The calls in search of a bed come from hospitals in Arkansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Texas. “At this point, we have to kindly decline,” said Chuck Welch, the vice president at Hutchinson Regional Healthcare System. “We can’t help them.” The hospital has its own problems. So do scores of hospitals across the region. The stress of the delta-driven COVID- 19 resurgence has medical facilities across Kansas worn out, overwhelmed and often looking for outside help from nearby states that are just as overrun.
Source: Salina Journal

The child care that Zach and Aubrey Woolf had lined up for their 10-month-old daughter was closing, just a couple of weeks before Aubrey started back at her job with the local school district. The news sent them scrambling. They called over a dozen other child care providers in town and sent messages to 20 more. The Woolfs scoured a statewide database for options in their county. But there were exactly zero openings. “There just seems to be a swarm of people all trying to find open spots for infants, and they’re few and far between,” Zach Woolf said. “There’s no hope.” How dire is the situation in Hays? The Woolfs also posted their pleas to an active Facebook group dedicated to local parents searching for child care options. In this northwest Kansas town of about 21,000 people, that Facebook group has 1,400 members.
Source: CJonline

The water issue is a statewide one, experts underscore, but it is perhaps at its most acute in western Kansas. The region is powered by the Ogallala Aquifer, which spans a half-dozen states and at174,000 square miles is one of the world’s largest aquifers. While its tentacles stretch into south-central Kansas, it is most critical for supporting western Kansas agriculture. That same industry, however, it was is sapping the Ogallala dry. Not all farmers rely on irrigation. But corn, the most commonly grown crop on the high plains, is water intensive and is in large part responsible for up to 5.58 million acre-feet of water per year — the amount necessary to help farmers irrigate their fields. Ever since irrigation began in earnest, the Ogalalla has seen a decline in its groundwater levels. That trend has accelerated in recent years, depleting half the supply in some parts of western Kansas.
Source: Salina Journal

It’s not quite a scene from the 2002 science fiction thriller “Minority Report,” but “predictive crime” methods the Hutchinson Police Department is developing nonetheless appear to be making a notable dent in the city’s felony crime rates. The department has implemented a crime reduction strategy built on police intelligence combined with community engagement since the arrival of Chief Jeffrey Hooper in late 2018. Like a lot of things, the novel coronavirus interrupted those efforts. But as things have reopened and community engagement becomes once more possible, statistical data kept by the department shows a significant impact through the first half of this year. Hooper shared the numbers while reviewing the city’s 2020 crime data.
Source: Hutch News

Citing the need for denser neighborhoods, Lawrence city leaders expressed interest in moving forward with regulations that would prohibit new rural neighborhoods near the city’s boundaries until that land is ready to be added to the city. And they said that would also mean the city should be ready to make those expansions. Lawrence city commissioners got their first look at the proposed subdivision regulations for the city’s urban growth area as part of their meeting Tuesday, and gave planning staff the go-ahead to continue work on the proposal, which will come back for a vote at an upcoming meeting. Some commissioners agreed that the restrictions on rural residential development would put pressure on the city to expand its boundaries to accommodate new neighborhoods.
Source: LJWorld.com

With Shawnee County facing dwindling resources amid a rise in COVID-19 cases, residents are once again under a state of disaster emergency regarding that disease. Shawnee County Commission Chairman Kevin Cook signed a document Thursday putting that in place for seven days after the declaration was issued by Dusty Nichols, the county’s COVID-19 incident commander. … The issuance of Thursday’s declaration puts the state of Kansas on notice that Shawnee County is “maxed out” on available resources for dealing with COVID “from hospital beds to staffing to everything else,” and might ask the state to help meet its needs, Nichols said.
Source: CJonline

Downtown Garden City is getting a new art piece. The Garden City Commission approved public arch project The Arch/El Arco by Armando Minjarez Monarrez for installation at the corner of Eighth Street. and Stevens Avenue at their regular meeting Tuesday. The installation is part of the city’s Eighth Street improvement project and a collaboration between local artists, Garden City Arts and Garden City Downtown Vision. Melissa Gallegos, executive director of Downtown Vision said they were charged sometime last year with helping create this project with Garden City Arts, opening up the process for artists to submit proposals for art installations.
Source: GC Telegram