The City of Columbus, Kansas hired Mr. Jake Letner as their City Administrator. Mr. Letner will assume the City Administrator position on Monday, April 4th, 2022. "Mr. Letner will be a great asset to our team as City Administrator.” says Columbus Mayor Grant Spieth. “Jake is dedicated, hardworking, and is heavily involved in our community. The City of Columbus is looking forward to a lengthy and rewarding relationship with Mr. Letner.” ... Mr. Letner holds a Bachelor of Arts from Pittsburg State University and Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. For the last two years, Mr. [...]

A few days ago, I was asked if the City receives more tax money when valuations increase. The answer is, "It depends." Property tax is the most criticized and misunderstood source of government revenue. The citizen was interested in recent media reports indicating statewide increases in property valuation. While in Russell County, we have not yet seen our valuation notices, it is probable, based on media reports across the State, we will experience the same. Naturally, we are all concerned about an increase's effect on our property tax. Different property classes – residential, agriculture, commercial – have different assessment rates, adding [...]

The Genesis Sports Complex will be one of the premier complexes in all of Kansas and hopefully the Midwest. The complex in Goddard has five functional high school-sized baseball fields being played on and five more fields under construction – not to mention a water park, sports bar, hotel, Genesis Health Club, daycare and a large indoor swimming pool also in the works. The pool will be used to host future swimming events, such as the state swim meet and other large meets. There are big plans to have the fullblown, near-100-acre complex all ready by summer. Source: Hutch News

Brett Kell and Marcus Clark were political opponents Nov. 2, when Kell beat Clark to win the District 5 seat on the Topeka City Council. But last week, Kell appointed Clark as that district’s representative on the commission assigned to redraw the boundary lines for the city’s council districts. “We may have been opponents in the recent election, but I believe he had a great message and was running for the right reasons,” Kell said. He said that Clark, the pastor of Love Fellowship Church, will make “the decisions that are best for Topeka.” Source: CJonline

The City of Lawrence has shed more light on why it is trying to shut down a local strip club that it says has been operating illegally. In a lawsuit filed Feb. 2 in Douglas County District Court, the city alleged that Allstars has been operating without the license required for a sexually oriented entertainment business... The city also claimed Allstars is ineligible to receive such a license .. There are various provisions in city code that would make a business ineligible or disqualify it from being provided a city license for a sexually oriented entertainment business, and previously the city [...]

Residents of the unincorporated community of Clearfield in Douglas County have filed a petition in hope of being incorporated as a city, Douglas County commissioners heard at their meeting Wednesday. Clearfield is an existing unincorporated community in Douglas County located 9 miles northeast of Baldwin City within Palmyra Township. The proposed incorporated city limits, however, would be within five miles of Baldwin City, Edgerton and Eudora and encompass 18.2 square miles of land in roughly the shape of a backward letter P. Source: LJWorld.com

Douglas County leaders indicated Wednesday that they’d like to continue to consider how land in the county could be used for solar power generation and agriculture simultaneously, but they had some concerns about the technical challenges that could arise in such a system. At a study session on Wednesday, the Douglas County Commission heard from a panel of guests who explained how that concept, called agrivoltaics, could be implemented in the area with proposed solar farm regulations that the commissioners will consider at a future meeting. Agrivoltaics can include land uses like growing crops, grazing livestock or planting pollinator plants. Source: [...]

The interest rate table above illustrates recent changes in a sample of MBIS "investment grade" yields. Every issuer's credit is different. For rates that may be applicable to your municipality, contact our Municipal Bond Advisors, Larry Kleeman and Beth Warren.