Kansas Municipal News
City launches survey about downtown
The city’s Choose Newton Main Street is asking residents, visitors and business owners to spend 10 minutes to fill out the online survey. If you provide an email, you will also be entered to win one of four $50 gift cards. According to the city’s release, the survey will prepare them for a visit from Kansas Main Street and Main Street America staff in October, aimed at crafting a “2025 Transformation Strategy,” which will be a plan to revitalize or strengthen downtown Newton’s economy. “The goal is to get community engagement and input for our downtown so that we can set priorities that our community truly sees as the priorities,” stated Jen Lehman, the city’s convention and visitors bureau coordinator. “We are hoping to get as many responses as possible.”
Source: Harvey County Now
Savonburg speaks
Residents seek progress on goals from a community conversation hosted by Thrive Allen County. This year’s event addressed matters brought up last year , with small steps made toward their top concerns. Savonburg residents want to see more action taken towards their goals for improvement. Since they met a year ago, small steps have been made towards what they deemed the top three concerns at the time — electrical grid improvements, community involvement, and the town’s appearance. A small group of citizens gathered in the community building Tuesday evening to revisit and revise these goals during Thrive Allen County’s latest community conversation.
Source: The Iola Register
1969 fire truck to retire
A 1969 fire truck is being retired and the Solid Waste Department has purchased a 1996 Ford F350 Brush Fire Truck from the city of Wilson for $14,300. Solid Waste Director Jennifer Hamby asked the Barton County Commission to officially approve the purchase at Tuesday’s commission meeting. The truck was purchased through the Purple Wave online auction site and the funds will come from the budget for the county landfill. There are areas at the landfill that are prone to fires even though the Solid Waste Department has taken measures for fire suppression. Some time back, the department bought an old truck from the Claflin Fire Department and that is being replaced. Hamby said it is smaller than the brush truck and can get stuck easier.
Source: Great Bend Tribune
Olathe moves ahead with STAR bond district for ‘ultra-accessible’ amusement park, sport arena
Loretto Properties’ plan to build an “ultra-accessible” special incentive district featuring an amusement park, a 5,000-seat multisport complex, housing, retail, dining and a medical facility for individuals with disabilities easily cleared its first hurdle this week. The company — run by Lamar Hunt Jr. and his son-in-law James Arkell — has requested a Sales Tax and Revenue, or STAR, bond district. The total estimate for the price tag of the first planned phase of development at the southwest corner of 119th Street and Renner Boulevard covering about 64 acres costs about $300 million. An official amount has yet to be set, but Arkell estimated in an interview with the Post the project would request about $54 million through the incentive. The Olathe City Council on Tuesday voted 6-0 to start the process of establishing a STAR bond district comprising roughly 132 acres in the area known as Olathe Gateway.
Source: Johnson County Post
Prairie Village shuts down big changes to property tax rebate program
One Prairie Village program to provide tax relief for residents is remaining relatively unchanged, despite one councilmember’s proposed updates. The Prairie Village City Council on Monday during its committee meeting effectively shut down a proposal by Councilmember Greg Shelton to change the city’s property tax rebate program to emphasize helping young families. Currently, the property tax rebate program gives eligible residents — based only on income levels — the city’s portion of their individual tax bill back as a way to offer some tax relief. The city council discussed Shelton’s proposal to prioritize families as a way to provide relief for those dealing with high childcare costs in addition to an increased cost of living. (Shelton is the brother-in-law of Post publisher Jay Senter.)
Source: Johnson County Post
Hillsboro to aid Peabody on water
Hillsboro City Council agreed Tuesday that Hillsboro water system employees would help Peabody with its understaffed public works department. City administrator Matt Stiles discussed Peabody’s staffing with mayor Lou Thurston, Peabody mayor Catherine Weems, and Hillsboro water superintendent and Peabody resident Morgan Marler. “Peabody has seen a lot of employees leave the organization, which has created a situation where they don’t have the required operators or staff to address their system requirements,” Stiles said.
Source: Marion County RECORD
Grocery and deli provides an oasis in growing Kansas food deserts
Its removal can spell disaster for locals, who might be left with a corporate mega-chain as their only option for groceries, or at least be forced to drive much farther for quality food.
