Municipal News & Jobs

“…it’s business as usual for the muni market lately,” Mousseau, director of fixed income at the Sarasota, Florida, investment management firm, said. “There is no question in my mind that the market smells a tax increase in the federal marginal tax rate coming,” he added.
Source: Bond Buyer.

As the pandemic subsides and focus turns toward reopening the economy, lobbyists for Kansas alcohol businesses are pitching changes to loosen regulations around when and how alcohol establishments can operate as helpful to the industry’s recovery. The state has one of the nation’s strictest alcohol laws. … Allowing carryout and curbside alcohol has been a big priority. It was made allowable under the COVID-19 emergency, but making it permanent beyond the pandemic would be a boost, some said. … Kansas liquor stores can only sell between noon and 8 p.m. on Sundays if the city or county allows it. Sales are prohibited on Memorial Day, Independence Day, Easter Sunday and Labor Day.
Source: CJonline.com.

At this week’s city commission meeting, several members of the public indicated they would be filing lawsuits against the City of Salina in response to the continuation of a face mask mandate in the city. A Kansas Senate bill allows a channel for citizens to seek recourse if they’ve been damaged by the mandates. Salina faced its first of these suits last week. It was dismissed, noting that a Kansas city has “home rule authority,” or final say in how to interpret a state mandate. Mayor Melissa Hodges said she understands that each individual that plans to file a suit has a different set of circumstances. “At this point, we are prepared to address those (suits) as they come,” Hodges said.
Source: Salina Journal.

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.

Perhaps it is fitting that what led to the creation of a city department whose business includes organizing games, hanging holiday lights and planting flowers was actually the community’s hardship. In the late 1930s, Lawrence, like the rest of the country, was still in the midst of the Great Depression, and while the adults worked longer hours and dealt with the struggles of the time, the activities that once entertained the children had become scarce. “All of these organized activities that would have occupied young people, scouting trips, outings and hikes, they weren’t happening as much,” said Watkins Museum of History Curator and Collections manager Brittany Keegan. “So what the city started noticing was groups of kids around without an activity.” The city was planned with central and neighborhood parks from its beginning, but Keegan said it was in the context of the depression that a volunteer council started the recreational component of what would eventually become the Parks and Recreation Department we know today.
Source: LJWorld.com.

When it rains in the small, rural town of Paxico — which sits about 30 miles west of Topeka, just off Interstate 70 — pools of water remain long after each storm has passed. “We have terrible stormwater runoff,” said resident Deanna Pierson. “We’re in a flood zone.” Pierson, with help from an international organization that works with communities to address climate-related issues, published a survey late last year in The Wabaunsee County Signal-Enterprise to collect responses from area residents about local problems they thought needed to be addressed…. But until recently, efforts to reduce such risk were stagnant — that is until Pierson connected with Thriving Earth Exchange, a program that aims to help communities of all sizes tackle local issues related to natural hazards and resources. And Paxico just so happens to be the smallest community with which the earth exchange has ever worked. The Thriving Earth Exchange partnership is one of two different projects Paxico is undertaking to address water-related issues in the northeast Kansas town of about 280 people. The other is an effort to connect the town to a rural water district in order to rid it of well water contaminated with nitrates, which recently led local officials to issue a drinking-water advisory for infants, pregnant women and nursing mothers.
Source: CJonline.com.

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.

For the newly named superintendent of Nickerson-South Hutchinson Schools, life is what you make of it. Along with his suit-andtie job of running a high school in Bennington, Curtis Nightingale is a musician. While attending Newton High School, he played the cornet in band and participated in musical theater, but it was in college where he realized his passion for the bass guitar and his love for several types of contemporary music – from 1950s and ’60s classics to blues to heavy metal. “It was the guitar that struck me,” Nightingale said.
Source: Hutch News.

Matt Lindsey, KICA president, said he believes the phenomenon of better-than-expected enrollment at the private colleges is likely because of a few particular reasons. First, Kansas’ independent colleges weren’t immune to the same downward trend in Kansas high school students’ college-going rate, which was exacerbated by the effect the pandemic had on first-year freshman enrollment rates all around the country. But any trends down in enrollment were buoyed by a significant increase in the number of out-of-state students, who Lindsey said might have seen the more rural Kansas as an “oasis” during spring and summer 2020, when students either finalized or switched plans for their 2020-2021 college years.
Source: CJonline.com.

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.

After a year of canceled and curtailed events, Abilene is as open as the Wild West it evokes as part of its history. Almost all of its tourist attractions will celebrate the unofficial start of the town’s tourist season May 1. The one notable exception is the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, which will remain closed to visitors. Because it is part of the National Archives and Records Administration, the Eisenhower Library is subject to federal guidelines for reopening, as are all presidential libraries. But for the rest of the town and Dickinson County, face masks are discretionary, not mandated, and there is no limit on the number of people who gather.
Source: Salina Journal.

Improvements at the Santa Fe depot have recently been put on hold after the city’s contractor discovered a brick surface beneath the existing gravel parking lot. The 1950s-era train station is an example of midcentury modern architecture, and the station is on the National Register of Historic Places. A Kansas Department of Transportation grant, which the city was awarded in 2013, funded 80% of an approximately $2 million project to rehabilitate the depot.
Source: LJWorld.com.