Douglas County District Court will soon transition to a new case management system, which will temporarily disrupt the processing of online payments and electronic court document filings, according to a news release from the state judicial branch. The court will begin switching over to the Kansas eCourt centralized case management system at 4 p.m. on March 29, and the new system is expected to be up and running by April 3, according to the Office of Judicial Administration’s news release on Friday. Courts will remain open during the transition, but attorneys will only be able to file documents on paper and any payments to the court must be made in cash or by paper check until the new system is operational.
Source: LJWorld

In an indicator of the closer relationship between the City of Lawrence and the Lawrence Community Shelter, the city plans to use a portion of its pandemic aid to pay additional staffing costs for the shelter to expand its capacity to 125 people. The city announced Thursday that beginning March 13, the day after the city’s winter emergency shelter at the Community Building in downtown Lawrence is set to close for the season, LCS’ capacity will be increased to 125 people. Assistant City Manager Brandon McGuire said Friday that the city would be providing staff and resources to support the increased capacity, as well as helping to fund additional staffing at the shelter. He said the exact arrangement was still being determined, but that the city would be using federal pandemic aid to support the change.
Source: LJWorld

More communities are turning away from the prospect of a dollar store opening up in their town. In a report published by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, researchers said more than 70 cities and towns have already blocked new projects from chain dollar stores and 50 cities have enacted laws to limit the discount retailers’ plans for expansion. … “In cities, it is common to find dollar stores clustered by the dozen within certain neighborhoods. In rural towns, they typically locate near the only grocery store, and often succeed in wiping it out,” the report said. “One might assume that the dollar chains are simply filling a need, providing basic retail options in cash-strapped communities. But the evidence shows something else. These stores aren’t merely a byproduct of economic distress, they are a cause of it.” Researchers said these tactics leave people without access to fresh food, further imposing hardship on residents who have to travel farther to buy food. But each store’s representatives disagree with the report.
Source: Hutch News

This winter, Saline County residents have been able to apply for a housing weatherization program that aims to help reduce overall costs of utility payments in the colder months of the year. The program was partly funded through American Rescue Plan Act monies, and a recent allocation could help the organization continue to help families after the initial allocation is expended. A partnership between Saline County and the Community Housing Development Organization of Central Kansas (CHDO) to provide rehabilitation and weatherization to area homes was envisioned to be a two-part project. In addition to $500,000 already approved for home rehabilitation under the ARPA framework, another $95,000 that has been held within the “Poverty Reduction” ARPA category has been intended for capacity building for the CHDO.
Source: Salina Journal

Although the Sonoco Hutchinson Paper Mill closed its doors on Monday, leaving workers perplexed as to the swiftness of it, community members and local and regional businesses are posting on the Hutchinson job board, asking these newly let go workers to apply. In addition, the Siemens Gamesa Hutchinson plant is slowly starting back up.
Source: Hutch News

The sound of a freight train’s lonesome wail has pierced the Kansas night for nearly all of the state’s history. Indeed, the state’s rich rail legacy is apparent everywhere you look in the state, from the railroaders mascot at Newton High School to the scores of railroad-themed bars and restaurants that dot the state from Topeka to Osawatomie. But the focus of the nation has shifted to rail in a way it hasn’t for some time following the derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous chemicals in East Palestine Ohio, an incident that has created concern for the residents of the town and raised the issue of rail safety across the country — including in Kansas.
Source: CJonline

As a Kansas municipality takes on streaming services, such as Netflix and Hulu, in court, lawmakers are considering a bill that would exempt the media giants from paying fees that cable companies are required to cough up. In Kansas, statute requires “competitive video service providers” and other utilities to pay up to 5% of their revenues in a given city to the local government. Because cable providers use infrastructure supported by local tax dollars, the logic is the payments are to help compensate local governments. Senate Bill 144 comes amid a lawsuit from Fort Scott, alleging that the now ubiquitous streaming services are short-changing Kansas municipalities by not paying those franchise fees.
Source: CJonline

The City of Topeka hosted its first of three meetings to discuss the possibility of increasing water utility rates. The city is considering increases to the water, wastewater, and stormwater utility rates by 2024 in an effort to keep up with rising costs and maintenance. Topeka’s City Manager Stephen Wade said the city’s utilities — like everything else — are simply growing more expensive…. “We are also looking at a couple of things targeted toward equity,” said Wade. “Specifically, we know that some of our residents have different sizes of water meters. When we look at — about 36,000 customers have water meters less than one inch. Those aren’t exclusively in our older neighborhoods, but we do know that a lot of our older neighborhoods have smaller water meters, and so when we look at that, we are going to institute a rate for water meters less than one inch. That again will have an impact of reducing rates in some of our older neighborhoods.”
Source: WIBW