ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders from communities and counties throughout Western Kansas would travel to Washington D.C. annually representing the region in a congressional delegation to visit with lawmakers about pressing issues.
The meetings were typically planned by Chamber of Commerce leaders in Southwest Kansas’ three largest cities – Liberal, Dodge City and Garden City – with the communities taking turns to plan the event.
The pandemic struck in 2020, and that year, there was no Western Kansas Congressional Delegation, and that also happened to be a year when Liberal leaders were scheduled to plan the trip.
Seward County Administrator April Warden said since local leaders could not travel to the nation’s capital that year, Liberal Chamber Director Rozelle Webb came up with the idea and made arrangements for the delegation to come to Liberal at the Liberal Conference Center.
Warden said many people were able to attend that meeting from organizations across Western Kansas, and one upside to hosting the meeting locally is the cost savings of not sending a large group of people to Washington D.C.
This year, Dodge City leaders were scheduled to plan the event, and Warden said leaders in that community came up with the idea of having the delegation meet in one of the communities one year and in Washington D.C. the next year.
April 25, leaders in many Western Kansas communities made their way to Dodge City for the annual meeting. Warden said originally, U.S. Senator Jerry Moran, U.S. Senator Dr. Roger Marshall and Congressman Tracey Mann were planning to be at the meeting. However, during a dead week for Congress, some important measures came up that required votes from the lawmakers.
“Their staffers were all here to represent the different legislators,” Warden said. “Congressman Mann was the only one who was able to join us for a brief time in person. There was a great turnout. Overall, I think they had 125 people who RSVP’d for the event.”
Warden said leaders from all the communities were able to meet as a group, and leaders from city and county governments were able to meet with staffers from the federal lawmakers’ offices.
Warden said there are both pros and cons to having meetings locally and in Washington D.C.
“More people can attend when it’s local, so you can get more people involved,” she said.
In Seward County, the delegation had representation from the cities of Liberal and Kismet, the county, USD 480, USD 483, the Liberal Chamber of Commerce and Seward County Community College, but Warden did say one taxing entity missing from the meeting – Southwest Medical Center.
“They were not able to join us that day, but we had great representation from Seward County,” she said.
Warden said staff representing Moran, Mann and Marshall in their Dodge City and Garden City offices provided overviews of pending legislation being worked on at the federal level.
“When you go to Washington D.C., you get to meet with the individual staffers who are assigned to specific areas, whether that be transportation, education, health care,” Warden said. “I will say we have had very good response in meeting with all of the legislators, staffers and them getting information back to us and following up with us. The staffers are wonderful to work with.”
As for what was discussed at the delegation meeting, there was a wide variety of topics, including transportation, where Warden said much of that talk centered on essential air service funding.
“That was a positive impact, and we hope they continue to do grants for airport modernization,” she said. “Infrastructure funding is always a need. We have been very fortunate Sen. Moran has worked with us on the Massoni Bridge, as well as a railroad overpass in Liberal.”
Warden said in Liberal and Seward County specifically, there needs to be strategic highway investments.
“That means a four-lane expressway for U.S.-54,” she said. “We talked about the need for those highway funds and additional federal funding. Everyone there has transportation needs, highway needs, road safety issues.”
Area community leaders likewise talked about education, and Warden said much of that discussion focused on support for technical schools, specifically for those schools supporting local industrial needs.
“We were very fortunate we got funding to support the Seward County Community College truck driving program expansion,” she said.
Without representation from SWMC, local input was limited on health care discussions, but Warden said ongoing talk continues about expansion for Medicare and Medicaid, as well as for concerns for rural hospitals.
“There was a lot of talk about how we’re going to support the ongoing rural hospitals,” she said. “There is a need for that basic service, but a lot of it was focusing on Medicaid expansion and workforce needs, staffing needs for our hospitals, a lot of contracts that are still out there for your traveling nurses. While it’s nice to have that, oftentimes, they’re getting paid aggressively to do traveling, but in the long run, that’s hurting some of our smaller health care providers out there.”
