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A giant goat now looks over a sunflower field facing east from downtown DeSoto. The DeSoto Arts Council, helped by a grant from the Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission, commissioned Kansas City-based artist Alex Eickhoff to paint the city’s second downtown mural. Council President Leanna Donald said the group had been looking for an opportunity to bring more art to the community, after the first mural of sunflowers by artist Emily Euler was completed in 2018. “We wanted the mural to represents the community’s past and future, have a small town vibe to it, be colorful and fun and of course [...]

Another northeast Johnson County city is getting closer to adopting a tree preservation ordinance. The Mission City Council during the Nov. 6 community development committee moved a draft tree preservation ordinance forward to a city council meeting for formal consideration. This comes a few months after the city of Mission began discussing a tree preservation ordinance, with a focus on protecting mature trees on commercial or a big residential project. In nearby Roeland Park, the city council recently adopted a tree preservation ordinance after years of discussion on the issue. Other cities like Fairway and Prairie Village have had such ordinances [...]

Overland Park has started the legal process of removing historically racist deed restrictions on residential property records in older parts of the city. A century ago, racist covenants barred Black and Jewish people from owning homes in some communities but haven’t been enforceable for decades. Still, the offensive language has remained on property records like plats, deeds and neighborhood declarations. Last week, the Overland Park City Council Community Development Committee unanimously voted to recommend the city take the first step in releasing such restrictive covenants. City staff described the action as mostly symbolic since the original documents won’t be changed, but [...]