On Oct. 11 Mayor Jeff Longwell spoke to government and social studies students during fourth block. He spoke to students about his job and the new improvements taking place in Wichita.

Longwell said there has been a growth of investments and momentum in the Wichita creating room for additions to the city. Lawrence-Dumont stadium will be completely torn down and replaced with a new 80 million dollar stadium to hold a new Triple-A baseball team. The city is also building six new swimming pools and seven splash pads.

“We are looking forward to growing the core of our city and our downtown,” Longwell said.

Security and police enforcement has grown and has gained 32 officers and Longwell said he plans to continue to grow the police force by seventy-five percent in the next two to three years.

“It’s our number one priority to keep our community safe,” Longwell said.

Longwell said he believes the involvement of Wichita’s youth is important to the future of the city. He said there are several programs in place such as the Youth Employment Project and the Mayor’s Youth Council.

“We need to keep our youth in our city,” Longwell said.

The Youth Employment Project is a six-week summer course that help teens get jobs in companies such as Spirit Aerosystems. Longwell said 750 teens were put in jobs last summer.

“It finds a place for [teens] to maybe make a mistake and not have to pay a huge dividends for it because we are all going to make mistakes eventually,” Longwell said.

The Mayor’s Youth Council is made up of about 40 students. They select their own officers, city manager, and mayor and they have to opportunity to experience how a city government is ran.

“Every year they can to take on some kind of challenge of some ordinance that they would like to change,” Longwell said. “At the end of the day that’s what we’re doing as a government body. We set the rules that everyone has to live by.”