Hosted by Kansas Leadership Center president and CEO Ed O’Malley, this call features a conversation designed to help further your understanding of the importance of acting experimentally when exercising leadership.

Nancy Johnson, executive director of the Community Resources Council, is an example of one Topekan who celebrates progress while also acknowledging tough realities.

I am a native Kansan, so when asked to write a piece about Topeka, I thought “No problem. I live in eastern Kansas, less than an hour away from Topeka. I can make a few calls and drive there and check it out. The story will practically write itself.”Then I reflected on how little I knew about our state’s Capitol: The western edge of Topeka is a mass of urban sprawl where people from my area go to shop at big-box retailers or eat at fast-casual restaurants. Topeka has a nice zoo and park where I took my sons a few times when they were little. The Kansas Museum of History is excellent, and my family has spent several two-hour periods there exploring the exhibits or taking in special demonstrations. I have visited the Capitol to educate myself and my children and to see the John Steuart Curry murals. I recalled thinking downtown looked empty and run-down. The city has problems with crime. That was about it. I made a couple of phone calls to people who were enthusiastic about Topeka. They exuded positivity and made me want to visit their city.  So on a cold Saturday just before Christmas, I drove my family to Topeka. We ate a meal at the Blind Tiger, a local brewpub, then headed across town to the NOTO Arts District. We walked into a light, airy space and talked to the gallery owners. We bought a Christmas ornament. We rambled through three other galleries. We were greeted kindly in each of them and were surprised at their variety. We wondered why we hadn’t come before.

Then we drove around downtown and the neighborhood around the Capitol. Construction barriers were everywhere, and the Capitol was cloaked in scaffolding. Empty storefronts dominated. My husband mentioned that he would like a cup of coffee, but we found no coffee shop open on a Saturday. We saw houses with sagging porches and peeling paint and boarded-up windows. We noted all the state office buildings and wondered where the workers went for lunch. The neighborhood did not look friendly or even safe for walking through, and even if you ventured out, where would you go?

I realized the people who had told me such wonderful things about Topeka had a long, long road ahead.

I called more people. I talked to seasoned leaders, emerging leaders, and volunteers. I heard about efforts and collaboration on everything from sodium reduction to bike trails, programs for young professionals to arts programs, downtown revitalization to library outreach services. I took two more trips to Topeka. On one of those, I took my younger son to the still-new Kansas Children’s Discovery Center, which he loved, and to the Topeka and Shawnee County Library, which was buzzing with patrons. We drove around the College Hill neighborhood and saw new apartments and the lovely Washburn campus.

All of this gave me hope.

Then I talked to Nancy Johnson, executive director of the Community Resources Council, administrator of Heartland Healthy Neighborhoods, and local expert on social services offerings and utilization. Nancy told me some harsh truths about the poverty levels in Topeka and the difficulty of solving those problems. Despite facing these realities head-on, she managed to sound optimistic about continued progress. I have told and retold some of the anecdotes she related. To say that her deep knowledge of the economic divide in Topeka affected me is an understatement.

Nancy Johnson became the personification of Topeka for me. Like the other leaders I interviewed, she believes in what she does every day. She is fully committed and ready to do what it takes to effect change, to weather setbacks, to celebrate progress no matter how incremental. She remembers those who don’t benefit from conventional economic development. She keeps moving forward, no matter what harsh realities she faces.

I came away from this experience with a new respect for Topeka and the people there who looked around and thought, “We can do better.” I look forward to seeing what they accomplish; the rest of Kansas should be watching and learning and drawing inspiration from their efforts.

Journal writer Sarah Caldwell Hancock grew up on the High Plains of western Kansas, moved to the San Francisco Bay Area after graduating from Kansas State University, then returned to her home state a decade later. She lives in rural Pottawatomie County with her husband and two sons. She profiled Emporia in the Fall 2012 issue of The Journal.

Hosted by Kansas Leadership Center president and CEO Ed O’Malley, this call features a conversation designed to help further your understanding of how to take the temperature when diagnosing the situation to exercise leadership.

Hosted by Kansas Leadership Center president and CEO Ed O’Malley, this call features a conversation designed to help further your understanding of how to navigate the risk associated with exercising leadership.

Energizing Others requires an ability to start where they are. No special guest, just alums asking questions and sharing stories about how to “start where they are.” Find out what it means to start where they are and how faculty, staff and KLC alumni are putting this key leadership principle into action in civic life.

A significant component of Intervening Skillfully is an ability to hold to purpose.  No special guest, just alums asking questions and sharing stories about how to “hold to purpose.”

