Kansas Municipal News
For Fredonia’s rising Sauage Fest, word play adds to the fun
One doesn’t need to look hard to find a zany festival in Kansas. Lucas has the Adam’s Apple Festival. Because, you know, the town is home to S.P. Dinsmoor’s historic Garden of Eden. Elk Falls celebrates its outhouses each year with a festival on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Cuba has the Rock-A-Thon. Participants rock around the clock for a week in rocking chairs, sometimes raising more than $25,000 for community projects. Lindsborg’s plethora of festivals includes Svensk Hyllningsfest, which celebrates its Swedish heritage, and Vaffeldagen, a festival of waffles.
Source: KLC Journal
Overland Park ramps up efforts to cut down damaged ash trees
Overland Park plans to cut down hundreds of ash trees throughout the city next year as it ramps up efforts at countering the impacts of the emerald ash borer. The city is set to start a large-scale ash street tree removal and replanting program targeting trees in public right-of-ways that have been damaged by the invasive beetle species. The city’s program will not include ash trees on private property. The emerald ash borer — a small, metallic green beetle — attacks all species of ash trees by cutting off the passage of nutrients and water from the tree’s roots to its canopy.
Source: Shawnee Mission Post
How Google introduced an international student to Hutchinson
The City of Hutchinson and Hutchinson Community College (HCC) have Google to thank for introducing Reno County to international student Felipe Trautmann. Trautmann, 22, was born in Brazil but spent the majority of his youth in Spain. “I have always been on the move,” said Trautmann. “My parents were missionaries. They were always doing work around different churches in Europe.” When it came time for Trautmann to decide his educational path, he decided to put his faith in God and the internet. That’s where he found the surgical technology program at Hutchinson Community College.
Source: KSN-TV
Lawrence homeowners fighting to build fire access road, citing ‘clear and present danger’
When Chris Sanders and Amanda Unruh bought their Lawrence home five years ago, they knew their historic property would need myriad renovations and repairs. They never imagined the long odyssey that would unfold in their quest to protect their family and home. The parents of two young children, the couple wouldn’t move into the nearly century-old, two-story home until a smoke detection system had been installed. In 2017, the family settled into their house with that new system, designed to automatically notify authorities when smoke or fire was detected.
Source: The Lawrence Times
Municipal Bond Trends for November 28, 2022
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.
Pottawatomie County officials working to redraw commission districts as expansion looms
Pottawatomie County officials held a work session Monday, to discuss how the county will divide population into five districts, now that voters have approved expansion of the board from three to five seats. Two new commissioners will come aboard next year. County Counselor John Watt says the county’s preference is to have that occur in the November 2023 general election. “Because a special election will cost the county and arm and a leg. The state doesn’t help with all of that, it’s a county cost,” he said. According to the 2021 census, Pottawatomie County’s population was just slightly over 25,000 people. With that in mind, state statute says each of the five districts should have roughly 5,000 residents living within it. Watt says there is some leeway to how those numbers get divided.
Source: 1350 KMAN
Defending the water supply from blue-green algae
Big or small, a Kansas town that depends on lakes or reservoirs for its water supply faces the increasing threat of toxic amounts of blue-green algae making it into the homes of consumers. That hasn’t happened. But preventing it has, or will, come at a cost, sometimes a significant cost. Braxton Copley, Topeka utilities director, says the capital city is in the planning stages of updating two water treatment plants at a cost of about $20 million to help ensure clean drinking water into the future. Topeka faces significant challenges since it gets “every last drop” of its water supply from the Kansas River, which is fed by several reservoirs. Two of those, Milford and Perry lakes, have consistently hosted harmful algal blooms.
Source: KLC Journal
Learning to live with toxic algal blooms in Kansas
Toxic blue-green algae threaten cattle and have collectively robbed Kansans of thousands of hours of recreation. They drain millions from lake-based economies when outbreaks close lakes to public access. Drinking water is susceptible to the toxin, too, rendering it smelly and foul-tasting. Although there are efforts to combat them, cyanobacteria aren’t going away. As with so many other environmental and health challenges of the 21st century, Kansans will have to continue to adapt and find a way to live with them.
Source: KLC Journal
City of Lawrence gives update on homeless camp after discovery of deceased woman
The City of Lawrence has given an update on its controversial homeless camp following the discovery of a deceased woman. A social media post from the City of Lawrence on Tuesday gave an update on the future of a homeless camp established in the North Lawrence area following the recent discovery of a deceased woman. The City reports that there are no plans to close the temporary support site but will reevaluate it once the Winter Emergency Shelter opens on Dec. 1. A total of 60 people currently reside at the temporary support site and 75 beds will be available once the Winter Emergency Shelter opens for overnight stays. The City anticipates that those staying at the temporary support site will move to the Winter Emergency Shelter once it opens but will won’t come to a decision on the future of the site until later this year.
Source: KSNT 27 News
City manager announces new feature for Emporia’s CodeRed notification system
Since it went live just over two weeks ago, the City of Emporia’s new mass notification system has been put to use with significant frequency, and now more residents are able to receive those notifications. During a recent installment of KVOE’s Talk of Emporia, City Manager Trey Cocking announced the CodeRed notification system is now available in Spanish. Cocking says it makes sense to have the feature given the large Spanish-speaking population within Emporia. When it comes to additional languages being added to the notification system in the future, Cocking says that will be dependent on demand.
