Sister to Sister

In our last installment about municipal mix-ups, Wichita, Kans., had just received 15 cases of wine from its sister city, Orleans, France. But the wine had to be held in a warehouse because a tax of $10.36 had to be paid, and state law forbade the city to pay taxes on liquor.

Now Wichita has another sister city, another gift and another problem. This time, Cancun, Mexico, sent the city a 15-ft. fiber-glass statue of a Maya rain god. The statue was to adorn the city hall grounds, but officials realized that it was too fragile for the extremes of Kansas weather and too tall to fit inside city hall. It now rests in the basement of city hall while authorities search for a new site.

About that wine. The state legislature, at an estimated cost of about $10,000 in time spent, passed a special act to pay the $10.36 tax. One official who finally drank some of the wine pronounced it "just excellent."

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