Welcome to the Kansas reflector Podcast. I'm Sherman Smith, the editor. As a relative newcomer to the media landscape. We support and collaborate with other non traditional media outlets across Kansas, and Topeka that includes 75 magazine. And our guest today is Chris Mapes, the editor and founder of 785. Recently, we've been looking into the mysterious unraveling of Steve Wade's brain is Topeka city manager, and the worsening crisis involving the city's unsheltered population. Chris, thank you for joining us.
Thanks for having me.
Why don't we start by talking about the work that you do at 785 when this launched? Excellent about yourself? Yeah,
yeah, love to share 785 magazine is to pique his local arts and entertainment publication. We do span a little outside of Topeka. But really, it's focused on that, hence, the name 785. Being our area code. We were founded in 2006, I founded the publication truly out of frustration, I had recently graduated from college, and I didn't feel that I was really connected to the city anymore. You know, I wasn't connected at Washburn when I was in college, we had these things. But you know, as a young professional, I didn't know where to go, I didn't know what to do. And I really wanted to celebrate and explore, you know, the community. So that's how 785 was born, we only feature and allow locally owned businesses to advertise something that we've done. And we stand true one of our ethos for that. But everything really revolves under kind of that umbrella of arts and entertainment, lifestyle, and local flavor. The magazine is now quarterly things have changed a little bit with printing. But we are doing much more online, we have a robust calendar that anybody in the state can actually use on their websites, as well as starting a digital radio station. So things that complement that publication,
this is the go to place in Topeka for just finding out what's going on in the in the city from a Vincent standpoint, because do a lot of I think, personalization of those of bringing, you know, human voices into the spotlight behind what's going on in speaker
correct. And that's something that was really important that this is our community. And so everybody that is a contributor of 785, you know, is a freelance contributor, so that people who are passionate about what they do a few things, you know, on a technical kind of look, we most of the time use first names, we don't use last names in our articles, because these are our neighbors, these are our friends, people that we do work with, in business with. You mentioned in events, one of the things that was a frustration for me, almost 20 years ago was hearing about events after the fact which frankly, does me very little good. And so we always are trying to be ahead and you know, pre look at events, and with the impetus of people getting out and exploring their community and supporting local businesses, asking questions, getting to know people and really, you know, being a champion and love where they live.
I think I use the words, non traditional media and my my intro actually don't know what that means. It's a phrase that gets applied to us sometimes. You guys have been around 17 years now. Yeah. Does that make you traditional media at this point?
You know, it's interesting. Some someone who had said something about, I'm gonna mess this up. Now, what is it? If your record of time, you know, the
paper of record, or paper or paper of record? Thank
you. Someone had mentioned, what you're not a paper for tonight that, well, we've been around for 17 years, we're in archives, we're in the library work, you know, we're all of these places, you
know, what? And who is the paper of record this? Who does it better?
I don't know. And then you know, so when you say this, you know, what do you say non traditional? You know, I don't know, I don't know exactly what that means. I do know that. For me. We're absolutely traditional media, when you look at it as a concept of that we are connecting people in places we are being the voice or telling the story that there is to share. And for us for 785 umbrella, we tried to look at that and really a kind of a positive, you know, we be honest and fair, but a positive, you know, stance. So, for example, we're talking about arts and entertainment, if it's a bad restaurant, we just don't write about it typically, you know, with print is expensive, and there's only so many pages, so it's kind of a stamp of approval for us. But with that being said, you know, some work that we'll talk about, that we've done together, when there are questions that need to be answered or we don't feel that someone is really asking why, then, you know, we'll step in and we'll ask those questions. Just
gonna say you're known for the arts and entertainment stuff, but there is these occasional hard hitting news reports that you guys do. And it feels to me a little like the classic Rolling Stone model almost where you're, you're focusing on the stuff but there's also that But for Rollingstone would be the national affairs desk here, I guess the Topeka affairs does that just sort of like, by the way, here's something y'all should know, is happening in our community.
