Arkansas City Commissioners will consider a resolution Tuesday allowing increased tax rebates for homes built in a housing development in north Ark City. If approved, property owners who build in the Compass Point Addition will be eligible for a 90 percent tax rebate of the first $150,000 of the property value for 10 years. Current city practice allows a 75 percent rebate for seven years.
Source: Cowley CourierTraveler
In an effort to offset a shortage of weekend emergency medical staff, the Hoisington City Council recently approved a financial incentive to recruit and retain volunteer technicians. Adequate weekend emergency staffing has been an issue for the city. State law mandates all ambulance services providing emergency care (as defined by the rules and regulations adopted by the Kansas Board of EMS) will offer emergency service 24 hours a day, every day of the year. “The problem of being able to provide weekend technician staff has evolved overtime,” said City Manager Jonathan Mitchell. “Trying to develop a solution to get volunteers to work weekends has been challenging. Volunteers are important but they’re also hard to find, especially good volunteers.”
Source: Great Bend Tribune
Wyatt Johnson and his girlfriend were driving around Lyons on Friday while she reminisced about her hometown. They were wasting time before a wedding rehearsal. In southeast Lyons, near the home of one of her childhood friends, the couple saw an officer at a door and then heard shots ring out. Sgt. Cory Ryan was responding to a call from a man who was mowing the lawn when he was threatened by a neighboring man with a gun at around 3:40 p.m. The officer arrived at the home of the alleged shooter, 40-year-old Adam Hrabik.
Source: KC Star Local News
Soon after Howard Johnson suffered a spinal cord injury in October 2015 while working as a delivery driver for U.S. Food Service, he suffered a financial one: His workers’ compensation award was nearly $47,000 less than what he would have received if the injury had occurred a year earlier. Johnson hurt himself while trying to dislodge a partially frozen trailer door and sought remedy through the Kansas Workers’ Compensation Act — the only option for employees hurt at work. The significant difference in his compensation was the result of a change in the guidelines doctors follow to assess impairment, attorneys said. A new state law adopted the Sixth Edition of American Medical Association Guides, rather than the previous Fourth Edition.
Source: Local News | Wichita Eagle
Voters can decide whether to allow liquor by the drink to be sold without requiring establishments to sell food at the Nov. 4 election. Prohibition was approved in Kansas in 1917 and lasted until 1948. In fact, three Kansas counties are still “dry,” and 67 require the 30 percent food sales. Wyandotte, Douglas and Shawnee do not have the food requirement.
Source: Gardner News
Kansas counties are making their own rules about whether to require poll workers to wear masks as the public votes. Secretary of State Scott Schwab has not issued a mandate requiring masks for poll workers statewide, even though the state spent $1.28 million to buy personal protective equipment for every polling location. Schwab’s spokeswoman says every county election office works with its local health department to determine COVID-19 protocols. That’s created a patchwork of masking practices around the state. While the state’s more urban counties generally require poll workers to mask up, rural counties often don’t.
Source: KSN-TV
To help local restaurants, the city of Manhattan installed 7 outdoor patio areas to the downtown. It costs the city around $300 thousand for the spaced but they hope to get the money back from the CARES act. The patios have outdoor space heaters to keep customers warm at night. The idea is to give restaurants some extra space to keep customers socially distanced.
Source: KSNT News
Until two weeks ago, Meade District Hospital had never admitted a COVID-19 patient. Then, it admitted three in one weekend. For the southwest Kansas town of roughly 1,700, three hospitalizations is the equivalent of several thousand in metropolitan Kansas City, said Gary Morsch, founder of an organization that helps staff rural critical access hospitals. Morsch was working in the Meade hospital’s emergency room that weekend. He said the hospital had two beds set aside for coronavirus patients, and needed to stretch only to accommodate the third. However, he said, it’s a sign of what’s to come in small towns and rural areas that, until recently, were able to avoid the biggest impacts of the deadly virus.
Source: Local News | Wichita Eagle
Neosho Community College president Brian Inbody relied on precedent to make assumptions about how the pandemic of COVID-19 could influence enrollment at the southeastern Kansas college during a period of massive unemployment and business realignment. In wake of the brutal U.S. recession from 2007 to 2009, he said, enrollment at Neosho Community College increased 21% per year over a three-year period. Early in the pandemic of 2020, higher education institutions were thrown into an online instructional format as COVID-19 spread into the heartland. Unemployment in Kansas surged from 3.1% in February to 11.9% in April. The stage appeared set for community colleges to answer the bell of another recession.
Source: Kansas Reflector
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