Municipal News & Jobs

After several meetings that included revisions and input, the Girard City Council approved changes to its burn ordinance. Monday’s regular meeting featured a lengthy discussion on which burn ordinance to pursue and what needed to be included. Following several killed motions, the council approved allowing recreational burning from one hour after sunrise to midnight along with allowing open burning from one hour after sunrise to one hour before sunset.
Read more: – Morning Sun

In an update to the Manhattan city commission on Tuesday, Riley County Police Department director Brian Peete said the jail population remains above recommended capacity. Peete said while the facility has 143 beds, not all of those spots should be filled.
Read more: News Radio KMAN

The city of Haysville, in partnership with the Red Cross and local agencies, will offer free smoke alarm installation from noon to 4 p.m on Oct. 4. The event is part of the Sound the Alarm: Save a Life initiative put on by the Red Cross. Smoke alarms are provided by the Red Cross, with installation by volunteers and event partners, which include the city of Haysville, USD 261, Haysville Chamber of Commerce, Sedgwick County Fire District 1 and Wichita Fire Department.
Read more: www.derbyinformer.com

No smoking in public parks. That’s the message that Halstead City Council approved Monday night after a presentation from STAND of Harvey County. Senior Piper Morgan of Halstead High School said they want to introduce tobacco-free parks in Halstead to make sure the youth don’t see that tobacco is something that is normalized and that a lot of people use. “And it makes sure that it’s setting a clear standard that smoking and using tobacco products is not OK,” Morgan said.
Read more: Harvey County Now

Shawnee is looking at ways to eliminate or reduce noise from passing trains near a subdivision in the northern part of the city after residents complained. In a committee meeting Monday, the Shawnee City Council discussed options to control noises created by trains at a crossing in the 4400 block of Lakecrest Drive. Residents in the nearby Riverview subdivision requested the city look into creating a quiet zone at the crossing because noises from the train and crossing bells are negatively affecting them.
Read more: Johnson County Post

The city of Merriam is turning 75 years old next month. Like other northeast Johnson County cities that have reached 75 years of incorporation, Merriam is making a big to do of it. The city plans to celebrate its 75th anniversary with a four-hour party on Oct. 23 at the Merriam Marketplace, 5740 Merriam Drive.
Read more: Johnson County Post

Spring Hill’s new police chief, James “Jim” Sutterby, wants to build on the legacy of the last chief — and long-term, he’s looking to add a new accreditation, bring on new officers and update the department’s technology. Sutterby began his tenure as chief on June 23, after 34 years with the Overland Park Police Department. He took over for former chief Cindy Henson, who became the first woman to serve as undersheriff in Johnson County.
Read more: Johnson County Post

With nearly 40 years of local government experience, Mike Scanlon has spent much of his career working to connect people in the Kansas City metro area via trail systems. Scanlon, who was the city administrator in Mission for nearly 10 years and a chief financial officer in Merriam for another seven, helped connect Johnson Countians with his work on the Streamway Park trail systems. He went on to connect communities in Colorado before coming back and continuing that work in Osawatomie, Kansas. He’s now an executive director for Kansas Trails Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to connecting trails across the state. Less than a year after retiring from local government, in March 2024, Scanlon was diagnosed with Stage IV non-small cell lung cancer. Scanlon is a lifetime non-smoker, and he is currently taking a cancer therapy drug called Tagrisso — though he knows his cancer will eventually mutate. Now, through a month-long journey to bike 700 miles of trails across Kansas, Scanlon is showcasing what he believes is a commonality between trails and cancer: Resilience.
Read more: Johnson County Post

For Kayla Elam, providing in-home child care is something of a family business. Her mother offered the service in their family home when she was growing up, and still has an in-home child care business in Shawnee to this day, which her younger sister also works at. Her twin sister offers in-home child care in Gardner, too. It was hard work, complicated by a number of factors. For one thing, parents didn’t always want to pay her or couldn’t pay on time, and it’s expensive to offer the service to begin with. There were also behavioral issues that parents didn’t want to hear about or didn’t believe Elam if she raised them. Beyond the challenges of the child care business itself, Elam also says it can be hard to balance some of the licensing requirements, specifically the classes and training hours a provider needs to log while already working long hours. Elam isn’t the only in-home child care provider who feels the challenges mounting. She said she knows several people who have stepped away. Data from Childcare Aware Kansas’ Johnson County Point-In-Time count shows that there are fewer licensed in-home providers than just a couple of years ago.
Read more: Johnson County Post

