Dear Plog: The Pitch news blog — answering made-up readers’ questions since just now

Dear Plog: What’s going on with that guy who asked for small campaign contributions and almost got elected to the Kansas Statehouse? And can I try running for office on the cheap?

You mean Sean Tevis, who raised a whole lot of money in his run for the Kansas House of Representatives. Many of Tevis’ campaign donations were small. In fact, he asked for $8.34 per donor in an awesome online comic strip that he drew himself. He caught the attention of, among other media outlets, the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. And he scared the shit out of his opponent, state Rep. Arlen Siegfreid of Olathe.

He lost the race. But he’s still scaring Kansas Republicans. And to answer your second question, maybe not.

Last week, Rep. Scott Schwab, also of Olathe, introduced House Bill 2244, which would require candidates to report the names and addresses of contributors who give less than $50 to a political campaign (Plog: “Sean Tevis doesn’t like the ‘Sean Tevis Bill,'” Justin Kendall, February 12). But there’s a catch: The candidate has to report the information only if he or she receives more than $1,000 in donations smaller than $50. Some observers have begun calling it the “Sean Tevis Bill” because only one candidate has raised more than a grand in small donations: Sean Tevis.

Not exactly fair, not exactly private. Tevis is calling for the Legislature to dump the $1,000 threshold and require that all candidates report the same information. The only thing better would be capping all political donations at $8.34.

Dear Plog: If I move to southern Johnson County, can I make it back to the mainland?

OK, folks, you may have heard it here first: Johnson County is officially anti-sprawl.

But first, a word from the president. Last week, forward-thinking KC architect Kevin Klinkenberg sent around a link to the C-SPAN video of President Barack Obama‘s town-hall meeting in Fort Myers, Florida (unemployment rate: 10 percent). There, a city councilwoman asked the president about the role of public transportation in fixing the economy (Plog: “Obama proclaims the end of sprawl; Johnson County agrees,” C.J. Janovy, February 13).

“The days where we’re just building sprawl forever, those days are over,” Obama answered.

This proclamation excited people like Klinkenberg.

Meanwhile, Obama’s comments weren’t unwelcome out in sprawl country.

Dean Palos has been director of planning for unincorporated Johnson County for about 20 years. “Since I’ve been here,” he says, “our policy has been to manage growth in a way that discourages sprawl.”

Huh?

The sprawl that he tries to discourage, he explains, is development that “is inefficient, land-consumptive and makes it expensive for the county to provide services to it.” Of the county’s 477 square miles, about 200 square miles are still unincorporated. “What we’re trying to do is preserve as much of the rural character of the unincorporated area as we can.

“For years,” he continues, “our goal has been to encourage development to occur where there is adequate infrastructure to support it — public utilities, roads, as well as public services.”

Palos understands that people look at Johnson County — or Lee’s Summit or the northernmost reaches of Kansas City, Missouri — and see growth that’s clearly “land-consumptive and inefficient.” How a person defines sprawl, he acknowledges, “All depends on where you’re standing.”

From where he’s been standing, Palos has watched his county’s population grow by 10,000 people every year for the last 20 years and its cities continually annex more land. So he welcomes trends such as the “new urbanism,” which combines housing, commercial and office-park businesses so that people can walk to work and the grocery store.

And where public transit meets real demand, it makes a big difference: Palos notes that the Kansas Highway 10 bus to Lawrence transports 900 people every day; at two people per car making that drive, that’s 450 vehicles off the road each day. He also points out that more people are using Johnson County’s extensive trail system, not just for recreation but also to ride their bikes to work.

So here’s the plan: Move to Olathe, take your bicycle and as many people as you can cram into your living space, and let Palos know that you’re ready for more bus lines. Just don’t build a Circuit City, and everybody wins.

Dear Plog: But can I get sick in Kansas?

Sure — just don’t let Kansas Rep. Brenda Landwehr see you sneeze or check a bleeding mole.

House Bill 2285, which passed out of Landwehr’s committee, basically says uninsured Kansans who get treated at a hospital or doctor’s office would have 90 days to pay their bills (Plog: “Mean Kansas law in the making: Pay your medical bills in 90 days or … ,” C.J. Janovy, February 10). After 90 days, the provider would be able to turn a patient’s bill over to the state so that the government could take the money out of the delinquent person’s tax refund.

Thanks, Brenda. Way to chair a committee called “Health and Human Services.”

Looking back, Landwehr’s Wichita constituents might have seen this coming. In 2007, when the Legislature considered providing grade-school girls with a vaccine that would prevent cervical cancer, Landwehr opposed it on the grounds that she didn’t want to encourage promiscuity.

“This is a horrible bill,” says Corrie Edwards, executive director of the Kansas Health Consumer Coalition. “As if people aren’t screwed enough in this economy. The only thing some people have to look forward to is that tax refund, and they want to take that away.”

Checking Landwehr’s campaign contributions, we found lots of donations from insurance companies such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield and Humana; from big pharmaceutical companies Bayer, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer; from hospital interests, including HCA; and medical-industry lobbying groups such as the Kansas Medical Society and the Kansas Pharmacists Association — among many other similar examples.

At least we know who Landwehr really represents.

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