Most of the topics talked about at the delegation would affect the economy as a whole, and that made economic concerns a large part of the talk. However, Warden said as a whole, the economy did not receive much attention.
“It was more focused on the cost to provide services, the cost for parts and equipment, the cost involved in upgrading our roads and highway systems for infrastructure, the difficulties in finding workforce and the changes we’re dealing with there, the wages that are needed to support cost of living and those looking for positions and the low unemployment rate most of us have,” she said.
Agriculture is a driving force of the Western Kansas economy, and as such, the topic received much attention at the delegation meeting. Two big topics concerned the federal Farm Bill and water preservation. Warden said the Farm Bill is sitting on hold for now, but updates are needed, and water preservation is an ever-present need.
“Irrigation is very important for agribusiness, but we need responsible irrigation,” she said.
Likewise, Warden said some at the meeting asked what keeps Oklahoma and Texas from putting in wells where there are no restrictions such as done in Kansas.
Other farm discussions included government programs not moving with the rising cost of the economy, and Warden said the Inflation Reduction Act is not trickling down to the ag industry.
A few other topics made their way into the discussions at the delegation meeting including the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Warden explained the agency is essentially designed to help municipalities, and many people misunderstand the purpose of FEMA.
“When it says it’s public support, it means public entities,” she said. “The support out there is for FEMA to make sure cities, counties, and utility companies can continue to provide services. There’s oftentimes a misconception when it says for public support, individuals think it’s to publicly support in time of a disaster or a loss. We are public entities, and FEMA is designed for their public support to make sure we can ensure that to our communities and your municipalities and government agencies are up and running.”
Immigration too was part of the talk in Dodge City, and Warden said much of this centered on the need to have a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Southwest Kansas.
“It’s a serious workforce need,” she said. “The distance and the financial burdens only exacerbate our complete system for obtaining documentation. The high number of immigrant workers out here warrants a regional office with full scale services.”
Warden said permanent solutions are also being sought for that and the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. She said much discussion likewise took part in the areas of child care access and renewable energy investments, and a lot of the latter discussion concerned transmission line investments and creating a productive energy corridor in Western Kansas.
Water resources were brought up too, and much of that talk regarded having different conservation methods for various areas of the state.
“We are ag-based, so it’s important to make sure we have a plan that sustains our agriculture needs but allowing people to be responsible and not necessarily putting in a lot of policy changes gives people the opportunity to be forthcoming and responsible in cutting back for themselves,” Warden said.
Warden said the delegation’s message, including that of Liberal and Seward County, is getting out to the right people.
“We have strong support from Liberal and Seward County agencies,” she said. “They were very open in listening to us. We were given the opportunity to ask questions, express our concerns and thank them for the things they are doing for us.”
Warden said federal leaders have been very proactive in addressing issues with the Massoni Bridge, railroad overpasses and discussions with railroad leaders themselves. She said Sen. Moran himself was helpful in getting a grant for the Seward County Sheriff’s office to obtain a body scanner.
Warden said she feels Mann, Marshall and Moran are going to work for Western Kansas.
“I believe we have to keep having a place at the table and making sure we’re there representing ourselves and keeping us on the map,” she said. “It’s truly very important that we’re present and we’re there and participating.”
In addition to Dodge City, Liberal and Garden City, communities represented at the delegation meeting include Great Bend, Hays, Meade, Hugoton, Ulysses, Colby, Scott City, Jetmore, Greensburg and Larned. Warden said when leaders from a large group of communities can get together, it always proves beneficial.
“Anytime we can get together like that, collaborate and share a message is important, and we were able to do that,” she said.
Overall, Warden said the delegation meeting went well.
“There’s pros and cons in going to Washington D.C. and it being local both ways,” she said. “The unfortunate thing that particular day was there was a storm warning. By the afternoon, everybody had some anxiety about the storm. We had some people leave early due to the storms. Some people skipped out before we had our individual meetings. The dinner was sparsely attended due to people trying to leave before the storms hit.”