The Wichita Eagle reported in 2016 that 51% of Kansas’ 675 communities had no local supermarkets. The future is not looking good for such businesses, either. One in five rural Kansas groceries closed between 2008 and 2018, according to the Rural Grocery Initiative at Kansas State University.
Source:Marion County RECORD
Olathe OKs incentives for rundown shopping complex — Here’s the plan
The vacant and dilapidated Rosebud Plaza Shopping Center at the northeast corner of Santa Fe Street and Mur-Len Road could soon see some reinvestment to the tune of $26 million. On Tuesday, the Olathe City Council voted 6-0 to start the process of establishing a Tax Increment Financing, or TIF, district for the shopping center’s redevelopment, now dubbed Indian Creek Crossing.
Source: Prairie Village Post
Hostilities at public meetings a nationwide issue
An outrageous Lawrence City Council meeting is just one example of political discord at the local level. Commission meetings in Lawrence are built to solicit and hear public input. On nearly every agenda item, citizens are given up to three minutes apiece to weigh in. There is even a section of the meeting to hear public comments about city business that isn’t on the agenda. I covered the Lawrence City Commission years ago as a young journalist, you see. There was always a culture of vibrant public input — I can remember the gadflies and their names; the meetings could stretch deep into the night — and there could be hurt feelings. But one could watch the process and come away with a firm sense that the public’s business was being done. Not so much now. Dealing with the commenters consumes an inordinate amount of the commission’s time and resources, mental and otherwise. They’ve changed the rules — pushing the main comment session to the end of the meeting, no longer broadcasting that portion on the city’s YouTube channel. And they’re fighting a lawsuit from another notorious commenter, Justin Spiehs, who says his First Amendment rights have been curtailed by the commission for being a “troublemaker and instigator” at meetings. It all resembles a real-life “denial of service” attack — that form of cyber-hacking that shuts down websites by flooding them with an overflow of useful traffic. And you have to ask: Why would anybody sign up for public service, simply to endure all this?
Source: The Iola Register
Richmond builds new fire station
The town of Richmond is not catching on fire, but you’ll certainly see red when you notice the new fire station which is East of Highway 59 Service Station. The 80ft. X 76ft. steel-sided building was designed by Ken Coleman and built by Quality Structures in what seemed like a short amount of time. “Quality Structures is proud to help serve the city of Richmond and local communities,” said Rick Gudenkauf, General Manager. This is only one of numerous projects QSI has helped with or been almost totally responsible for as in the case of the Show Barn for the Richmond Free Fair Assn. Gudenkauf said many employees assisted with the fire station project from Pat DuPont in the beginning to Ken Coleman in the design dept., to Matt Batchelor who is also on the Fire Dept. board. “There is also an attached office/training area on the south that is 40ft. X 24 ft.,” the QSI manager said. There are four bays for trucks which leaves room for an addition since the department now has three trucks. Background information was furnished by Lester Wuertz, Richmond Fire Dept. president, who said QSI is in the process of placing water and electricity lines before the concrete floor is poured. QSI will get bids for the sub-contractors. Then, add the big doors and finishing touches….and it will be an exciting moment when it’s ribbon-cutting time!
Source: The Ottawa Herald
Childcare again drives county meeting
A Crawford County commissioner, pastor, and Morning Sun news reporter discussed childcare at Tuesday’s regular meeting, exchanging at times heated comments on the validity and process of the funds from the American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA). The conversation of childcare further carried into this week’s meeting with Victory Life Church Pastor Donny Talent speaking during public comment.
Source: Morning Sun
College students help revitalize downtown gardens
Emporia Main Street’s ongoing “Adopt a Garden” program received a major boost Monday evening when volunteers from Flint Hills Technical College and the Emporia State University women’s basketball team pitched in to clean up downtown garden beds. Students spent about some time weeding, removing trash, and tidying up the beds to help keep the city’s green spaces vibrant. “We’re really excited we had volunteers from Flint Hills Technical College and the ESU women’s basketball team helping us out,” said Community Development Coordinator Jess Buchholz. “The downtown gardens are a big part of our community, and having the help of local volunteers is huge. It really shows the community coming together to keep the area looking beautiful.” Buchholz said the Adopt a Garden program encourages businesses, organizations, and individuals to adopt garden beds throughout downtown, primarily along Commercial Street and the stretch of Sixth Street between Merchant and Market.