Correct. And, you know, for us that, you know, some of these issues, well, all of these issues affect people in our community, which affects our, you know, what we do? And so, yes, we're arts and entertainment, we want you to go out and check out this local music, right, and this event, but if you're having a difficult time at home, if you can't pay your rent, if you there's a homeless issue, you know, if you're up in arms, if you're frustrated about your city, you know, it doesn't matter how many free downtown concerts you do, you're not going to like where you live. And so, the other thing is, is that we always try with 785 to take a concentrated effort to allow those voices maybe that are not heard, right, very often, the smaller stores, right, the the artists that you don't know, that are up and coming. And so that really falls in line sometimes to when we're talking about some of these hard hitting articles or, or, you know, XYZ days, it's because a lot of times it's people that are not being heard, they're frustrated, you know, it wasn't this one little thing, you know, it's this frustration. And finally, we're like, okay, no, why is nobody talking about this? Okay, well, we will
focus to a Kansas reflector on telling stories that are just not being told otherwise. Right. And part of that has to do with the reality of the media landscape. Today, I spent 16 years at the Topeka capital, journalists still have extremely talented people there who are doing amazing work. But I think like everywhere else, there are a lot fewer of them than there were before, right. And so this is a way I think that you guys helped fill this niche. And the community is saying here stories that the newspaper doesn't even have the resources to get to. Right, you can augment that.
And I think sometimes the resources and also who the answer to, you know, so I'm a sole proprietor, I'm the owner, you know, if somebody I started with $1,000, you know, that I borrowed from my mom and, you know, some friends and paid back. I mean, so at the end of the day, I answer to our readers, of course, but that's, uh, there's no certain budget. I mean, you know, we have budgets, obviously. But, you know, I do think there's a little bit of a difference, maybe then some other media and I'm not saying pretending to know what they do. But we don't run advertorials. You know, you can't, you can't pay for our space. We right, well, you know, what we think needs to be shared.
So one of the stories that they've done recently has been looking at the low barrier housing, I think it's called low, very low barrier, shelter, shelter. And this has been, you know, it's one of the things to pick is not alone in looking at this, right. The unsheltered population in Topeka, and a lot of places is a crisis, and nobody seems to know what to do. Right. And this overlaps a little with some of the reporting that we've done on the city manager, the former city manager now Stephen Wade, and that he had a great idea of, of using low barrier shelters to, to address part of the talk about what what the concept is, and why Topeka was so important. And
so low barrier shelter is a shelter, where there are not stipulations for somebody to, you know, to receive shelter. So you can be drunk, you can, you know, not have an ID, right. Different things, there are these barriers in a traditional shelter, as they should be right for safety issues. Also, you know, depending on where, you know, the shelter is, whatever they have, you know, they can run their business this way. But
this, there's a school of thought that says, if you just give people this first putt, that's correct, they'll take it upon themselves to do the next.
That's correct. And that kind of Yeah, kind of goes in line of that housing first, this idea, right, you have to be sheltered, you know, to feel safe to even take steps for like, I can't talk about any kind of addiction thing. If I don't know where I'm blaming my head tonight, you know, that this idea? So I think that on the surface. Sure. It sounds like a great, you know, idea. And a lot of communities have done it. What I found, though, and what kind of prompted me was that this conversation has been kind of going here in Topeka. We have one game in town, if you will, one shelter should say game, but when shelter speaker rescue mission, it is a religious based, you know, organization, they do great work, they've been doing great work for years. And I do not negate that. However, you know, just about four years ago, they had a clarion call to action, if you will, needing funds that, you know, they were not going to I mean, I don't want to say threatened but it felt a little bit threatening. If there was not money that started to come in. They were not going to be able to continue to operate. So where are these hundreds if you will, people you know, going to go so for me then all of a sudden, they're in this conversation about taking on an additional a new type of support system of this low barrier shelter. And that was a little alarming to me because I thought
there's some unanswered questions about whether they can handle the workload that they have already.
Correct. Correct. The other thing was, is that city officials, so the mayor of Topeka, the former city manager, went and traveled to Colorado, they went to a couple places, one being Colorado Springs, and the report that they gave, you know, kind of came back with was, was glowing, you know, that this is, you know, done really well that they're homeless population is down, you know, extender, you know, everything you want.
They talked about this in a podcast, right? I mean, they they celebrate this is the answer to our problems. Yes, exactly.
And the fact that they won was this partnership between the rescue mission and the city, which was not, which was new, and how great. And I'm not saying that that's bad, either. But how great that was, and that this was really going to be the answer.
