Kansas Municipal News
Wichita high school students will have to pass through metal detectors to get to class
After a spate of brawls, school security deploying pepper spray and students arrested with guns, the Wichita School Board on Monday approved spending $1.5 million for metal detectors at public high schools. “I tried to put myself in the parents’ positions last week, and I would have been scared,” board member Kathy Bond said. “I’d be scared with what has happened.” The detectors will be placed at the entrances of North, South, East, West, Northwest, Northeast, Southeast and Heights high schools. Every student who enters the building in the morning will have to pass in a single-file line through the metal detectors to be checked for weapons and other large metal objects.
Source: Wichita Eagle
Working for Lenexa: planning for the future of the City
Christa McGaha, planner II with the City of Lenexa Community Development Department, grew up in a small town an hour northwest of Boston where she was close to the Atlantic Ocean, mountains, and scenic outdoor trails. She’s now 1,400 miles from her family but Kansas City has quickly become home. “Moving here by myself was definitely a huge change,” she said. “I always had roommates and I’ve never gone somewhere not knowing anyone. I’m proud of myself for doing it and for making a home here.” When people hear the job title “planner,” they often think of event planning for small or large-scale personal or corporate events. City planners review new buildings and development happening within city limits. That means when a new chain restaurant or a family-owned business comes to Lenexa, the city planners are the first to review the application.
Source: Prairie Village Post
Wichita may decriminalize small-time marijuana possession under City Council proposal
The Wichita City Council is poised to repeal the city’s marijuana laws, making the state’s largest city the least restrictive on marijuana possession in Kansas. On Tuesday, the City Council will vote on whether to decriminalize possession of less than 32 grams of marijuana in the city limits. If that passes, marijuana cases could no longer be filed in municipal court. The change would not affect state and federal prohibitions on marijuana. Wichita police could still arrest people for marijuana possession or use it as a reason to search their property.
Source: Wichita Eagle
Paola school bond proposal narrowly fails by 77 votes
Paola USD 368’s $40 million bond proposal to make improvements districtwide failed by 77 votes, according to the unofficial final results of the mail-in ballot election posted Thursday, Sept. 8, by the Miami County Clerk and Election Office. Ballots were mailed out Aug. 19 to 8,602 registered voters within the Paola USD 368 boundaries, and 3,094 were returned to the Miami County Clerk’s Office by the noon deadline Thursday, Sept. 8. That puts the voter turnout at 36 percent. There were 1,506 “Yes” votes (48.75 percent) and 1,583 “No” votes (51.25 percent), according to the posted results.
Source: The Miami County Republic
Municipal Bond Trends for September 12, 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.
Sedgwick County sheriff deputy completes dunk; NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal to donate 1,000 laptops, shoes to Wichita youth charity
Wichita children are soon to be the beneficiaries of the generosity of Shaquille O’Neal. In his appearance at Koch Arena on Saturday night for a Wichita charity basketball game, the NBA legend and Hall of Famer promised to buy 1,000 laptops and 1,000 pairs of his new “Shaq Attaq” Reebok shoes for Storytime Village, a Wichita-based children’s literacy nonprofit organization, to distribute. The promise didn’t come without a stipulation, however. The catch? In his halftime sit-down interview, the Big Diesel, a children’s book author who made the stop in Wichita to help promote children’s literacy with the local charity, went off-script and challenged a Sedgwick County sheriff deputy to dunk in the second half of the charity basketball game to earn the donation. Sitting in his courtside seat on his team’s bench, Vince Folston couldn’t believe it when O’Neal called him out on the microphone in front of the crowd.
Source: Wichita Eagle
Parsons PD faces issues of keeping, recruiting officers
Police and fire departments in small towns such as Parsons face a multitude of problems recruiting and retaining officers and a big portion of that problem is pay. “I’ve got multiple positions open in the police department because I’ve been cherry-picked by private industry and the larger departments who can throw money at my officers,” Parsons Police Chief Robert Spinks. “Is that something new? No.” Spinks said it has been that way for 25 years under three different chiefs of police and various city managers and city commission members. The Parsons Police Department has gone through 100 staff members since 2009, Spinks said.
Source: Parsons Sun
$4.5 million bond passes issue for Ellis County
Ellis residents Thursday voted in favor of a $4.5 million bond to improve district facilities. The issue passed with a vote of 440-98. Ellis Junior/Senior High School and Washington Grade School will get improvements through the bond. The junior and senior high facility improvements include a new secure entry, renovated science labs, new exterior doors and a partial roof replacement.
Source: KSN-TV
Grant Funding Available to Revitalize Downtown Buildings Statewide
Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of Commerce David Toland announced a second round of Historic Economic Asset Lifeline (HEAL) grants intended for revitalizing downtown buildings in small communities across the state. The HEAL program, which is funded by the Department of Commerce and the Patterson Family Foundation, will invest $850,000 in projects in the Fall 2022 grant round. The HEAL program is designed to bring downtown buildings back into productive use as spaces for: New or expanding businesses; Housing; Arts and culture; Civic engagement; Childcare or
Entrepreneurship. … Information about the HEAL grant program and the online application can be viewed at www.kansascommerce.gov/healfall2022.
