Municipal News & Jobs

After graduating from William Jewell College, Overland Park Councilmember Drew Mitrisin left the Midwest for Washington, D.C. A Missouri native, Mitrisin says it was a call from his father-in-law about five years later that brought him and his wife back to the area. They settled in Overland Park and now live in the Nall Hills neighborhood with their young daughter. “We knew that we wanted to come home because we wanted to raise our family, we wanted to have access to good schools, and we wanted to have great jobs. And that’s what we found,” he said. A new Kansas Department of Commerce campaign called “Love, Kansas” is designed to create more “boomerangs” like Mitrisin — trying to appeal to more native Kansans and others with personal connections to the region back to the Sunflower State. “We need more people to come to our community, work in our community, buy homes in our community, live in our community,” Mitrisin said at a kick-off event Thursday in Overland Park that included state and city officials, local business owners and members of the Overland Park Chamber of Commerce. (…) Andrew Weisberg, director of talent at the Overland Park Chamber, said the “Love, Kansas” campaign is focused “on attracting skilled talent back to our state” while also “keeping skilled talent” here. Bridgette Jobe, director of Kansas Tourism,  said the state has roughly 86,000 open job opportunities in a variety of industries. At the same time, more than half of Kansas’s counties are reporting shrinking populations. While Johnson County doesn’t have the population loss challenges other Kansas communities have, Jobe said she sees “Love, Kansas” as an opportunity to address the statewide need for employees and the general population decline some counties are seeing.
Source: Johnson County Post

The city of Mission is working on a new tree preservation ordinance, the latest city in northeast Johnson County to look at ways to maintain its mature tree canopy. The Mission City Council during a committee meeting on Wednesday voiced support for a possible ordinance that would outline how to protect, remove and replace trees throughout the city but stop short of stricter regulations like requiring permitting for removal of trees on private property. Other neighboring cities, including Fairway and Prairie Village, already have tree preservation ordinances on their books, either modifying or approving those regulations in the past five years. In Roeland Park, a tree preservation ordinance was a key issue during the 2023 municipal election. That led to a series of recently wrapped-up ward meetings on the topic, which the city council will likely discuss at a workshop next month, City Administrator Keith Moody told the Post. Deputy City Administrator Brian Scott told the Mission City Council on Wednesday that following recent storms this summer, “dead or dying trees have been kind of a hot-button issue for code enforcement.” Scott said some concerns are still lingering from last summer’s major storm that left residents in Mission and other parts of Johnson County cleaning up limbs and debris for weeks. “When anybody sees a tree that is dead or looks like it’s dying, they get very anxious about that, and they’ll call the city,” Scott said.
Source: Johnson County Post

After seven years of serving Johnson County, a K9 officer for the Lenexa Police Department is retiring from the force. Having racked up hundreds of deployments and drug finds, Kobi, a 10-year-old Dutch Shepherd, served his last shift on July 5. His partner officer Sgt. Rich Sanchez got to formally announce the end of his final day of duty over the police dispatch. For Sanchez, it was tough making the call, but after Kobi suffered some hip issues and his sense of smell lost its sharpness, it was time to let him be a civilian dog. “I know he could still do it today. But it’s really not fair to the dogs to keep working,  especially when their nose is starting to go, and we’re starting to see some of those medical issues,” he said. In Kobi’s time with the Lenexa Police Department, he was sent out 589 times, making 211 narcotics finds and 28 criminal apprehensions, according to the Lenexa Police Department. Kobi made a name for himself by having a keen sense of smell and the ability to track down suspects. “If there’s anyone that needs to be found — burglars, robbers, rapists, murderers — Kobi is the dog you want,” Sanchez said. “That’s what he’s geared toward. Dogs, they all have different drives, and his hunt drive is very finely tuned.”
Source: Johnson County Post

Olathe plans to relocate the downtown Post Office next year as part of the city’s efforts to revitalize the area. The city council announced the preliminary plans on June 25 at the first workshop for next year’s budget. The move is a collaborative effort with the United States Postal Service. Little is known about the project so far, but more information could be made available within the next three to five months once more refined conversations are had. According to City of Olathe Chief Communications and Marketing Officer Cody Kennedy, conversations have been “purely introductory” at this point. “I do know that as we look to activate Downtown Olathe, it was identified as an opportunity for redevelopment,” he said. The prospective site of a relocation is unknown, but development of the new site would start and finish within the year according to the city’s proposed 2025-29 Capital Improvement Plan.
Source: Johnson County Post

The city of Lenexa is looking to get a new public bench through unconventional means — by recycling more than 1,000 pounds of plastic bags. Taking a cue from neighboring cities like Merriam, the city has launched a year-long project where it ask residents to donate plastic bags at three locations in hopes of reaching the magic number of 1,000 pounds, enough to craft a bench.
“This was just something that was a little different that could benefit the community and the environment,” Heather Howell, Lenexa’s human resources specialist and member of Lenexa’s We Care Committee, said .“People do have a lot of plastic, I will say,” she said. “I know, personally, the Amazon bags that I get every single day that you can’t just toss into the recycling bins, they end up somewhere else. So bring them to Lenexa.” While Lenexa’s We Care Committee hosts a variety of projects for people in need, it wanted to shift its focus to the environment and making something useful out of plastic waste. “Traditionally, we’ve done a coat drive, we’ve done a canned food drive, we’ve done Warmth Trees in December,” Howell said. “The environment is something we’re really passionate about, as well.” The program was inspired by Merriam’s plastic bag drive in 2023, which gathered enough plastic bags to make two benches.
Source: Johnson County Post

After three years of planning, the Lenexa City Council on Tuesday approved a new comprehensive plan that lays the groundwork for the city through 2040 and beyond.
At its meeting Tuesday night, the council gave the green light to a revised comprehensive plan, a document that serves as an aspirational roadmap for the next 20 years of development and land use in the city. The council passed the plan with a 5-2 vote. One of the big changes the new plan predicts is a shift away from big box retail spaces and offices to more housing and non-office business parks. “In 2016, the office market and big box retailers were very strong, and additional office parks and big box retailers were envisioned in the community,” the newly adopted plan states. “Today, these markets are more volatile, and additional office parks and large retail uses are not expected.” The plan also focuses on amenities that residents want to see more of, including recreational trails and parks, as well as potentially thorny issues like missing middle housing.
Source: Johnson County Post