Recent Kansas editorials

The Wichita Eagle, March 5

A child is dead and Kansas officials try to score political points. Unbelievable.

On Friday, Gina Meier-Hummel, secretary of the state Department for Children and Families, met with the family of Evan Brewer.

Evan was the 3-year-old boy whose body was found encased in concrete in his mother’s home in September. Evan’s mother and her boyfriend were later charged with first-degree murder in Evan’s death.

Videos show that Evan was tortured before he died. He was kept nude on a concrete floor with a belt around his neck and his hands tied behind his back.

This happened despite the efforts of Evan’s father, who, for months, suspected his son was being abused. He repeatedly tried to get the Department for Children and Families, police and the court system to protect his son.

The Department for Children and Families trumpeted Meier-Hummel’s visit with the Brewer family on Friday with a news release.

The release indicated the meeting was triggered because a judge had lifted a seal of the department’s records in the file of Evan’s case. It said Meier-Hummel “expressed condolences, listened to the family’s concerns and provided the family its own copy of the file.”

The release boasted about efforts to reform the Department for Children and Families that have taken place since Meier-Hummel was appointed in December.

It quoted Gov. Jeff Colyer as saying, “Accountability and transparency will ultimately transform both our system and our responses to families .”

The news release is nothing but an offensive example of political spin. The story it tells is a distortion of the truth.

That’s because the family of Evan Brewer should have had the records from Evan’s case file long ago. State law has allowances for parents to receive records regarding their children outside traditional Kansas Open Records Act procedures.

Yet the Department for Children and Families refused repeated requests for the records from Evan’s father, Carlo Brewer, according to Shayla Johnston, Carlo Brewer’s cousin, who is also an attorney.

“It’s blatantly obvious that parents have access to their children’s files,” Johnston said.

A judge did place a seal on the records in Evan’s file, but it had nothing to do with Carlo Brewer’s attempt to gain access.

The seal came in response to a Kansas Open Records Act request by The Wichita Eagle/Kansas.com.

It came after an attorney for the Department for Children and Families engineered a hearing on The Eagle’s request without notifying The Eagle of the hearing. As a result, our attorney, Lyndon Vix, had no chance to argue for release of the records.

The only reason a judge lifted a seal on the records was because of extensive legal efforts by Vix.

The Eagle filed its records request on Sept. 11 and finally got the records on March 2.

Meier-Hummel’s department - which supposedly has a new-found spirit of transparency and accountability - did nothing to facilitate the release of the records.

In fact, it only threw up further roadblocks after the judge ordered that the records be released.

The records were initially sealed at the request of the Wichita Police Department, which said release of the records would interfere with its investigation into Evan’s death.

After Evan’s mother and her boyfriend were charged with murder, many details from Evan’s Department for Children and Families case file were made public in an affidavit associated with the criminal case.

Vix, The Eagle’s attorney, then took steps to revive The Eagle’s records request. He worked with a lawyer for the city and with the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office, both of which agreed not to object to the release of the records since charges had been filed and many of the details in Evan’s files were already public.

On Feb. 15, a judge ordered that the records be released.

But, still, The Eagle had to wrestle with the Department for Children and Families to get the records. A department lawyer required The Eagle to file yet another open records request, which Vix did.

The department used delay tactics for 12 days after the judge’s order.

Then on Friday, The Eagle was required to pay $305 for labor and other charges before the department would turn over the records. This, even though the records had already undergone thorough review and been redacted.

And now we know why the Department for Children and Families delayed. It knew what the records would show. It needed time to conduct a plan for damage control.

It’s not a coincidence that Bill Gale, the department’s Wichita regional director of family services, was dismissed on Tuesday, just a few days before the release of the records.

The records show the department was contacted at least eight times with detailed reports of Evan’s abuse but failed to take steps that could have saved his life. They show a department employee failed to pass along information about a new report of abuse to the appropriate people.

That brings us to late Friday afternoon, when Meier-Hummel met with the family of Evan Brewer to graciously offer condolences and deliver Evan’s case file. And Meier-Hummel’s office offered a news release with her and Gov. Colyer bragging of their grand efforts.

Baloney.

Meier-Hummel and Colyer should be ashamed to have used such a situation for their political gain.

They owe Carlo Brewer and the rest of Evan’s family an apology, not just for the state’s failure to protect Evan, but for their blatant attempt at public posturing on Friday.

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The Topeka Capital-Journal, Feb. 28

Editorial: Concerns over state prisons grow with use of county jails

A new prison to be constructed as a replacement for a 150-year-old structure in Lansing that has housed Kansas inmates will contain more beds.