Source: Emporia Gazette
Halstead Zoning Commission holds open hearing on battery storage system
The Halstead Planning and Zoning Commission opened a public hearing as the board tried to draft regulations regarding battery energy storage systems or BESS. Concurrent, a renewable energy company, wants to build the Tallgrass Prairie Energy Center in the Halstead Industrial Park. The lithium ion battery storage system would use the Evergy transmission system and substation located on the south side of the Industrial Park. Concurrent would build the facility and then sell it to a private company. Aidan Pelligrino, Concurrent’s managing director of development, asked the commission to make changes in some of the wording to the draft of the regulations. “Thank you for putting so much thought into drafting this language,” he said. “It will allow us to have a productive discussion about BESS as a use, when one side is less familiar.”
Source: Harvey County Now
Walton Fire Department sparks volunteering for Ashbys
Most married couples figuratively put out fires together, whether it’s visiting a principal about one of their kids or baking cupcakes last minute the night before a school bake sale. In the case of Jeremy and Stephanie Ashby of Walton, though, they literally put out fires together. Both are on the Walton Fire Department. Jeremy is the fire chief, while Stephanie is a firefighter/EMT. Stephanie has worked for the City of Walton since 2012. There, she’s the city clerk and became an EMT for Walton in 2020 and a firefighter at one point. “She literally looked at me one day and said, ‘I want to do what you do,’” Jeremy said about his wife and firefighting. Both are volunteers. “Being a volunteer is like a second job sometimes,” Jeremy said. “It takes up a lot of extra time.” Stephanie also is the secretary/treasurer of the fire department. Jeremy said being an officer in the fire department takes a lot of extra hours. It’s also a challenge when firefighters have children. “We have a single dad, and if he has his kids, he might not be able to run a call,” Stephanie said. For his firefighter training, Jeremy went through the University of Kansas at Hutchinson Community College in 2003, and Stephanie got her Firefighter 1, which is a basic level. She also trained through Hutchinson Community College for her EMT designation and earned a 4.0 grade-point average. Jeremy has been with the Walton Fire Department since 2009. They’ve served alongside each other. “We’ve been at fires, just us two,” Stephanie said. “It’s a different dynamic. I have to acknowledge he’s the chief and I’m the subordinate. You’re not married when you walk in the door.” “And hopefully we’re married when we walk out,” Jeremy said, laughing.
Source: Harvey County Now
Hesston’s dog park construction is ramping up
Hesston’s new dog park will begin to take more shape very soon, as crews are slated to start setting posts for the new canine enclosure. “They may not string the fence until we are done with some of the construction,” Parks Foreman Josh Hastings said. “They’ll set posts and come back and string fence as one of the latter things.” While the posts are being set, Hesston Park crews will be over-seeding the area, as irrigation will be installed for good grass inside the fence for the dogs. There will also be the construction of a simple, yet effective, bathroom. “We’re going to re-purpose the lights that are at the existing location to the new area,” he said. “There will be drinking fountains as well as fountains for the dogs.” The original opening date for the new dog park was slated for Oct. 1 but has been pushed back. Hastings estimated a mid-October opening date. “We’ve had trouble with getting someone to build a bathroom, but we have someone for that,” Hastings said. “It’s a fairly quick process is what he said, and then we’ll go overseed it. We want to give that grass a week or two to get fairly established before we turn the four-legged folk on it.” Hastings is very familiar with the Newton Dog Park, as he helped build it when he worked for Newton, so he felt there were some things Hesston could do differently, including the irrigation. The park will feature some obstacles for both sides of the park, as it will be divided into a small and large dog side, with small dogs being considered to be 25 pounds or less. “If nothing else, it’s something else to pee on,” Hastings said. In terms of the rest of the parks around Hesston, Hastings said they are currently getting bids for replacing some playground equipment as they develop a plan for the parks. Some of the equipment in the parks is dated and needs to be replaced. The Heritage Park shelter remodel is slated to be wrapped up by mid-October.
