In his February 23 Wichita Eagle opinion piece challenging the 1% sales tax, Walt Chappell bases his brush-aside of the need for a new performing arts center on missing and/or inaccurate claims.

As countless articles in the Eagle and other Wichita media outlets have explored, Century II is physically incapable of facilitating modern-day production logistics. Internal system limitations — including an inadequate loading dock and sound bleed between venues — also constrain performance possibilities there.

Does anyone really need to point out what’s wrong with the notion that Intrust Bank Arena or the Cotillion (located on the west edge of Wichita) are good settings for productions of “La Bohème” or Brahms’ Symphony No. 4 alongside Van Halen concerts and Wichita Thunder games? Or that Wichita arts lovers might regularly hike to Park City to see a show? Programming at the Orpheum, currently entrenched in a major restoration project, focuses on films and touring shows.

Chappell’s stance reflects what feels like a broader belief that the arts in general are extraneous. Regardless of opinions about the tax itself, the tendency to pit one good cause against another is an oft-repeated casualty of the transactional nature of capitalism. Claiming that “homelessness is more worthy than the arts” belies the bigger truth that, in a healthy community, both deserve and should receive adequate funding.

I daresay they both deserve it even more than shareholders seeking higher profits — or the private developers Chappell rightly targets.

—Anne Welsbacher is the performaning arts editor for The SHOUT.

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