The City of Galena provides an update in regards to an odor that arose last fall. The city says landfill operators have begun applying layers of lime to the area of the landfill where the odor was detected. Galena city officials say using lime amendment as a treatment for it mitigation of hydrogen sulfide gas emissions has been successful, according to studies and trials.
Read more: www.koamnewsnow.com –

Zach Daniel will serve as the next city manager after the City Commission voted Monday night to offer him the job following an executive session. Daniel, who was previously assistant manager, has been serving as the interim city manager the past few months. “I’m very grateful for the opportunity, super excited to continue to work with the commission, the department heads,” Daniel said. “We’ve got a lot of really exciting things on the horizon, and I feel grateful to be a part of that.”
Read more: The Eudora Times

South Hutchinson City Council rezoned three parcels outside of the city for an Evergy natural gas-powered electricity generation plant Monday. Evergy Director of External Affairs Chase Blasi told the City Council that demand for electricity is increasing at a rate not seen since the 1950s, when electric appliances like refrigerators were becoming commonplace. The current increase in demand is being driven by artificial intelligence and data centers, he said.
Read more: The Hutchinson Tribune

Is the size of the Iola City Council a problem? Is there a better way to ensure competitive elections, such as abandoning the city’s voting wards? Or are there other solutions to finding folks willing to run for elective office? Case in point: the upcoming Nov. 4 election has five seats up for grabs, but only one race is contested.  Two seats, plus the mayor’s, have candidates running unopposed. Another seat will have to be filled by a write-in candidate because nobody filed. Council members tackled the subject head-on Monday with an hourlong discussion that ended with the consensus that perhaps the biggest issue is getting the public more involved.
Read more: The Iola Register

A global event geared at reclaiming urban, developed environments will invite the people of downtown Lawrence into temporarily reimagined parking stalls while provoking conversation about the land we dedicate to vehicles. Park(ing) Day originated in 2005 as a single installation from Rebar Art and Design Studio in San Francisco and has since evolved into a global phenomenon. Creative installations act as interventions in public parking spaces, as the project “highlights issues like climate change, road safety, and mobility equity, offering a platform for reimagining streets as greener, safer, and more equitable spaces for people,” according to the international Park(ing) Day website. The event will take a local bent in downtown Lawrence from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 26 with four parallel parking stall installations embodying the theme of “The Third Place.” The stalls are a product of close collaboration between numerous downtown businesses, Multistudio and KU Master of Urban Planning and Master of Architecture students.
Read more: The Lawrence Times

A new statewide bipartisan water program task force established over the summer aims to create a long-term sustainable strategy for Kansas’ water challenges. State Sen. Kenny Titus, R-Manhattan, is co-chairing the task force with State Rep. Jim Minnix, R-Scott City. The task force is in the early stages of its multi-year effort. “We basically have three phases laid out in the task force,” Titus said in an interview Monday on KMAN. “We need to identify the problems we have, how we want to solve those problems, and then how we pay for the solution.”
Read more: themercury.com –

Big name retailers such as Freddy’s, Chipotle and QuikTrip are all eyeing expansions in Andover, the fastest growing city in Butler County. That’s because the suburb east of Wichita has grown to an estimated population of more than 16,000, which can bring in more amenities like restaurants and shops, said Lori Cullum, the president and CEO of Andover Area Chamber of Commerce.
Read more: Wichita Business Journal – Local Wichita News

The U.S. Department of Justice is backing CoreCivic in its legal battle with the city of Leavenworth as the company seeks to reopen a shuttered prison it owns there as an immigrant detention center over the objection of local officials. The DOJ filed a statement of interest in federal court on Tuesday, characterizing the city’s resistance as an illegal effort to undermine the federal government’s immigration enforcement.

Read more: Wichita Eagle

A law enforcement tool for tracking suspect vehicles has been quietly put to use in Reno County. Flock is a system that reads license plates and notifies law enforcement when someone drives by with a plate associated with a crime or missing person. Law enforcement can also search for footage of vehicles by looking up their license plate information, as the Flock system keeps a comprehensive, but short-term record of all vehicles that pass by. The default amount of time that license plate data is stored in the system is 30 days. According to a presentation Flock gave to Cowley County in June 2025, these automatic license plate readers are being used in Hutchinson.
Read more: The Hutchinson Tribune

Fiscal Shocker is an interactive tool designed to compare the fiscal health, revenue structure, and spending priorities of local governments across Kansas. By standardizing and visualizing key financial indicators—such as property tax reliance, revenue structure, and expenditure patterns—it helps users identify similarities and differences among jurisdictions. The tool supports more informed decision-making for policymakers, researchers, and engaged citizens by making local government finances clearer and more comparable.
Learn more: Fiscal Shocker