Governor Laura Kelly joined federal, state and local officials this past Saturday to officially mark the opening of Hilmar Cheese Company’s new production facility in Dodge City, Kansas.
“I am pleased that Hilmar Cheese Company chose to build its new production facility in Dodge City,” Governor Laura Kelly said. “This investment in our state is a strong signal to industry leaders around the globe that Kansas has the workforce and infrastructure for companies to be competitive.” Hilmar Cheese Company, Inc. is one of the world’s largest cheese manufacturers and a global supplier of high-quality whey ingredients. Hilmar’s new Dodge City facility makes American style cheese which is then sold wholesale to customers and used in a variety of nutritious foods. The site also produces a wide range of high-quality innovative proteins to meet the needs of customers worldwide. “We are grateful to the state and local officials who supported this project and are thrilled to celebrate with them today,” Hilmar’s President and CEO David Ahlem said. “We chose to build in Dodge City because of the local and skilled labor force, supportive and expanding agricultural region, and excellent transportation network. The superior collaboration with local, regional, and state leaders in Kansas has further confirmed that we made the right choice.”
Source: Press Releases – Kansas Department of Commerce

The City of Wichita has taken steps to clear a homeless encampment from a park in the Riverside neighborhood, shortly before a cleanup event takes place. Notices were posted at Sim Park and homeless residents there were given until the end of the day Thursday, and the Police Department’s Homeless Outreach Team has been working to move them to shelters and into services and programs. The city has reported a number of complaints online and by phone about the encampment. The city is working to enforce an illegal camping ordinance after the City Council voted to approve changes in December. The changes provide for faster cleanup of camping sites on public property, and some penalties have been lowered, but some in the community feel the ordinance criminalizes homelessness.
Source: 101.3 KFDI

He said it confuses people in the community and the officers. He added that the 30 mph for unmarked residential areas doesn’t suit every situation. “You have to look at what’s happening in your community to see if that’s a safe speed,” Hall said. He said people would be upset if they wrote tickets for three or four miles an hour, people would be upset. “That 30-mile-an-hour zone effectively becomes a 38 to 40-mile-per-hour zone before officers are writing tickets,” Hall said. “That’s way too fast.” Last year, Wamego passed an ordinance to drop all of its unmarked city streets to 20 miles per hour. Hall said he thinks 20-25 mph in Sedgwick’s neighborhoods is reasonable because they weren’t going to stop people for three to four miles over.
Source: Harvey County Now

A line recently greeted Jessica Warkentin at Tractor Supply. Warkentin showed up, planning to expand her family’s very small flock of backyard chickens in Newton, which a neighbor gifted them in November. “We said if they survived the winter, we were going to get chicks,” she said. “Last week, we spent several days calling stores to see when their chickens got in.”
Tractor supply promised chicks at noon for sale. She arrived at 11:30 a.m. to be the fourth in line. She said one woman had been waiting since 9:30 a.m. While plenty of people are starting backyard flocks in Harvey County, city rules vary depending on where you live. Both Newton and Halstead allow up to 12 chickens with the proper coop and issue permits. In total, Newton had 12 active permits. Halstead had seven. There are more chicken flocks on the down low, however. Harvey County Now sought chicken permits, looking for contacts, after a number of people declined to speak to not draw attention to their chickens. Usually, most neighbor complaints, from this reporter’s experience covering local government, come from keeping roosters. Sedgwick limits the number of chickens to six and doesn’t issue permits. Hesston allows eight chickens in a flock on lots smaller than 10,000 square feet. It allows an additional chicken for every 1,000 extra square feet on larger lots. North Newton allows for birds but has no ordinance. “We encourage residents to be responsible and try to keep them in a fence and preferably only one rooster,” City Clerk Pat Redding stated. “So far, we haven’t had issues that require us to pass an ordinance.”
Source: Harvey County Now