Source: Harvey County Now
With age comes beauty: Historic gem in Ironwoods Park delights visitors of all ages
Classrooms are a place for eager and enthusiastic minds. It’s no different inside the Historic Oxford Schoolhouse, says April Bishop. Bishop is a docent at the Leawood schoolhouse, located in Ironwoods Park, 14701 Mission Road. It is her job to guide visitors through the experience of a one-room schoolhouse. Often, the adult visitors generate the narrative. “They say, ‘I had this desk’ or ‘That photo looks like my schoolhouse’,” Bishop said. “Instantly, they have a connection with it or knew someone who went to a one-room schoolhouse. It’s mostly them talking about their memories rather than me talking about information.” Indeed, one-room schoolhouses were once plentiful across rural America, including Johnson County. Many operated into the early 1960s, Bishop said. The Oxford Schoolhouse operated until 1955 at 135th Street and Mission Road. It is one of the oldest schools in Kansas, having been open from 1877 to 1955. After 1920, it was converted into an elementary school and used until the student body became too large. Eventually, development reached the schoolhouse’s doorsteps. It was moved to Ironwoods Park in 2003, renovated and reopened as a historic site in 2004. The only modern change was to added air conditioning and heating. The Leawood Historic Commission received the 2005 Award for Excellence for Preservation Advocacy from the Kansas Preservation Alliance.
Source: Joco 913 News
As Kansas farms grow bigger, more people leave and rural life gets lonelier
Kansas farms have expanded their operations and are now bigger than ever, which has led to an economic boom. But that also means fewer farmers, and that has contributed to depopulation in rural parts of the state that were socially isolated to begin with. Kansas farms are more specialized, sticking to large-scale farming of one or two commodity crops. There are government incentives for these crops, and bigger farms get more federal dollars. That economic efficiency might actually be hurting smaller towns, exacerbating some of the health challenges rural Kansans already face. Larger farms push out smaller farms and lead to less people staying in a community. With less people there’s less resources for them like hospitals and schools. The changes have happened over years, a period that also saw death by suicide rates rise in rural areas Mental health access is already hard to come by in western Kansas, but suicide rates are even higher if you work in agriculture.
Source: KCUR News
Kansas housing shortage leaves all ‘in the same boat’
“Kansas has been a magnet for economic development lately,” says Jeri Hammerschmidt, a senior housing specialist for First Step Builders in Independence. “Everybody wants to come here. We’ve got the highways and the railways and all of that. But you can’t really recruit these things unless you have your housing and you have your day care, right?” The annual report of the Kansas Housing Resources Corporation (KHRC) shows the agency funded 61 housing developments across the state in 2023, creating 3,234 new homes in 38 counties. Twenty-five developments fell under the “affordable housing” definition and the rest were moderate income, meaning the residents earn too much to qualify for federal housing assistance, yet struggle to afford market rate homes. But that is a pittance compared with what is needed. A comprehensive housing-needs study released in 2022 by the KHRC showed nearly 43,000 housing units are needed across the state by 2028 – a number that does not include the needs in Kansas City or Wichita, or in Shawnee, Sedgwick and Douglas counties.
Source: KLC Journal
Hutchinson City Council votes to push STAR bonds to the next step
Some of Hutchinson’s most recognizable landmarks are one step closer to getting a facelift. Sales Tax and Revenue (STAR) bonds were the center of discussion at a public hearing held in Hutchinson. The city council heard from the public and then voted to push STAR bond(s) to the next step. The Cosmosphere, Memorial Hall, and the old Landmark building are all set to be improved, remodeled or renovated.
Source: KSN-TV
Hutchinson firefighters going to Colorado to fight wildfire
Firefighters from Hutchinson are on the move, heading to Colorado to help fight a wildfire. Three firefighters left with a brush truck heading west to help with the Pearl Fire northwest of Fort Collins, close to the Colorado-Wyoming state line. So far, the fire is 128 acres in size and is 5% contained, according to InciWeb. The fire started around 6 a.m. on Tuesday morning. The Larimer County Sheriff’s Office determined that the fire originated on private property and was human-caused.
Source: KSN-TV