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From HEAL Award to Rural Champion Playbook: Lincoln County is one to Follow!

With the recent announcement of the Spring 2023 HEAL awardees, we thought we would first highlight Post Rock Fitness LLC. This project was part of our first round of HEAL grants in February 2022 and finished in December 2022.  This is an amazing example of what the HEAL grant can help with when rehabbing a downtown building. When the property owner purchased the building in 2019, the building had no functional bathroom or plumbing, a nearly 40-year-old marginally operational heating and air conditioning system, and a leaking roof on the back addition. At the time they applied for the HEAL grant, the building had been vacant since 2015. Known as the C.R. Building/Hundertmark’s Variety, the building is a contributing resource in Lincoln’s National Register-designated downtown historic district and individually listed on the Register of Historic Kansas Places (RHKP). All historic character on the interior was hidden underneath a drop ceiling installed in 1981, and the basement was full of 100-years’ worth of accumulated junk.  The rehab resulted in the restoration of historical details (such as the original ceiling and plaster walls) along with structural enhancements, new bathrooms, new mechanical systems (heating/air conditioning, plumbing, electrical), new flooring, and a new roof on a portion of the building.
Source: Kansas Department of Commerce

2023-07-14T11:38:34-05:00July 14, 2023|News|

‘We got it done’: Kansas OKs gaming license for Golden Circle casino outside Wichita

The Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission cleared the way Thursday for Phil Ruffin to open a casino in the Wichita area, granting the billionaire casino mogul and Wichita native a major victory in a nearly two decade battle to put gambling machines inside the Wichita Greyhound Park. The gaming commission on Thursday granted Ruffin’s Golden Circle casino the state’s only license to operate 1,000 historical horse racing machines. The HHR machines look and play like slot machines — which voters rejected in Sedgwick County by a narrow margin a few months before Ruffin decided to close the greyhound park — but outcomes are based on random past horse races instead of randomly generated numbers. “We are ecstatic with the news,” said Phil Ruffin Jr., who lives in Wichita and will be the general manager of Golden Circle when it opens. “We’ve been working to try to renovate and reopen Wichita Greyhound Park.” The greyhound park near 77th Street North and Hydraulic has been closed since 2007. Under Ruffin’s plan, he will spend $128 million to renovate it into a three-floor casino called Golden Circle.
Source: Local News | Wichita Eagle

2023-07-14T11:36:26-05:00July 14, 2023|News|

Allen County: Finding workers comes with a cost

Most county departments are facing increased costs, primarily due to more pay to attract and retain personnel. … Chairman David Lee said most of the requests were due to wages and benefits. Department heads requested 5% wage increases. Commissioners may ask them to reduce that number to 3% or 4%. “We’re going to have to see how finances are looking and if we can support those requests,” Lee said. “The resounding theme from department heads is that the cost of doing business has gone up over the past two or three years.” Lee said his priority is to attract and retain employees, and that could mean taking a comparative look at wages in nearby counties. “We need to make sure our wages are competitive with counties, cities and industries around us,” he said.
Source: The Iola Register

2023-07-14T11:35:37-05:00July 14, 2023|News|

Economist says there’s no need for the Fed to keep hiking interest rates

Nobel Prize-winning economist Christopher Pissarides believes there’s no need for the Federal Reserve to keep raising interest rates in the coming months, saying policymakers at the U.S. central bank should instead look to take a breather in the battle against inflation. His comments come shortly after data on Wednesday showed U.S. inflation fell sharply to a two-year low of 3% in June. The reading appeared to underscore the Fed’s relative success in containing price rises following a rapid increase in interest rates. The Fed has previously signaled its intent on pushing ahead with additional monetary policy tightening. … The U.S. central bank held its key borrowing rate steady in a target range of 5% to 5.25% last month, but policymakers at the meeting indicated the likelihood of half a percentage point more of additional tightening before the end of 2023.
Source: CNBC – Bonds

