News

The city of Emporia is currently accepting applications for its Civic Leadership Institute Program, which gives residents a behind-the-scenes look at the operations of different city departments. Read more: www.emporiagazette.com

The City of Emporia announced the departure of Deputy City Manager Mark Detter on Tuesday. Detter will be leaving Emporia to pursue an opportunity as city administrator of Rose Hill, Kansas, a town of approximately 4,185 people located in Butler County, southwest of Wichita. He has served as deputy city manager for the city of Emporia since his hiring in April 2023. “I’ve really appreciated my time in Emporia, and I’m looking forward to my new opportunity in Rose Hill,” Detter said. Read more: www.emporiagazette.com

The City of Overland Park voted 11-1 on a motion to amend an ordinance that kick starts an affordable homes project all around the city. Before presenting this to the city council, the planning commission voted on the “Portfolio Homes Development – Pilot Program” 8-2. Read more: FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV

This week, a century ago, The Halstead Independent published a piece about the city’s war against “the yellow peril.” Halstead’s Committee of Child Welfare placed a bounty on this peril and organized a citywide effort to eradicate the dent-de-Lion, the lion’s tooth, the common dandelion. “The slaughtered will be weighed and the price paid in cash,” it stated about the city dandelion bounty. Pickers earned 1 cent per pound of dandelion plants picked. “Now, all together to make Halstead the Town Without a Dandelion,” the article stated. That name never quite took. Despite children scouring the city’s yards and alleys for [...]

Brandon So isn’t a stranger to Sedgwick, having served as a part-time police officer since the beginning of 2025, but there’s a good reason why residents are seeing a lot more of him lately. So joined the Sedgwick Police Department full-time in December. So far, So likes working in Sedgwick. “I’ve met more supportive people here than I ever did in Newton,” So said. “It seems like everyone is very caring about their police department now and the fact that we’ve been able to turn it around so well. It’s very, very positive with the community.” Read more: Harvey County Now

Hays Deputy City Manager Collin Bielser told City Commissioners last week that he has already directed staff to take a more approach to budgeting for next year in light of current economic uncertainties. “I think Department Heads and employees already do the critically, creative, collaborative approach really well. But depending on what happens with all the economic situations and the uncertainty of property taxes, we will need to be a little more mindful than we have needed to be before,” said Deputy City Manager Bielser. He reminded Commissioners that Hays, unlike nearly any other Kansas municipality is not property tax funded [...]

Overland Park hopes a short-term revision to its development codes will jumpstart its small-scale housing pilot program. The temporary amendment will allow up to 12 projects to move forward using home designs in the city’s new Portfolio Homes program. The exact sites are unclear, but the emphasis is on sites that are ripe for redevelopment or may be hard to build in a typical residential project. The pilot program was originally designed to make it easier to build a wider variety of housing options at less expensive price points — often called “missing middle” housing — amid a widening housing shortage. [...]

A federal appeals court has upheld a previous federal ruling dismissing a lawsuit challenging Shawnee’s controversial “co-living ban.” On Monday, the Tenth District of the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the September 2023 dismissal by the federal district court in Kansas City, Kansas, attesting that the city’s ordinance, which restricts how many unrelated people can live in a single-family home, violated their constitutional rights. The ruling means the city’s rule, which says no more than three unrelated people can live in the same dwelling, stands. Read more: Johnson County Post

Tom Franzen, a veteran county finance, treasury and motor vehicle director and one of the county’s longest serving department heads, retired March 27 after 27 years of service. Franzen held several titles in county leadership since 1999, when he left six years of finance-related work in the private sector to become chief deputy treasurer for Johnson County. Yet he may be best known to the public as the face of the department that registers vehicles. Read more: Johnson County Post

New signage is bringing long-forgotten history to light at a Johnson County creek, and reframes a name that residents have debated for years. Instead of changing name of Negro Creek, local leaders chose to tell its story publicly. Read more: KCUR