is in the cross-hairs of relatively well-meaning legislators who are hoping to either save us from ourselves, or well, from something.

The common plea is that the Kansas Lottery may be rigged. Maybe. Or, at least, it's shaky enough that at least one guy who works for the lottery and is in charge of security there figured how to make those relatively inexpensive bookmarks--that is, lottery tickets that aren't winners, into winners.

Now, most of us aren't lottery security experts. And so most of us collect more bookmarks than we do winning tickets. On the off-chance that someone did manage to cheat the lottery out of $63,000 on some game, should we all quit playing the lottery until legislators--most of whom don't even buy lottery tickets--figure out whether it's rigged?

Take the tour of last week's legislative leadership press conferences.

How about it, House Minority Leader Jim Garner, D-Coffeyville? Nope. He's suggesting those of us who play go about our lives, playing as we usually do.

And, Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka. What do you suggest?

Oh, just keep playing if you play anyway. If all these security concerns that keep popping up in hearings were really serious, he'd let us know.

Senate President Dave Kerr, R-Hutchinson, says he's never heard of a lottery winner not getting his or her prize, so while he personally doesn't play, there's no reason that we shouldn't, and be confident that if we win, we'll be paid our full prize. That's reassuring.

House Speaker Kent Glasscock, R-Manhattan, says we probably ought to play and we have to play to win, and he believes that not even all the legislative caterwauling about lottery is going to strike us players and voters as negative toward the game. So, if we usually play, we ought to keep trying to become rich beyond dreams of avarice.

Is there a theme here that we ought to be observing? Probably.

The theme is that while there is shock and concern that as a prank, female lottery employees might wear bras atop their heads, it's of little concern to us ticket-buyers.

And, if the new lottery director isn't contrite enough about the bras-on-heads incident, well, it's really no big deal. And, we understand that while the lottery still has casual dress Fridays, "bras on the head Fridays" have been canceled in the name of decorum.

Oh, and that fella who might or might not have stolen $63,000 either as a way to provoke further thought about lottery security or maybe as a way to finally get even on his Sears account, well, that'll all be worked out by the courts and if we happen to win the lottery on a Wednesday or Saturday or even Monday night we're probably not going to worry much about him.

Anyone else thinking that there's more smoke than fire here? That as long as when (or if) we win the lottery and decide to buy the new house and car and a time-share in Branson, we are going to stay up nights worrying about stuff that seems to interest legislators?

Not me.

But, then again, the Legislature isn't done with the business of reauthorizing the Lottery yet. And we haven't been talked out of the sale yet.

Jan. 18, 2001
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Jan. 15, 2001)

Another kind of school choice

Parents in 28 school districts have been given a clear, stark choice for their children, a morality test that they're going to either pass or fail while the rest of the state, smugly, watches.

They've been told, or are in the process of learning, that their school districts, besides being relatively high-cost to operate, also are not turning out very smart kids.

Now, the operational costs are troubling, of course, to state lawmakers and policymakers. Geography and small class size are just two of the reasons for high costs per pupil of small school districts.

But couple high costs with low pupil performance and it is a situation in which the parents in the rest of the state intently watch those 28 districts from the safety of not being a "target district" for consolidation.

It was Senate President Dave Kerr, R-Hutchinson, who Railsters believe correctly identified the proper response to the bombshell report recommending that the state consider the consolidation of dozens of school districts statewide.

Kerr believes that parents in those districts ought to be petitioning their school boards for a solution, which is most likely to close schools and consolidate districts in order to better educate their children/pupils.

There's nothing wrong, of course, with parents wanting to keep their local school buildings in operation. There are salaries paid to teachers and support personnel; there is the annual contract for fuel for the school buses, the chance for those in the district to pick up a little egg money by working in the cafeteria or lunchroom. Those are all spin-off benefits of having a lot of local schools.

Heck, there are probably parents who remember fondly, and have those awkward before-the-prom photographs, when you stand close to your date in rented clothes, wondering how closely to hug your boyfriend or girlfriend without the parents who are taking the photograph getting mad.

But those are memories and the facts are that there are 28 school districts where it not only costs too much to educate the children, but they aren't getting as good an education, or at least performing on standardized tests, as well as pupils in other districts.

You see the test coming? It's one of fond memories vs. the future of a number of Kansas children.