2023-07-14T11:34:03-05:00July 14, 2023|News|

Ellinwood increases recycling commitment

As a show of support to local participating businesses, the City of Ellinwood agreed on Tuesday to pick up half the tab for future recycling services to the community.  At Tuesday’s meeting of the Ellinwood City Council, Shelby Zuniga, executive director of Sunflower Diversified Services in Great Bend, told council members present that their organization had experienced increased costs over the past few years, resulting in the development of a direct-pay rate structure for participating businesses in the area.  “We started to charge a fee in Great Bend in the middle of 2021,” Zuniga said. “We’ve had to increase the rates.”
Source: Great Bend Tribune

2023-07-12T23:29:34-05:00July 12, 2023|News|

Planners to consider container homes

More than a year after Hillsboro developed a district north of 3rd St. for potential placement of container homes, city planners will have a July 27 hearing on an application to place the first container home in the district. Developer Felix Ramirez and then-partner Crystal Leatherman initially planned to install container homes on land purchased from developer Russell Groves. Reluctant to allow container homes to be installed without meeting city requirements, city planners and council members drew up an overlay for the proposed area. The overlay set standards not just for homes made from shipping containers, but for other alternative housing construction.
Source: HILLSBORO Star-Journal

2023-07-14T12:00:09-05:00July 12, 2023|News|

Hugoton’s Park Day big success, winners announced

Hugoton celebrated Independence Day with Park Day Tuesday, July 4. Boy Scout Troop 189 presented the Colors and the Hugoton High School Show Choir sang the National Anthem. Winners with vouchers need to go to the Hugoton Area Chamber of Commerce to pick up your winnings. The winners in the Little Miss / Mr. Hugoton contest sponsored by Flatlanders Farm and Home were: birth to six months Little Miss first place Juliette Turner, second Thalia Ordonez and third Wrenley Maravilla; Little Mr. winner was Kord Luke Kallenbach.
Source: Hugoton Hermes News

2023-07-12T23:21:59-05:00July 12, 2023|News|

Wyandotte nation looks to expand casino, hotel in Park City after court ruling

It’s Wednesday afternoon and dozen of people are testing their luck inside the Crosswinds casino in Park City. The small casino was opened by the Wyandotte nation back in 2021, and originally the building was only supposed to be a temporary site before the tribe launched a bigger operation. “You know our plans are to build a casino resort,” says Wyandotte nation Chief Billy Friend. “We have 10 and a half acres that has been taken in trust for gaming. and then we also have another 100, approximately 125 acres.” Those plans had been on hold while the state of Kansas was challenging a ruling from the US Department of the Interior back in 2020 that granted the tribe the ability to have gaming on part of its land.
Source: KAKE – News

2023-07-12T23:20:29-05:00July 12, 2023|News|

Kansas plumbing company penalized more than $300K after trench collapse

An investigation into a Salina trench wall collapse determined Precision Plumbing LLC willfully violated federal trench safety regulations, resulting in proposed penalties of more than $300,000. In January 2023, a worker from Precision Plumbing, a Cheney plumbing company, was connecting a plumbing line to a Salina municipal sewer in a trench nine feet below the surface when he was buried due to a wall collapse, according to Monday’s U.S. Department of labor news release. The company foreman entered the trench to dig out the buried worker when the trench collapsed further, burying him to the knees.
Source: Kansas Reflector

2023-07-12T23:17:48-05:00July 12, 2023|News|

Topeka metro cuts back on bus services, here’s why

Local transportation officials made several changes to existing bus routes in Topeka following a special meeting earlier this month. Keri Renner with the Topeka Metro said in a press release that on Friday, July 7 the Topeka Metro board of directors came together at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library to cast votes on proposed service changes. These changes will take effect starting Sept. 3, 2023. This meeting came after three other previous meetings on the same topic and after taking comments from the public.
Source: KSNT 27 News

2023-07-12T23:16:36-05:00July 12, 2023|News|
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