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:
“Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)
“A certain secret jealousy of the British Minister is always lurking in the breast of every American Senator, if he is truly democratic; for democracy, rightly understood, is the government of the people, by the people, for the benefit of Senators, and there is always a danger that the British Minister may not understand this political principle as he should.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“If government knew how, I should like to see it check, not multiply, the population. When it reaches its true law of action, every man that is born will be hailed as essential.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)