At a recent Harvey County Commission candidate forum, a question was posed: how does a solar farm operate in the county, with a ban on solar farms? The question came after candidates were asked if they supported the wind and solar ban currently in place in the county. Kyle McCaskey, the communications director for the county, said that the solar farm near East Lake is on private property, not county property. McCaskey said it’s run by Butler Electric Cooperative. Karen Rothe, director of the planning, zoning and environment department, provided further information about regulations for private solar farms or projects in the county. Rothe said it wasn’t a complete ban. The ban only applies to commercial wind and solar, not private landowners. According to the county’s website, the ban only applies to unincorporated areas of the county. According to Rothe, the solar farm in question was in line with current regulations. She added that the solar farm by East Lake had even been used as the model by the planning commission to determine solar regulations in the county. “We haven’t had any complaints about that solar project,” Rothe said. For private landowners, there are still regulations. A solar farm must not be more than 10 acres, and the main use of the solar must be personal use. A portion of the electricity produced must be used in Harvey County. “You can’t just hook it into the electric grid and send it off to Florida where Harvey County sees none of it,” Rothe said.
Source: Harvey County Now

With a large gap in child care options in the county, a child care task force hopes a dedicated employee could lead the charge in finding solutions. The task force is working to address issues around child care in the county. According to Child Care Aware of Kansas, the county currently can only fulfill 25 percent of the potential child care slots needed and needs up to 1,400 more child care slots. In the past, they reached out to child care providers to learn what their biggest issues and needs were. Now, to be as effective as possible, the task force said they need to hire someone to focus on meeting the community’s needs full-time. “A lot of what we’re doing is out of our normal 9 to 5 work,” said Dalton Black, director of Harvey County United Way, who is also on the task force. After receiving responses from child care providers from a survey they sent out, Black said they have some ideas of how to make changes to serve them and the community better. Some of the top issues child care providers listed in their survey were food costs, staff retention, paying staff salaries, facility maintenance and training certification. They feel it would be best to have a coordinator in charge. “We’ve followed other communities and what they’re doing,” Black said.
Source: Harvey County Now