Source: 101.3 KFDI
Fire hydrant maintenance essential to Holton water quality
Keeping Holton’s water supply and distribution system in excellent shape involves making sure that the city’s 142 fire hydrants are also in good shape, according to Holton Water and Wastewater Superintendent Dennis Ashcraft. Flushing the distribution system also allows Ashcraft’s crew to identify issues with fire hydrants that are in need of repair, such as the hydrant at the intersection of Second Street and Wisconsin Avenue that water employees P.J. Oldehoeft and Cory Miller were recently seen repairing.
Source: Holton Recorder
Fed’s Waller sees ‘significant’ rate hike this month, backs data-dependent approach
Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller on Friday echoed recent sentiments from his colleagues, saying he expects a big interest rate increase later this month. He also said policymakers should stop trying to guess the future and instead stick to what the data is saying. “Looking ahead to our next meeting, I support another significant increase in the policy rate,” Waller said in remarks prepared for a speech in Vienna. “But, looking further out, I can’t tell you about the appropriate path of policy. The peak range and how fast we will move there will depend on data we will receive about the economy.” … Markets strongly expect the central bank to take up its benchmark borrowing rate by 0.75 percent point, which would be the third consecutive move of that magnitude and the fastest pace of monetary tightening since the Fed began using the benchmark funds rate as its chief policy tool in the early 1990s.
Source: CNBC
Municipal Bond Trends for September 9, 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.
Shawnee County trails increasingly used as a transportation network
Shawnee County maintains 60 miles of trails, with 31.64 miles being paved, said Mike McLaughlin, communications and public information supervisor for Shawnee County Parks and Recreation. While the county’s trails are used mostly for recreation, they’re increasingly becoming a transportation network in recent years, due largely to the creation of extensions that connect them with each other, said parks and recreation director Tim Laurent.
Source: CJonline
Municipal Bond Trends for September 8, 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.
More in county going hungry
Most banks store money, but the Food Bank of Reno County is stocked with canned goods and pantry items instead. Particularly amid current rising economic costs, however, food is money. Penny Taapken, the director of the food bank for the last 18 years, said the need is increasing for services. “We serve emergency food to those in need so that no one should go hungry,” she said.
Source: Hutch News
Seeking new ways to boost workforce: Kansas office could expand state’s use of apprenticeships
As Kansas prepares for technology giant Panasonic to break ground on a multibillion dollar factory, Gov. Laura Kelly announced a new office designed to boost apprenticeships and help better bolster the state’s workforce. Under an executive order signed Tuesday, Kelly’s administration will create the Office of Registered Apprenticeships, a move designed to expand the tool, which allows workers to get paid while receiving job training in a specialized field. Currently, nearly 3,400 Kansans participate in one of 212 apprenticeship programs statewide.
Source: CJonline
Fed Chair Powell vows to raise rates to fight inflation ‘until the job is done’
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in an appearance Thursday emphasized the importance of getting inflation down now before the public gets too used to higher prices and comes to expect them as the norm. In his latest comments underlining his commitment to the inflation fight, Powell said expectations play an important role and were critical to why inflation was so persistent in the 1970s and ’80s. “History cautions strongly against prematurely loosening policy,” the central bank leader said in a Q&A presented by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank based in Washington, D.C. “I can assure you that my colleagues and I are strongly committed to this project and we will keep at it until the job is done.
Source: CNBC
New City Administrator comes to Spring Hill
The City of Spring Hill welcomes Lane Massey as the new City Administrator. Massey joins the City with a Masters of Public Administration and more than 20 years of city government experience. He worked for the City of Wichita and Arkansas City before becoming the City Manager in Larned for six years. He spent the last five years as the Assistant City Manager in Emporia. He says his experience working in small to mid-size cities will help him navigate Spring Hill through growth and the challenges that come with it.
Source: City of Spring Hill news
The bridges of Jefferson County 50 years after a failed bond election
When bridge inspections were first mandated by Congress over 50 years ago, 72% of the Jefferson County bridges were found to be incapable of carrying the legal weight limit. That is 129 of the county’s 180 bridges. Five of those bridges were closed immediately and low-weight limits were placed on the others. The disruption to the traffic flow on the county’s 900 miles of roads was tremendous. Marketing grain and livestock was a problem in an agricultural county as well as school buses and mail routes had to be rerouted and emergency vehicles, including fire trucks, could not cross many of the bridges. There were 7,000 fewer residents in the county at that time, but nevertheless a high percentage were daily commuters to jobs in neighboring towns and cities.
Source: JeffCountyNews
Kansas wants to plug abandoned oil wells that belch methane and swallow groundwater
Last summer, a utility worker stumbled across a well — one of thousands of abandoned, unplugged oil and gas wells scattered across Kansas — just 15 feet from a stream in La Cygne, an hour south of Kansas City. Such sites bear witness to the state’s history of fossil fuel production — and they can leak pollutants into the air and water generations after they’ve been forgotten. Tens of millions of federal tax dollars will help the state seal thousands of openings over the next several years, though many will remain unaddressed. Old wells in Kansas can date back to the start of oil and gas drilling in the region in the mid-1800s.
Source: KCUR News