There's only one right answer, of course. The same parents who drive the car or truck an extra year or two, who don't go to Branson for the weekend, who half-sole instead of resole their shoes so they can provide a little extra for their children are now in the gut-wrenching position of having to demand that tremendous changes be made in their lives and lifestyles to get their children a better education.

Not surprisingly, it's going to be the patrons of those 28 districts who are going to have to show courage in offering up their schools for consolidation and go through all the attendant turmoil of sorting out which buildings to keep open, settle on a single superintendent, even debate high school colors and mascots.

There's another list of 76 school districts that are either too small to offer a broad range of courses and electives or too large, meaning that their high schools are just too big for effective interaction with teachers. The districts on that list are anxious, too. But anxious over something far less important than low pupil achievement.

The Legislature's role, if it chooses to take one, will be to pass a bill that authorizes the State Board of Education to process consolidation applications, and to order consolidations where parents aren't willing to volunteer. There aren't a lot of profiles in courage in the Statehouse, so don't look for bills carrying school district names and numbers coming out of here.
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Here are the 28 districts (by name and USD number) with a combination of low pupil performance and high per-pupil spending:

Moscow 209, West Solomon Valley 213, Elkhart 218, Washington 222, Hanston 228, Nes Tre La Go 301, Belle Plaine 357, Chase-Raymond 401, Hillcrest Rural 455, Udall 463, Fowler 225, Triplains 275, Elk Valley 283, Cedar Vale 285, Herndon 317, Eastern Heights 324, Wathena 406, Chetopa 505, Turner-Kansas City 202, Bonner Springs 204, Mankato 278, Pleasanton 344, Oxford 358, Caldwell 360, Marysville 364, Madison-Virgil 386, Neodesha 461 and South Haven 509.

 

Jan. 11, 2001
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Jan. 8, 2001)

Farming's Future?

They didn't have much luck at the polls in either August or November, but the Kansas Family Farm Coalition, a group of farmers who are genuinely miffed at the pace of economic transformation in the agriculture industry, are back at it this legislative session.

Railsters note that the group, which last year sought a wide variety of legislation aimed at evening up the economic power of the giant agribusiness enterprises and the individual farmers from whom they purchased grain and livestock, managed to get just one bill passed through the Kansas Legislature.

That bill, alas, required the labeling of the country of origin of meat products sold in supermarkets in Kansas. Alas, because it turns out that the attorney general's office, which was to perform meat inspections, can't tell whether a pork chop or a flank steak is from somewhere in the USA, or Canada or Mexico or Brazil.

At two meetings last week, in Great Bend and in Manhattan, they got a pep talk from opponents of big agriculture, of production farming on a massive scale, and of giant packing plants.

And there is a good chance that the real culprit for mom-and-pop farms with a handful of cattle and a couple hundred hogs is something so basic, so inevitable, that city folks have a hard time understanding the small farmer crisis that is looming. Real enemy of the small farmer? Mechanical refrigeration. And Railsters and others who watch the Legislature close-up from the Statehouse can't figure a way to turn back time.

Mechanical refrigeration, of course, made it possible to move meat that is no longer walking around to city buyers. Chilling that meat made it possible for packing plants to be built away from large population centers. Not every town needs a stockyards, not every grocery and meat shop in town needs access to live cattle and hogs and chickens. All they need is a road to the loading dock where meat cutters can unload boxes of pre-cut meat, ready for as much or as little hand-processing as will move the meat into supermarket carts.

Oh, and that mechanical refrigeration, of course, also created big local markets for labor in relatively low-population cities, and the feedlot industry and markets for grain fed to cattle and hogs that are moved into the packing plants.

The whole farming industry has changed in the last 70 years, and it appears that independent family farmers haven't kept up. No matter how many placentas are buried in the back yard of a farmstead that has supported families for four or five generations of family farmers, the farm still has to produce a living for its current occupants.

Its hard to figure just what is going to make farmers who have basically done the same sowing and reaping of crops or birthing of cattle and hogs and feeding them to maturity for sale to packing plants suddenly more prosperous through legislation. Now, higher prices for whatever comes off a farm might help, but there is enough supply to keep prices relatively low at the farm gate. That seems to be the way America works.

But there's something else happening here.

It seems that the new generation of farmers, those attending Kansas State University's College of Agriculture, are not much interested in the routine growing of grain and taking it to the nearest elevator, or growing hogs or cattle and taking them to the nearest slaughter facility as their fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers did during their working careers.