Just barely, however. The changeover, which was approved as part of a 20-year lease agreement the state entered into with CoreCivic, calls for a 2,432-bed facility housed within a 400,544-square foot structure. The state’s largest correctional complex, originally constructed in the 1860s, currently operates with 2,405 beds.

The additional accommodations will be inadequate to ease overcrowding enough to keep the state from housing some prisoners in county jails at an expense that amounts to thousands of dollars per day. The cost last month averaged $3,625 per night and included the use of five jails.

It is estimated that about 80 offenders designated to medium security cells are assigned to county jails each day to alleviate overcrowding in the state system.

Complaints have arisen among prisoners who have claimed they were taken out of programs, such as preparatory work toward a high school equivalency degree, when relocated to county lockups. Liz Rice, director of classification for the Kansas Department of Corrections, expressed surprise regarding such complaints because a goal for programs offered is to help recidivism among inmates by helping them better integrate into society upon release.

A more significant increase in the number of beds at the new Lansing facility would have been optimal. But then, that would have raised the cost of construction even more and created additional problems for a state attempting to solve budget shortfalls.

As it is, the new prison will cost about $362 million through a base-year lease rate of $14.9 million, including an annual 1.94 percent rent escalator clause, according to terms released by CoreCivic, which will provide facility maintenance throughout the 20-year lease term. The state is expected to cover the annual payments through a 46 percent staffing reduction facilitated by the design of the new prison.

Nonetheless, the price of housing inmates outside of the state system is only expected to increase as long as the conviction rate for criminals rises. Even if county jails attempt to provide the best services possible, it stands to reason they can offer fewer programs for inmates who need training and education to avoid the cycle of habitual incarceration.

A thorough evaluation of the prison system in Kansas is needed for lawmakers to gain a firm grasp of issues that affect the safety and welfare of those who are incarcerated, those who are employees with the Kansas Department of Corrections and those who living in freedom outside the prison walls.

Crowded conditions create inhumane conditions that elevate tensions inside prison walls. Prison unrest erupted at state facilities in July and September with riots at El Dorado and Norton, respectively. Double-bunking at both facilities was a contributing factor cited by legislators. In addition, staffing shortages and turnover have become a growing concern.

Among those in positions of authority with KDOC, the superintendent of the state’s juvenile complex in Topeka, Kyle Rohr, was recently reassigned after he was issued a citation on a charge of battery after he allegedly grabbed and shoved a female worker.

When former Gov. Sam Brownback advocated for a new Lansing prison, he mentioned the aged structure and poor design and commented, “It just needs work. The place is crumbling down.?

The same can be asked of the state’s prison system, especially when based on problems that have arisen within the past year and concerns that mount anytime an inmate is transported and housed in a county jail that was not intended for such purposes.

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The Pittsburg Sun, March 1

Budget cut naked censorship

That Kansas has a transparency problem should be obvious to anyone who has been paying attention the last few years.

Herein is the latest example.

Recently the Wichita State University Student Senate, which - like student government statewide - has the power to decide where student fees go, decided last year to cut the WSU student newspaper’s budget by roughly a third. The Sunflower, not unexpectedly, was critical of that decision and asked this year that the budget be restored to prior levels.

According to the Wichita Eagle the student fees committee promptly closed the budget hearing to the public, excluding the media - including the student journalists of the Sunflower - from the meeting, claiming since they were not spending state monies the meeting was not subject to the Kansas Open Meetings Act. (Given that student fees are collected by the university, this is hardly plausible.) They then proceeded to recommend a budget cut of nearly 50 percent - from $105,000 to $55,000.

The committee’s excuse - that they’re trying to bring student fee expenditures for newspapers more in line with other universities - rings hollow.

According to the Eagle, data presented by The Sunflower last week shows, “the paper gets about 54 percent of its annual funding from student fees and the rest from advertising or other sources. The University of Kansas student newspaper gets about 20 percent of its funding from fees; Kansas State, about 55 percent; Pittsburg State, 51 percent; and Emporia State, 81 percent …”

The reality here is that The Sunflower has been very critical of university leaders, questioning such things as why a Kansas Open Records Act request for which the paper paid nearly $600 had nearly a quarter of the pages completely redacted. This is a blatant attempt to shut down criticism of the university and the student senate by cutting the Sunflower’s budget to unsustainable levels.

Student newspapers like The Sunflower provide coverage of university life like no other publication. Their job is to shine a light on the goings on at WSU which would otherwise stay in the dark.

Universities must be a place where ideas can be freely discussed and student papers are key to ensuring the free exchange of ideas.

This is censorship, plain and simple and a disgusting display of naked corruption by the student senate.

We call on university leaders to rein in this blatant attack on freedom of the press and restore funding to the Sunflower forthwith.