During the meeting’s public-comment portion, Mister Lubal told the commission he was concerned about a Wichita City Council agenda item that would change ordinances related to housing enforcement.
Mister Lubal said the package of ordinances—on the Wichita City Council agenda the following week—"strips away property rights" and would move enforcement of certain issues into criminal penalties rather than civil remedies. He said the changes were proposed without adequate community engagement and asked the council to seek broader input through organizations including WAVA South Central Kansas, local realtors, the chamber and district advisory boards.
"Before they go through with such aggressive ordinance changes, you do the community engagement, go out to the public, get both sides of these issues before you just go and pass these redundancies," Mister Lubal said. He said the issues surfaced during his prior service on the Wichita City Council in August 2023 and that requested engagement did not happen then.
A commissioner acknowledged the comment and said the commission would watch the Wichita City Council schedule. The remarks were recorded as public comment; no formal action by the Sedgwick County Commission on Wichita’s ordinances was recorded in the transcript.