"The students we have now are pretty entrepreneurial. They're interested in marketing, in finding ways to improve the product. They're interested in value-added processing, in finding niche markets where there is a demand and where higher prices are available," says Marc Johnson, dean of the KSU College of Agriculture.

Maybe that's the solution for agriculture. There weren't any fresh-faced college students at the Manhattan meeting of the family farm coalition. It was a crowd of interested city folk, and some more-than-middle-aged farmers who were upset that the same things they've done for decades aren't working anymore.

We're not sure just what niche markets will work, but Railsters are betting that the college kids are going to experiment and find out whether there is a market for hogs who answer to the name "Fred" and whether consumers named "Fred" are interested in buying them at a dime a pound more than hogs which don't answer to any name.

And we don't know whether there's a way to market specialty flour grown by farmers wearing sandals to organic purists who also wind up with flour on their toes when they bake those five-pound loaves of bread.

But we figure that the next generation of farmers is going to find out.

Jan. 4, 2001
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Jan. 1, 2001)

Top earthmovers of Kansas

Take hard-core political junkies, and ask them, in an admittedly Republican state, to name the top influential politicians in Kansas, and there's no hanging chads to mess with, no "indication of intent." What you get are just well--reasoned practical assessments of who can actually make the political firmament of Kansas shake when they walk.

Railsters call the winners "earthmovers" because they can make the political complexion of the state change. And, not surprisingly, just two years away from the next gubernatorial election, the earthmovers are uniformly potential strong candidates for either their political party's nomination for the job, or for the office itself.

Hawver's Capitol Report, which reports on the politics and government of Kansas, surveys savvy Statehouse and politics watchers every year, and while the names they cited as Kansas earthmovers this year are familiar, some of the reasons for their selection aren't. The current edition of HCR details the Top 10 Kansas earthmovers, plus names 77 other Kansans who in 2000 shook the Kansas earth and/or have the potential to move some ground in 2001.

Here's the list of the top five and the reasons:

1. U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran, Hays. First District congressman could be GOP gubernatorial nominee if he wants, with strong heavily Republican western Kansas vote. Will speak, please, in any congressional district where you can guarantee a car full of voters. Forehead expanding, but he's got his own teeth, and a measured delivery that draws listeners.

2. Insurance Commissioner Kathleen Sebelius. The Topeka Democrat has a strong 1st District name, and while insurance is pretty dull stuff, health insurance availability and rates aren't. Oh, and neither is the possibility that your health insurer is a division of your credit card company, and maybe your life insurer and the businesses are shooting your weight and blood pressure and cholesterol count around to various divisions to determine whether you get a higher credit limit, or are insurable at all. That's tough stuff that is a little scary, and Sebelius is right in the middle of it. That's a platform if she decides on a race for governor in 2002..

3. House Speaker Kent Glasscock, R-Manhattan. Likable, growing bald spot, but interested in nearly everything, and, for better or worse, in the hot corner in the Legislature. If the Kansas Legislature does anything, Glasscock's fingerprints will be either on, or conspicuously off, of it. Waffly at times, but not for lack of information. He's what they call a "wonk" in polite circles. "If we change the fence laws, what does that do to global warming?" A literal vacuum cleaner for information.

4. Senate President Dave Kerr, R-Hutchinson. Powerful office, he's just very, very bright and determined and purposeful but not chatty or a back-slapper. Expects near-perfection, which means he'll be biting the inside of his cheek quite a bit over the next four years. Gubernatorial bidder? Most think not, but he'll shake the state's government firmament in the Senate, where chances are excellent that he's going to emerge from the next two years of his four years as president with a stronger batting
average than Glasscock.

5. Lt. Gov. Gary Sherrer. Moving quickly to push the No. 2 spot in state government out of the shadows, he's already the economic development point man, and not at all bashful about looking for a little more horsepower in that area. Recent education funding positioning puts him ahead of the liberal-to- moderate GOP crowd for pressing his case in the important education-mesmerized 3rd Congressional District. Think he's Gov. Bill Graves' stalking horse for an education-related tax increase? Don't bet on it, Sherrer's doing this for his own account, observers believe.
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Where's the governor in the pecking order? At a sleepy No. 9 in terms of earth-moving, primarily because he's a lame duck and Kansas politics doesn't waste much sentiment on leaders, even popular leaders, when they're on the downhill side of their service... on the other hand, if Graves, considered a longshot for a G.W. Bush cabinet post, gets the nod from his former fellow governor, ground will be shaking under others on the list...