NO FAIR!

Dogs have sense

of inequity, 4A

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2008 ■ 50 CENTS

MIDTOWN REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT 2-4 WEEKS NEEDED TO CATCH UP

35 suits in developer’s past Defender’s

BY DION LEFLER AND TIM POTTER
The Wichita Eagle

A developer who negotiated a

deal with the city of Wichita that
Grant Gaudreau, identified at
last week’s City Council meeting
as the “principal developer” of
the Renaissance Square project
in central Wichita, also has an
more than $450,000 in back
taxes, according to court records.
In an annual report filed with
the Kansas Secretary of State’s
Office in April, Gaudreau was
Gaudreau said Monday that the
corporation was reorganized last
month and he is now a consultant
working “strictly on a fee basis.”
The current owner of ICDC is
office stops
includes $11 million in public
money has been sued at least 35
times in the last seven years,
mostly for nonpayment of bills
and bounced checks.
outstanding warrant in Butler
County for $12,332 in unpaid
income tax and previously ran a
hotel venture that went bankrupt
owing the city, county and state
identified as a partner in ICDC,
LLC — also known as Inner City
Development Co. — the firm
planning the Renaissance Square
project.
his former partner, Joel
Associates LLC, a north Wichita
real estate firm, Gaudreau said.

Please see GAUDREAU, Page 3A

accepting
new cases
Schools face a new era BY RON SYLVESTER
The Wichita Eagle

The Sedgwick County

Regional Public Defender’s
Office for the first time has
stopped taking new clients
because its caseload is over-
whelming an underfunded
ONLINE
Ron Sylvester,
The Eagle’s
courts and
office with a dwindling staff. legal affairs
Steve Osburn, the chief reporter, broke
public defender of the Wichita this story
office, said Monday that his Monday morn-
office needs from two weeks to ing on his blog,
a month to catch up on its What the
workload, after losing several Judge Ate for
lawyers without the funds he Breakfast. Find
needs to replace them. the blog,
“We have an obligation to dedicated to
offer ethical representation, covering news
and we just can’t keep going from inside
on like we have been,” Osburn Wichita’s
said. “We just had to stop the courts, at
bleeding.” http://blogs
Sedgwick County District .kansas.com
Judge Eric Yost, who presides /courts/.
over the criminal courts
division, said he will use a list
of private attorneys available to receive court-
appointed cases, which they will bill to the state.
“Their volume is about to increase,” Yost said.

Please see DEFENDER, Page 5A

JUSTICES DECLINE TO HEAR CASE

Court shrugs
off challenge Photos by Mike Hutmacher/The Wichita Eagle
Students get off the bus Thursday at L’Ouverture Computer Technology Magnet. L’Ouverture’s percentage of students living in
poverty jumped about 13 percentage points this year as the Wichita school district ended busing for racial integration.

End to busing for integration brings to Obama’s

racial, economic shifts in enrollment citizenship
BY LORI YOUNT
The Wichita Eagle Eagle news services

ABOVE: L’Ouverture kindergarten
teacher Kim Williams said of her
larger class, “Everything takes a lot
longer.” RIGHT: L’Ouverture
kindergarten teacher Pam Ediger
talks with one of her 28 students.
S
ome Wichita schools are experienc-
ing unexpected consequences as
a result of the end of the district
policy to bus students to achieve
integration.
One of the biggest surprises was
the jump in enrollment at
L’Ouverture Computer Technology Magnet
Elementary School, near 15th and Ohio.
With 100 more students at the school than
last year, second-grade teacher Emily Allen
said she spends a lot more time wrangling
straggling students and controlling classes of
up to 29.
“It’s hard to keep addressingæ.æ.æ. the crowd
control,” Allen said. “It takes away from
academics.”
L’Ouverture and other schools within the
Assigned Attendance Area — where black
students were bused out and white students
bused in under the former busing policy —
have seen dramatic shifts in racial and
socioeconomic makeup of students this year.
A committee of residents and a new district
director are beginning to respond to the
emerging consequences of the end of the
37-year-old busing policy.
School choices
Official enrollment figures for the district
show most of the black students bused for
Please see SCHOOLS, Page 3A
WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack
Obama’s January inauguration is still good to go,
after the Supreme Court on Monday declined to
hear a long-shot challenge to his
electoral eligibility.
Without comment, the court
brushed off a lawsuit claiming
Obama didn’t meet the
Constitution’s citizenship require-
ments. The move undercuts but
doesn’t end a legal campaign
that’s gotten far more traction on
the Internet than in the courts.
Justices must still dispose of at Obama
least one other legal challenge to
Obama’s eligibility. Promoted on Web sites and in
the conservative media, the various challenges
differ somewhat in detail but build on common
questions and insinuations about the circumstances
of Obama’s birth.
“Since candidate Obama was born to a Kenyan
Please see OBAMA, Page 4A

A teenage
AT FUNERAL SERVICE, A SURPRISE Alex
Funcheon

Alex’s family finds out there was a survivor wears his

BY ROY WENZL
The Wichita Eagle
After Alex died, the
Funcheons found themselves
wrapped in the good inten-
tions of friends and neighbors.
“Sufficed to say, there are
no doubts in my mind as to if
people care about me or not,
Gloria wrote in her diary.
“But when everyone leaves,
I am immeasurably sad.”
PART 3 OF 7
When Bob complained
bitterly to God about Alex’s
death, it wasn’t a loss of faith.
Bob, knowing his temper and
his failures, had dedicated his
life to Christ because he knew
he was a sinner who fell short
of God’s expectations. One
day when Alex was 13, Karen
had walked out on Bob for a
grandfather’s
World War II
dress
couple of days, taking the
kids, after Alex deftly goaded
went into Kansas prisons to
minister. They did not like
uniform.
His
Bob into slapping him. Christians who judged. His grandfather,
Karen didn’t like Alex’s faith, Bob said, was rooted in Bob
cruel behavior either, or the the belief that a follower of Funcheon Sr.,
way he broke basement Christ reaches out. had been
windows to get back in after This obligation would soon shot three
sneaking out. But she drew bring him face to face a with times fighting
the line at slapping. man he’d never heard about the Germans.
She and Bob took solace in — a man lucky to be alive but He came
an intense faith that led them wishing he was dead. home to a
not only to church but good hero’s
works. Once a month they Please see ALEX, Page 5A welcome.
Courtesy photo

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