Government
Under state statute, Wichita is a city of the first class. Since 1917, it has had a council-manager form of government. The city council consists of seven members popularly elected every four years with staggered terms in office. For representative purposes, the city is divided into six districts with one council member elected from each district. The mayor is the seventh council member, elected at large. The council sets policy for the city, enacts laws and ordinances, levies taxes, approves the city budget, and appoints members to citizen commission and advisory boards. The council meets each Tuesday. The city manager is the city’s chief executive, responsible for administering city operations and personnel, submitting the annual city budget, advising the city council, preparing the council’s agenda, and oversight of non-departmental activities.
The Wichita Police Department, established in 1871, is the city’s law enforcement agency. With over 800 employees, including more than 600 commissioned officers, it is the largest law enforcement agency in Kansas.
As the county seat, Wichita is the administrative center of Sedgwick County. The county courthouse is located downtown, and most departments of the county government base their operations in the city.
Wichita lies within Kansas's 4th U.S. Congressional District. For the purposes of representation in the Kansas Legislature, the city is located in the 25th through 31st districts of the Kansas Senate and the 83rd through 100th, 103rd, and 105th districts of the Kansas House of Representatives.
Read more about this topic: Wichita Metropolitan Area
Famous quotes containing the word government:
“But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow, and not lead the character and progress of the citizen; the strongest usurper is quickly got rid of; and they only who build on Ideas, build for eternity; and that the form of government which prevails, is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“The worst enemy of good government is not our ignorant foreign voter, but our educated domestic railroad president, our prominent business man, our leading lawyer.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)