District 3 got the perfect attendance trophy… a splash pad… clean celebrity jockstraps… another empty lot where development almost happened… and a councilwoman who keeps loudly describing the exact same problems she was elected to solve.

 Sylvia Ortiz: 21 Years of Showing Up… One Spray Park… Harlem Globetrotters’ Jockstraps… Killing Maverick… and Still Complaining About the Same “Dumpy” Streets

In local government, they say showing up is half the battle.

Sylvia Ortiz has perfected that half.

For the other half — you know, actually fixing the problems she keeps pointing out in East Topeka — the neighborhood is still waiting after twenty-one years.

Since 2005, she’s been the longest-serving member of the Topeka City Council in modern history. Plaques for perfect attendance? Check. Re-elections? Mostly locked in. Committee meetings on the Public Infrastructure Committee? Countless.

Her official bio’s proudest legacy: “Sylvia is very proud of being a major stakeholder in creating the first spray park in Samuel Jackson Park.”

One splash pad from 2011. Kids get misted. Mission accomplished.

But the accomplishments don’t stop there.

In 2023, when the Harlem Globetrotters couldn’t get their dirty uniforms, towels, and jockstraps washed, Councilwoman Ortiz personally loaded it all up and hauled it to the laundromat. True small-town hospitality — fresh drawers for the celebrities.

In 2025, she added another notch: helping kill the Maverik development deal on the old Ramada/Holidome site. A private project ready to clean up blight, bring jobs, and generate tax revenue — approved by the Planning Commission twice — got voted down 9-1 after her emotional testimony about “kids walking to school” in a district she doesn’t even represent. The vacant lot stays vacant. The weeds win.

And throughout it all, she’s been remarkably consistent about what’s wrong in her own District 3.

Her own words, over the years:

• East Topeka streets are “very bad and dumpy.”
• S.E. Doane is “still a dirt street.”
• S.E. 5th from California to Market “needs to be done soon.”
• “East Topeka has been neglected for decades… we are slowly moving forward but have a long way to go.”
• When will our residential streets get fixed like the west side’s?

She says these things in interviews, council meetings, and campaigns — in 2017, 2021, and right up through her 2025 re-election. Sidewalks? Still patchy. Blight and abandoned houses? Still a priority. Economic development and small businesses? Always on the wishlist. Youth and safety? Still needs more investment.

Twenty-one years. One spray park. Globetrotters’ dirty laundry service. Torpedoing a jobs project in another district. And the same “dumpy,” unfinished, neglected streets she’s been complaining about since the day she took office.

She entered politics in 2005 because the previous District 3 representative ignored neighborhood concerns. Fair enough.

But after two decades of her representation, those same concerns are still front and center — in her own public statements. The potholes she called out in 2017 are still rattling cars in 2026. The dirt roads and incomplete sidewalks remain “priorities.” The district is still “neglected,” according to the woman who’s been in charge of voicing its needs longer than anyone else in modern Topeka history.

Half the battle is showing up. The other half is showing results.

District 3 got the perfect attendance trophy… a splash pad… clean celebrity jockstraps… another empty lot where development almost happened… and a councilwoman who keeps loudly describing the exact same problems she was elected to solve.

The potholes? Still undefeated. The vacant lots? Thriving. The complaints? Evergreen.

That’s leadership, Topeka style.