North Newton City Administrator Brad Harris told city council members one of the city’s strategic-plan goals that has to do with land development will be a year-long process. They want to identify and rank available land for development. “It’s an ongoing process,” Harris said. “We are starting to talk to some landowners, and we’re starting to get some interest to start talking about what that looks like, so we’re pretty pleased that they’re coming forward to us and beginning this conversation, so we’re going to keep working away at that throughout the year and see which pieces of land are available for development in town and what lies just outside of town.” He also talked about another strategic-plan goal for this month. “Looking into March, the two items that were initially put here were to develop opportunities for the city council and staff to collaborate with community organizations, and we kind of talked about packaging that into our work session, re-exploring those, so that’s something we’ll talk about later this month,” Harris said. North Newton Mayor Ron Ratzlaff asked Harris to provide a strategic plan chart quarterly to the council.
Source: Harvey County Now

The Hillsboro City Council meeting was interrupted on Tuesday, March 4 on the Zoom side when a pornographic image began flashing across all of the screens. The meeting, which is held in person and streamed live across Zoom to allow more people access to the meetings and provide a recording for future viewings, was paused as Hillsboro City Administrator Matt Stiles worked quickly to figure out where the cyber attack was coming from while Hillsboro Mayor Lou explained to the council, guests and Zoom attendees what was going on. “We are getting cyber-attacked via Zoom,” said Thurston. “I think that’s a first.” Eventually Stiles kicked a Zoom caller named John off, and the images ended. Thurston asked City Attorney Andrew Kovar if he had ever encountered anything like that, and he said he had heard about it but had not. “It’s just because anybody can log in. There’s no password,” said Kovar.
Source: Hillsboro Free Press

The Spring Hill School District is asking voters this spring to approve a new $60 million bond measure that would pay for several projects to accommodate the district’s growing student population. The district, which straddles the line separating Johnson and Miami counties, is reportedly one of the fastest-growing in Kansas. The Spring Hill Board of Education agreed at a special meeting in January to place the bond proposal on the ballot. In a statement provided to the Post via email, Link Luttrell, superintendent of Spring Hill Schools, noted there will be no mill levy increase with the bond proposal. Luttrell also said a community stakeholder group met for several months to create a vision for managing the district’s growth effectively. That same group ultimately developed the bond proposal.
Source: Johnson County Post

The Kansas Court of Appeals has largely sided with a district court judge’s rulings on three controversial resident-led petitions that roiled Prairie Village nearly two years ago. Like the Johnson County judge’s 2023 ruling, the three-judge panel of the Kansas Court of Appeals on March 7 found two of the three Prairie Village petitions — one dealing with limitations on rezoning and another that aimed to adopt a new city government — ineligible to go before voters. The appellate court also agreed with Judge Rhonda Mason’s decision that a third petition, which seeks to abandon the city’s current form of government, can appear on a ballot. Both the city of Prairie Village and PV United, the resident-led group behind the petitions, had appealed the district court decision, which put their fate in the hands of the state appellate court.
Source: Johnson County Post

One Kansas City Democrat has developed a plan that he believes could lower Wyandotte County homeowners’ tax bills and utility costs as division among Kansas Republicans threatens to undermine the relief lawmakers promised in 2025. It’s not the first time Sen. David Haley has proposed giving counties the authority to impose a local earnings tax of up to 1%. But it is the first time his bill calls for 100% of new collections to help offset the property tax revenue that makes up most of local governments’ budgets. Like in Kansas City, Missouri, where voters have renewed their support for a local earnings tax every few years since 1963, Haley’s bill would authorize local governments to tax both residents and people who commute to the county to work.
Source: Local Kansas City Missouri & Kansas News |

Lawrence’s Rock Chalk Park is one of three sites in the Kansas City-area that could be selected as a base camp for a 2026 World Cup team. A base camp includes medical staff, trainers, chefs, fans, the team and family, and could draw up to 15,000 people to the area. That’s according to Ruth DeWitt, a sales operations manger with eXplore Lawrence and a member of the Unified Command planning team. The Unified Command — comprised of the City of Lawrence, Douglas County, University of Kansas and eXplore Lawrence — is assessing how the Lawrence area will address hospitality, transportation, public safety, and economic impact. Kansas has approved $28 million in World Cup funding. However, what of that funding is accessible to Lawrence is currently unknown.
Source: Up To Date