Stickers being given out to voters in Hope, Kansas, during last fall’s general election. (Photo by Jeff Tuttle)

By Jill Sandberg

Editor’s note: The spring issue of The Journal, a quarterly publication published by the Kansas Leadership Center, will be released in April. The Journal regularly attempts to take a closer look at key state issues in hopes of helping Kansans think more deeply about them. The following online-only Journal story tackles the ongoing issue of participation in local elections and civic affairs.  

On April 2, many Kansans will again exercise their voices by voting in the general election for municipalities and school boards.

Topekans will choose a new mayor and decide who will serve in a majority of its council positions next Tuesday. Citizens in Wichita will decide several competitive races for the Wichita City Council and the Wichita USD 259 Board of Education.

Residents of cities, suburbs and smaller communities throughout the state will also join in deciding their own representatives in city government, on schools boards and to serve on the boards of trustees at community colleges.

But will far too many who could participate, choose not to?

According to V. Kay Curtis, director of public affairs and legal publications for the Kansas Secretary of State’s office, traditionally turnout is significantly lower for the local off-cycle elections than for the November general elections.

One irony of having lower voter turnout in local elections is that voters have far greater sway in determining who represents them locally. Plus, those local officials serving on city councils or commissions, school board and on community college boards of trustees may be making many of the decisions that affect Kansans most directly.

“Local elections are where the most relevant policy decisions by any government are made,” says Chapman Rackaway, associate professor of political science at Fort Hays State University. “Our national media focuses us on Washington, D.C., but federal politics affect less of our daily lives than the local decisions. Those local decisions help determine the quality of our schools, the safety of our neighborhoods, the quality of life in our communities.”

But if local elections matter, then why do voters sometimes ignore them? Rackaway believes people are accustomed to voting in November, not in April.

The scheduling of local elections has been up for debate in the Kansas Legislature this year. Some in Topeka are backing a proposal to hold city and school board elections in conjunction with state office elections in even-numbered years.

Critics of the move, such as the League of Kansas Municipalities, contend that pairing nonpartisan city elections with partisan primaries and general elections “would be inappropriate and confusing for the public.”

They also worry that local candidates and elections, as the league has said, “would be lost in the myriad of statewide and federal elections that are conducted at the same time” and diminish the availability of information about local candidates.

But Rackaway thinks it would be easier to get people to pay attention to local issues during heated national and state races than when “they are not primed to pay attention to politics.”

Regardless of when they are held, though, it appears likely that the outcome of local elections may have an ever-growing impact on the lives of Kansans.

Rackaway notes that the direction of state government is moving to a much smaller delivery system, so voting is going to be ever more important at the local level. More of the responsibility for funding schools may shift to local school boards, likely through property taxes.

So what do you think? What’s the root of less than ideal participation in local elections?

What acts of leadership would it take to encourage more Kansans to vote and more fully engage in local civic affairs each and every day?

This past week I joined 22 young professionals at Rock Springs 4-H Center located in the heart of the Flint Hills. Participants of the Kansas Leadership Center’s Art and Practice 20’s and 30’s program, we are learning and practicing skills to facilitate leadership development with future generations of Kansans.

We gathered for two days to reflect on how to change our habits to consciously take care of ourselves and apply this practice to our purpose.

The practice of reflecting was not challenging, but stopping long enough to do so felt like riding a bike for the first time. Pedal, pedal, pedal, glide, crash, repeat.

As I ate on a worn white plate, marked with a 4-H emblem, memories flooded back from years past; 12 years of 4-H, the beginning of this desire to succeed. The reality of ribbons returned to boxes, symbols of hard work and service still linger in my present reality.

In a society where young professionals are continuously asked to consider what’s next, pausing to think about what’s now, and how to stop the urgent race to the future, was energizing.

Surrounded by talented educators, marketers, advocates, Kansans, all young voices of change, I realized I’m not alone in feeling the pressure to create the perfect résumé and push toward an unknown future we’re tirelessly working to achieve. Along this journey to a “to be determined” destination one steady desire remains: to find and hold to a purpose greater than ourselves, grander than we could possibly imagine today.

This retreat was structured to help us imagine this purpose in a setting removing urgency, distractions and worldly pressures to work toward unrealistic and undesirable definitions of success. Some of us left with a clear picture of the story we’re hopeful to slowly write. Others left with more unanswered questions equipped with journals of blank pages waiting to be filled with dreams of Kansans eager to continue working for the common good in whatever way this will continue to be defined.

Returning from this place of solace to my normal hurried life, I am different. The stream will continue to rush, but I will consciously pause to overlook the path purposefully determining the steps along my journey.  

  Amy Nichols

Kansas Leadership Center Alumni are encouraged to attend a Take Care of Yourself Aligning Purpose and Practice retreat. For more information and to register visit www.kansasleadershipcenter.org/takecare or contact Julia Fabris McBride jfmcbride@kansasleadershipcenter.org, 316-712-4947.