Portions of an expansive new Kansas emergency management law that opened the door to lawsuits challenging local COVID-19 precautions could become invalid after a Johnson County judge said this week they hold “significant constitutional problems.” In an order Tuesday, Johnson County District Judge David Hauber asked Attorney General Derek Schmidt, who helped draft the law and is running for governor, to appear in court as he considers ruling portions of it unconstitutional. The request came in Hauber’s ruling on a lawsuit parents filed against the Shawnee Mission School District seeking to force an end to the district’s mask mandate. The suit used procedures established by Senate Bill 40, passed in March by the Legislature in response to a backlash against state and local measures to combat the pandemic.
Source: KC Star.

The interest rate table above illustrates recent changes in a sample of MBIS “investment grade” yields. Every issuer’s credit is different. For rates that may be applicable to your municipality, contact our Municipal Bond Advisors, Larry Kleeman and Beth Warren.

If Angelus were still a prosperous farm town and had more children than chickens, then maybe the two-story brick schoolhouse would still be a school and not a chicken coop. But it isn’t and it doesn’t. So instead of students, the ground floor of the century-old building is occupied by poultry, goats cavort on the muddy front lawn and there are reports—unconfirmed—of pigs in the gym.
The situation is raising hackles among the 28 residents of Angelus, as well as former students and history buffs elsewhere in northwest Kansas. “It saddens you every time you go by there,” said Bill Bixenman, 89, whose eighth-grade class in Angelus had 13 pupils. “But it is what it is.” The school’s owner, Josh Rumback, acknowledges that his decision to convert school to barn has left some locals “butt sore.” He built a wall that somewhat blocks the view from the gravel road that runs through the center of Angelus. … Local tension over the school’s decay reflects a larger truth: America’s small towns have been shrinking, sometimes into nothingness.
Source: Wall Street Journal.

Maria DeGeer was a woman out of step with her time. She defied the female stereotypes of the late 1800s as a very opinionated person, pursuing causes that further advanced women in society and choosing to take control of her own life. It was those characteristics which brought her to Western Kansas where she founded Scott City and it was those same attributes which saw her leave less than a year later when shoved out of her rightful place by male members of the newly organized town company. It was because of DeGeer’s outspoken nature that she refused to let her role in history be forgotten. One hundred and thirty-five years later, she has been further memorialized with a statue on the very spot where she erected the first cabin that would eventually become Scott City.
Source: Scott County Record.