Wichita City Council

Rental electric scooters have the green light in Wichita.

The Wichita City Council unanimously passed a city ordinance and electric scooter pilot program at its meeting Tuesday. The ordinance and pilot program regulate the use of scooters, particularly to address clutter issues that other cities have experienced.

“The advantage that we have is we’re really not out in front on this particular opportunity,” Mayor Jeff Longwell said earlier this month while discussing the pilot program. “Other cities have tried it and seen lots of different problems.”

A date has been set for the closure of Clapp Golf Course, nearly a year after the park board first voted to close it.

Now that the $38 million Advanced Learning Library in downtown Wichita is complete, city leaders are turning their attention to the six neighborhood libraries.

After voting in 2017 to close all but three public pools, the Wichita City Council is now going in a different direction.

Wichita is a step closer to having electric scooters on city streets.

The Wichita City Council endorsed a new electric scooter pilot program at its meeting Tuesday. If the program receives final approval next week, electric scooters could be in downtown Wichita by late summer.

With the candidate filing deadline now passed, the races for several Wichita city council seats are taking shape – including a crowded field for mayor.

The Wichita City Council turned down a proposal Tuesday to build an 80-foot wireless communications tower at the intersection of 18th and Woodland in North Riverside.

The large metal pole would have had a 5-foot lightning rod on top making it even taller. The pole was intended to provide more data to cellular customers in the area.

There was strong neighborhood opposition to the tower.

Former council member Greg Ferris proposed the cell tower. In May 2018, he tried unsuccessfully to get approval to build one in the Riverside area, at 13th and Bitting.

Wichita City Council member Brandon Johnson wants Evergy to replace new metal electric poles in some neighborhoods with wooden ones.

Johnson represents District 1, where many of the transmission poles that top 100 feet were recently installed.

“To see 2.8 miles of neighborhood having these industrial poles … is just unheard of,” Johnson said.

Evergy is the electric company that now oversees the transmission poles. It was formed from a merger of Westar Energy of Topeka and Great Plains Energy of Kansas.

Construction is set to start later this year on a new police station in east Wichita, after the city council approved the project Tuesday.