Source: KVOE Emporia Radio
Emporia work, local connection leads to city receiving federal Rural Placemaking grant
Emporia’s partnership with Atlas Community Studios has led to grant funding from the federal government as part of its Rural Placemaking Innovation Challenge. The Emporia Area Chamber of Commerce and several of its partner agencies — the Regional Development Association of East Central Kansas, Ignite Emporia and Visit Emporia — are working with Atlas to develop an action plan for guiding public and private investments for now and later. Regional Development Association President Chuck Scott says conversations began late this summer.
Source: KVOE Emporia Radio
As Lenexa’s Schreck prepares to retire, he looks ahead to Johnson County development
During the past 40 years, Blake Schreck watched downtown Kansas City grow from boarded-up storefronts and chained-up doors into the city we know today. He remembers the regional concerns about whether Kansas City would rise to the likes of other successful Midwest cities in the 1980s. But back then, Johnson County fueled the metro’s growth and often kept the region afloat, which “caused some friction” with Kansas City, he said. “Johnson County has stayed true to what it had: the quality of life, education, infrastructure and safe neighborhoods,” Schreck said. “And it still does.”
Source: Kansas City Business Journal
Remodeled downtown park to tell the story of Wichita sit-in, which sparked a movement
For three weeks in the summer of 1958, young protesters sat defiantly at the lunch counter of Wichita’s Dockum Drug Store, waiting to be served. “As far as we were concerned, it was the right thing to do,” said Galyn Vesey, now 85. “All we wanted was to purchase food and drink just like anybody else.” Wichita’s NAACP Youth Council staged the first successful student-led sit-in of the civil rights movement, leading the drug store chain to desegregate all of its Kansas lunch counters 19 months before the better known Woolworth’s sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Source: Wichita Eagle
Rail strike again looms, putting chlorine shipments at risk
After averting a strike between railroad operators and labor union representatives in September, another potential strike is again threatening to put water utility supply chains at risk. According to the unions, a strike could begin as early as Dec. 9. Prior to the agreement in September, leading water sector organizations urged Congress to intervene in the strike, noting that chlorine shipments via rail could be affected. As NACWA noted in September, however, that as long as a possibility of a strike remains, chlorine would likely not be shipped by rail.
Source: Water Finance & Management
WPD collecting donations for local shelters
Wichita police are collecting donations to provide gifts for kids staying at local domestic violence shelters. Toys and other gift items can be dropped off on December 5, at the Patrol West station, at 5803 W Central. That is on Central just west of I-235. Gift idea include arts and crafts supplies, dolls or action figures, pajamas, and remote control toys. Gift items for teens are also needed, including things like earbuds and gift cards.
Source: 101.3 KFDI
Coin toss determines Grant Township clerk race in Riley County
A coin flip was held at Monday’s Riley County Commission meeting to break a tie in the election of the Grant Township Clerk. Travis Shanahan, the current clerk finished with 19 votes in the Nov. 8 election. So did Riley County resident Larry Noble. Riley County Clerk Rich Vargo explains that a coin toss, while rare in local elections, has happened before. Vargo pulled out a large coin, tossed it into the air, as Shanahan called it.
Source: 1350 KMAN
Overland Park single-family development could add 1,170 homes on city’s southern edge
Overland Park will consider a smaller — but still huge — development at the city’s southern edge that could add 1,169 single-family houses on 506 acres. Originally, in 2012, an affiliate of a Philadelphia-based company proposed 1,808 homes on about 570 acres, plus 7,000 square feet of retail. That plan never came to fruition, but the single-family zoning for the acreage stuck. Southern Meadows LLC, an affiliate of Overland Park-based Lambie Homes LLC, now plans to develop the area near 191st Street and State Line Road.
Source: Kansas City Business Journal
Former Halstead Hospital up for auction
The former Halstead Hospital and other attached parcels of land and property are on the auction block. The hospital itself closed in 2002, with numerous attempts to reopen its doors over the years. … Since 2005, nine hospitals in Kansas, many of them serving rural, poor communities, have closed or have converted to no longer offer inpatient services. Several still operate clinics or offer emergency services. The auction includes Halstead Hospital, the former Halstead Motel, an apartment complex, and a residential home.
Source: KSN-TV
Overland Park weighs more public financing for Mission Farms West apartments
Developers of Mission Farms West want the city to increase public financing for the next phase of construction for the mixed-use development near Mission Road and Interstate 435. The Overland Park Finance, Administration and Economic Development Committee has already voted to recommend issuing $27 million worth of economic development revenue bonds – tripling the original $9 million previously approved by the city. The bonds are a financing measure that will allow the developer, Mission Farms West Development LLC, to claim sales tax exemptions on construction materials, equipment, labor and furnishings for the project.
Source: Prairie Village Post
Panasonic rolls out plans for $4 billion EV plant in De Soto, Kansas
City leaders in De Soto are getting a glimpse at what Panasonic’s $4 billion electric vehicle battery plant may look like. Tentative plans for the new facility show a two-story, U-shaped building to be constructed near the southwest corner of West 103rd Street and Dual Drive. Alison Hoagland, principal at Mackenzie, said once completed, raw materials will enter the facility through a central point with production lines filling both wings of the building.
Source: fox4kc.com | FOX 4 – WDAF