After graduating from William Jewell College, Overland Park Councilmember Drew Mitrisin left the Midwest for Washington, D.C. A Missouri native, Mitrisin says it was a call from his father-in-law about five years later that brought him and his wife back to the area. They settled in Overland Park and now live in the Nall Hills neighborhood with their young daughter. “We knew that we wanted to come home because we wanted to raise our family, we wanted to have access to good schools, and we wanted to have great jobs. And that’s what we found,” he said. A new Kansas Department [...]

The city of Mission is working on a new tree preservation ordinance, the latest city in northeast Johnson County to look at ways to maintain its mature tree canopy. The Mission City Council during a committee meeting on Wednesday voiced support for a possible ordinance that would outline how to protect, remove and replace trees throughout the city but stop short of stricter regulations like requiring permitting for removal of trees on private property. Other neighboring cities, including Fairway and Prairie Village, already have tree preservation ordinances on their books, either modifying or approving those regulations in the past five years. In Roeland Park, a tree preservation ordinance [...]