Roeland Park is the latest Johnson County city to ban smoking and all tobacco products in its public parks and other recreational facilities. The city council this week voted 5-2 to approve the ban, which will take effect no sooner than March 31. The ban also pertains to the community and aquatic centers, the sports dome, athletic fields, tennis courts, walking trails, restrooms, spectator and concession areas, and their public grounds, according to council documents. Source: Shawnee Mission Post

Two northeast Johnson County cities appear to have come to a standstill in their efforts to eradicate racist deed restrictions implemented decades ago by developer J.C. Nichols. Nothing more can be easily done, they say, and residents have mixed feelings about what should happen next. The U.S. Supreme Court has found racially restrictive housing covenants — instituted primarily in suburban communities across the U.S. in the middle part of last century — to be unenforceable. In recent years, Roeland Park and Prairie Village have made moves to try to erase language that excludes Blacks, Jews and other racial and ethnic minorities [...]