Historically, they have not received any city funding. That is correct. And
I would go further to say, and they stated in that podcast specific episode, and many others, that their supporters are against taking. So it's not just that they have not ever looked for receiving funds or partnered with government organizations. But in fact, they are opposed to receiving funds. And that was stated in that multiple times where they were talking, they, so to speak, a rescue mission was talking to their constituents, their audience saying, trust us, this really is the time and a good time for us to make partnerships, and we can accept this money, but still do our work, our faith based work, which is a whole other topic, I'm sure what you guys are talking about a little bit too. But what so really, what it boils down to is that the journalist in me says, is that really what they saw? We don't blindly trust? Like, if we don't blindly trust anybody, frankly, like, I'm gonna go try the food myself. I wouldn't you know, nothing is 75 We're gonna try this ourselves and then tell you
they tell us in journalism school, if you're if your mom says she loves you, you need two more sources to check it out.
Absolutely. You do. Right. I love that. Yeah. So there were two business owners who took it upon themselves and traveled to to to pick up business owners that are both are located in the Noto district.
What let's pause for a second to say what nodo is. Oh, so
Noto is the North Topeka arts district. It is a historic downtown to pick up. So it's right on the north side of the bridge on Kansas Avenue. And it was revitalized and developed into an arts district.
And this happened, I think, almost unilaterally as well, without much support from the city, the city had given up on developing this gap. And a lot of small business owners came in and decided we're gonna make this happen.
You never underestimate the power of, you know, a group of, you know, people right, collective, that's, that is exactly correct. And so there is there's so much pride in that area. And also, I mean, truly people's livelihoods, you know, they've given everything, some people live down there, their families, you know, and owned businesses. I mean, this is, it's more than just, you know, owning a business and stuff. I mean, that just really are invested in this area,
there are shops, restaurants, thrift store kind of thing. Exactly. And it's right up against the rescue mission and the river.
That is correct. And so the rescue mission is on the south side of it. And they were there, you know, prior and they've had good relations, and they talked in, and they're good neighbors as well. One of the things that occurred is that that maybe there were a lot of little small things that kind of, you know, were the push for this article, but the rescue mission was gifted a church that was located on the north side of the district. So what would happen is they would be sandwiched, literally sandwiched between the current rescue mission. And then now this new historic church that has been donated, and it was told, or expressed with, you know, pretty grave concerns that this was going to be the location for a low barrier shelter. So when that came to be, and then that thought came to be, I reached out to the Topeka rescue mission, and I asked them, which they told me that there was no conversation being had between them and the city about low barrier shelters. And that was kind of it and then sent a press release out Friday evening about the church. So that was a little kind of alarming to me because I thought, Well, what do you mean no conversations go, but I've had a lot of these sources that have said there are conversations and I can go back and she Are you talking about the car? You know about this? What do you mean? There's no conversation. So again, so then these two business owners took it upon themselves, they traveled down to Colorado Springs, they didn't talk to the mayor, they didn't talk to their GTP, you know, their chamber, you know, they're they talked to business owners in the district, and they talked to servers, and just people that were shopping, etc. And what they found was drastically different. What they found was many people who were upset, they felt that, that the low barrier shelter had, in fact, increased the foot traffic in the area, and not foot traffic, that that was desirable, that it was almost like a beacon your foot out there. They felt embarrassed. They believed the narrative that they were told, from that particular mission in their city, they believed that the influx of money would be helpful. They thought they were doing something good. And they realize now that it wasn't the best choice, and they wish that they would have fought for a seat at the table. That was the over overwhelming. And then the pictures, tell the pictures tell the story.
There's a catch 22 here where, you know, I think people want to address this problem in a humane way to say we need to address the unsheltered population. There's research that supports the idea that you know, housing first or low barrier shelter is a positive thing or can be a positive thing when you wrap it around. A lot of services for mental health, substance abuse, you know, other types of services that are provided there counseling therapy, the catch 22 Is that when you provide all of these services, and a no questions asks place to go, you become a magnet for unsheltered people from a broad reach. And we've heard from people in Noto business owners there who have talked to people on the streets who are from Houston, we're elsewhere say we found out that speakers doing really good things. And so we somebody put us on a bus and we came here,
correct. I think also something to note is back to what I love it where it is, your mom loves you, you need two more sources was that the feeling was that the city and Topeka rescue mission were making these decisions with allocating a chunk of money potentially to this. And they asked their mom, right? They didn't ask other sorts. So there's no data, where's the data? Where where are the buried seats at the table? And so the process is flawed.
