Municipal News & Jobs

The prospect of additional passenger flights in and out of Salina Regional Airport is greater than ever after the city and county commissions approved funding to support a maintenance base at the facility this week. SkyWest Airlines, which currently operates flights in Salina to and from Denver and Chicago, is looking at the airport as a site that would perform overnight maintenance and safety checks. “(This kind of base) is a tool to use to improve air service and one that is very unique to communities,” said Tim Rogers, the executive director of the Salina Airport Authority. He said having a maintenance base in a community can allow for multiple flights to and from that community at frequencies that exceed what the market justifies.
Source: Salina Journal

The process is to last from February through September of this year, the document said. It added, “At the conclusion of the work scope, the city of Topeka will have identified a portfolio of solutions for addressing the challenge of homelessness in the Topeka community; prototyped and tested two of those solutions with members of their community; and developed an impact measurement and next step implementation plan for two solutions of the team’s portfolio of ideas.”
Source: CJonline

Lifelong Topekan Randi Stahl has been hired as chief information officer to oversee the information technology department for Topeka’s city government., the city announced Tuesday. Stahl has served in various leadership roles in the community, including technology-based experience, risk management and project management, the city said in a news release.
Source: CJonline

The city of Lawrence is looking to hire more people to work at a city-operated campsite for the homeless so that the North Lawrence camp can have 24-hour per day, seven-day per week staffing. City Manager Craig Owens told commissioners at their Tuesday evening meeting that finding staffing has been a challenge, but the city was bettering its salary offers to try to attract individuals with specific qualifications in the field of serving the homeless. “We have tried to hire employees who are trained in that and who have knowledge in this space that we just frankly don’t have,” Owens said. “This is new for us.” Owens in his briefing didn’t provide details on those salary ranges or how much the city expects to spend on providing staffing at the site, which is located on city-owned property between Johnny’s Tavern and the Kansas River levee in North Lawrence.
Source: LJWorld

Lawrence has an official goal to be the “most business-friendly community in the region,” but a new survey found that less than half of the city’s business community currently finds the city friendly. City commissioners at their meeting Tuesday evening received the results of the community’s first business satisfaction survey, which included responses from 308 business representatives in the community. A headline finding of the survey was that 51% of all respondents did not find the City of Lawrence to be business friendly. “Lawrence has developed a bad reputation,” one of several hundred anonymous comments left as part of the scientific survey read. “Developers and businesses do not want to come here because they make it so difficult.” But the survey also suggested that many of those businesses have learned to live with it. Despite a majority of residents saying the city was not business friendly, 59% of respondents said they were satisfied or very satisfied as a place to do business.
Source: LJWorld

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, Beth Warren and Henry Schmidt.

Newton businesses will receive a letter and information in the coming days about the City’s new Newton Business Registry. The purpose of the registry is to streamline local businesses’ administrative work with the City by establishing a single record of contact information and licensing and permit needs. For example, this registry would have been extremely helpful in recent years as the City was rolling out information about COVID-relief grants available to businesses. There is no fee for the registration, and it is not mandatory to operate a business in Newton.
Source: City of Newton

Last summer, the Ellsworth County Economic Development received a $10,000 grant from the Kansas Office of Rural Prosperity and the Kansas Department of Commerce. The matching grant was used to create new murals and public art projects. Ellsworth County Economic Development Executive Director Stacie Schmidt said the funds completed three murals in the City of Ellsworth and one in the City of Holyrood. “Not only does it improve our aesthetics, we also think it draws attention to the businesses hosting those murals,” said Schmidt. “It draws a little bit of a tourist component too. We wanted to make them for an opportunity for photos so tourists will walk the streets of Ellsworth County a little bit.”
Source: Great Bend Post

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, Beth Warren and Henry Schmidt.

The City of Lawrence will hold two public meetings this week to share information and gather input about the city’s plan to transition its fleet of vehicles to more environmental options. The Lawrence community is invited to attend “discovery session” presentations for the city fleet analysis process that will take place on Wednesday and Thursday, according to a city news release. The meetings will help the city develop a plan for combating transportation emissions and improving the environmental performance of the city’s vehicle fleet.
Source: LJWorld