Do you think that's the city leaders here? We're like, intentionally only going to people who are going to reinforce their opinions really? Third, were they trying to pull one over on Topeka? Or are they just so blinded by this idea?
I think that they say kind of go back to for here in Topeka. The only game in town, if you will. It's just what they know. Right? So the Topeka rescue mission, again, they do good work and handle it. So this must be the person that knows that they must be the only experts. And we said we ask them, and we'll figure it out together. So I don't know that it was malicious. And you know, with intent, or laziness, maybe perhaps, honestly, if I had to sum it up, just not asking enough questions, and I don't think that's true of all. But I think that, you know, some just kind of said, Okay, well, you told me that this was your experience. Okay. It must be.
So there's a meeting in noto, a couple of weeks ago, that were this kind of all came to a head frustration, and it happened about a week or so after the city council had had fired the city manager, Steve Wade, and there are a lot of business owners who are standing up expressing their frustration that the city wasn't including them at the table. You were part of the lineup, the Knights Correct. What was this meeting about? Why were you were Why were you part of
it? Yeah, absolutely. So the Coalition for a better to pika was formed by business owners. And then in that Noto district, when all of this kind of started coming out, you had mentioned when no toe was born, if you will, through 12 years, 10 years ago, 12 years ago, I'd have to check my date, something like that. But I remember and what I started off with is I stood in the same place, serendipity was the location, which is a an event space here in Novato. When I stood in that place, it was empty. And there were folding chairs at the time, but it was filled with people who wanted to build this arts district. And I remember standing up and saying that I n 785 magazine would always support that support these local people doing it. So when their voice needs to be heard, and they asked me if I could be part of that, you know, unequivocally I, you know, say yes, of course. The other reason why I think that I was asked to be You know, at the table or poor part of this was because in 2019, I wrote, we've written several articles, but I personally wrote an editorial about some questionable business practices of the Topeka rescue mission that I raised. And it was interesting, because from that article, I received on a personal note, a lot of phone calls and text messages. People who were shocked, we were wondering if my, my tires are gonna be, I mean, just slashed and things. I never thought of it, you know,
but I clear you were not sexually harassed or retaliated against Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, sorry.
I didn't mean to. Yeah, I didn't mean to imply that or anything now. But that they were shocked that I would write an article that questioned such a large nonprofit organization, and Topeka, that's doing thing, you know, doing great things. Right. But I did ask some questions. The questions I asked at that time, were about stagnant board leadership, I questioned about purchase of real estate properties and selling about arm's length, Gino transactions that were occurring, and also some financial, there was a Federal Audit, right? That's correct. And the Federal Audit, they didn't offer affordable health care to employees. And so they were fined ultimately, you know, with that. And then, finally, the fact of how when one organization does in their words, clarity on, you know, call to action, if you will, stating they're going to close, you know, close their doors, if money has raised, how that impacts so many other organizations that are also trying to do good work? And are they good partners, overall? So
so there's a lot of, I think, fury among the the business owners down there who say like the rescue mission can't be the only part of the solution to this problem. I don't know that I can recall another meeting like this. I think there were about 100 people there. Yeah, a lot of people were just really angry with the city. And one of the recurring themes, I think, was just we need to, we need to be part of the conversation about how we fix this problem. Why aren't we at the table working with you on these solutions? Correct. Business owners say when, you know, when there's a storm that comes up, I welcome people into my business, so they can take shelter. There was a woman who talked about giving a dog bone to every dog that passes by, right. They, they are deeply invested in this issue, their livelihoods depend on it. Right. So they should be part of the conversation.
Correct. And also, I believe that it comes down to accountability and transparency, as well as accountability as to where funds are going. And so, you know, we don't just keep repeating and trying, you know, it was not we're not playing darts. We're not just throwing, you know, at the, you know, a dartboard here that that money is being spent, you know, in a way, and I'm not saying that, you know, maybe things won't work, but at least that there was a collective transparent conversation. And as a whole, you could get behind this being the try a few Well,
there's a council woman who represents the district. And she stood up at the meeting and said, you know, look, I'm sad that Steve Wade has gone as the city manager, but his relationship with the rescue mission was unprofessional. Yes. And I was at this meeting to write about what I could have what had happened in Steve Wade's final days. He was under intense scrutiny over the homeless population, some undisclosed personnel issues that were happening at City Hall. And this is his responding to community outreach over police shootings. And so he was under intense scrutiny clearly wasn't handling it well, based on some personal messages that I was able to obtain through the city and an open records request. And part of those messages involves his communications with lavanda Broyles is the executive director of the rescue mission. So what we know now is that he was meeting with with her and other rescue mission officials on a weekly basis for six weeks or more, perhaps trying to work out this maneuver to funnel over 300,000 and the city budget directly to the rescue mission to cover for a federal grant that the rescue mission had hoped to get but didn't correct. There were text messages between the two of them over this money and how to best sell this to the City Council. She helped actually revise the resolution he was going to present to the city council, and it was only then several weeks after that was finalized that he actually emailed city council members said, hey, I want to know if you guys are gonna get on board with this any plans actually presented at the meeting where he ended up going on a leave of absence? Yeah, right. There was. There were also text messages that showed that as he was talking to Amanda Broyles, he promised her a million dollars in the budget in the upcoming year for the rescue mission, specifically, these two acts would have been unprecedented, I believe, because they've never received local taxpayer dollars. Absolutely. And there's no accounting for how this money is going to be spent. Correct.
Yeah, so you, I mean, you nailed them heads. So for, for me from from, you know, with my umbrella with my 785 hat on, it's where you hear these rumors, and these frustrations and these allocations, and you don't move on them, but after so many, right, then you start to go, Huh, right. You know, everybody's saying that the sky is blue today, is it? You know, you start? And so that was really what was happening is that there were what was that we were asked for a million dollars, we're putting the budget, this is happening, you know, low barrier, they received this building, you know, etc. And so that's where
this unilateral communication, yeah, as a city manager in the rescue rack to rack mode are not involved.
They're not involved now. And furthermore, city council, you know, so this city council member that represents that district has really been struggling for three and a half years while some struggling fighting been vocal, wanting, you know, pushing. And so while these conversations are happening here on the other side, is her actually emailing, requesting meetings with Amanda Boyle from the rescue mission, requesting meetings with the city manager, the former city manager, asking what is being done? How can we help excetera and I feel being a little brushed off there. She wasn't at the table for those conversations, or at
the rescue mission was invited to that meeting and nodo and yeah, coin to appear.
That is correct. So she was informed the rescue mission was informed about the meeting before the public was they she replied that it was the evening that they had their board meeting, and so no one would be available. I actually expressed them personally to one of the, in their executive, you know, leadership team, how imperative I thought that personally, I felt that it was that they had some representation. They say they have 120 employees, they have different departments. Personally, I've never been to board meetings that large. And so I felt that it was really, if it was important to them to be transparent and open to communication that somebody should have been there to represent. And there was nobody. So
what do we think about the transparency or surrounding the decision to get rid of Steve? Wait, I mean, we have one council member, cryptically saying there was something unprofessional and other council members saying it was related to some kind of personnel issue. Right? There seems to be this belief, perhaps influenced by the city attorney, that they're just not allowed to talk about it, because it's a personnel issue. Yeah. I've never heard of a, an elected body of officials who can't say publicly, here's why we just made the action we did.
Yes. And in contrast, in my research, I have found the opposite and other, you know, another municipals, as well, as we've discussed that some investigative reports, for example, and you've reported on that, you know, with St. Francis ministries.
That's right. Chris McHugh is a private attorney was hired to do an investigative reports like the report came out, the city hired the same person to do the similar kind of reports and their stances, they're not allowed to release it.
And I I respectfully, strongly disagree, I think that the report should absolutely be released, of course, there will black lines over you know, and you have to kind of read through those lines. But I do believe that, that is the public's right to have that.
At a minimum, you would think that the city council and the city attorney could work together to craft some sort of written statement that just says, Here are the facts and what we did and why we did it. And that's what we're going to, you know, something like that, even at a minimum would be helpful. I have to draw the conclusion that by shielding themselves from by shielding this from the public, they are shielding themselves from scrutiny. What did people know when did they know what is going on here?
i That would be That's an assumption that I made as well, to me seems to be self serving when you're not when you're not transparent. And you know, I think that kind of going into again, with our different media's and working together and that's, you know, where where we come in right is to Try to help
unravel that to continue to work with you are telling us we need to wrap it up. Yeah, she's closing
us down.
Thank you for joining us on the podcast.
Oh, it was so much fun. Thank you very much and thank you for all the work that you do.
