Once an iconic piece of downtown Shawnee, Kansas, a boarded-up movie theater will soon get new life.
There’s a new effort under way to get the place up and running again.
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Hidden in plain sight on Johnson Drive, you’ll find the weathered remnants of a place taken by time – and three guys who want to take it back.
“I didn’t want to pick our colors and try to find something that matched it,” said Jeff Calkins as he walked us through the work done so far.
Calkins, his brother Chris Calkins, and their friend Bruce Young are working to restore the old Aztec Theatre.
Founded in the 1920s as Mission Theatre, it was renamed in the ’40s, and stayed in business until 1974.
“It was like the place to be in those days,” Young said. “It was crowded. The line would be down the street to buy tickets.”
“Bringing it back like we are, we hope a lot of people will come. A lot of people will come and enjoy it,” said Chris Calkins.
There’s a long way to go before it’s back to its former self, but they’re trying.
The Aztec Group is using investments, grant money and donations to get the job done.
A failed motion is what transpired following a discussion at the Sabetha City Commission meeting Monday evening, regarding an offer that Westar made to the city.
The Sabetha City Commission met at 6 p.m. Monday, Dec. 10, at City Hall. Present were Mayor Doug Clark, Commissioners Nick Aberle, Norm Schmitt, Maridel Wittmer and Julie Burenheide, City Administrator Doug Allen, Assistant City Administrator Bill Shroyer and City Clerk Steve Compo. Also present was Scott Shreve with Energy Management Group (EMG) and patron Phil Moser. Shreve came before the commission to offer the city the opportunity to purchase two megawatts of wind energy from the Soldier Creek Wind Farm, which will potentially be located in the southern part of Nemaha County. Shreve said that Westar is offering the City of Sabetha two megawatts for a fixed rate of $18 for 20 years.
Currently, Sabetha has one megawatt from the Kingman Wind Farm, which is located in Kingman, Kan.
“This is a really good price to purchase at,” Shreve said. “I recommend you do it.”
Commissioner Aberle questioned how this compares with the Kingman Wind Farm, which is currently at an average of $26 for 20 years.“I personally don’t have a problem with saving money,” Commissioner Aberle said. “I just don’t like the timing of this. I think its a political play. I personally have a bad feeling in my gut, endorsing something by participating. It wouldn’t be a stretch for someone to say, ‘the City of Sabetha bought power from the Soldier Creek Wind Farm. They’re in favor of it.’ I don’t know if that is a good place for any of us.”
After a week’s delay, the City Council is ready to play ball with a group to develop Wichita’s new $75 million baseball stadium.
On Tuesday, the council picked its team: JE Dunn Construction, EBY Construction, Schaefer Johnson Cox Frey Architecture, DLR Group, and Professional Engineering Consultants.
Those companies will design and build the stadium to replace the demolished Lawrence-Dumont Stadium at the northwest corner of Maple and McLean.
The city is using a single team to handle both the design and construction of the project in the interest of time. The still-to-be-named team is expected to throw out its first pitch in April 2020 — a short time frame for a 10,000-seat stadium that’s expected to have state-of-the-art conveniences and concessions.
A 100-acre piece of property just north of U.S. 54 in Andover could look a lot different starting next year.
Investor Michael Lies and Jerry Jones of the Jones Commercial Development Co. have plans for a large mixed-use development that would include compact homes, retail and restaurant space, and a new city park.
After close to three years of discussions, Andover’s City Council appears to be fully on board with the development, which would include an expansion of Yorktown Street to the north from U.S. 54.
“Mike (Lies) and Lance (Biel) have been working to assemble this piece of property for more than 10 years,” Jones says. “There’s a lot going on in this area. With the bond issue that passed last year, there’s major upgrades being done to Andover Central (High School). There’s also the new (Capitol Federal) Amphitheater, which is a 10,000-person venue.”
“With all that going on, and with the YMCA and Dillons on the south side of U.S. 54, the city of Andover has been looking for another north/south street connection.”
Deputy City Manager Vicki Charlesworth, who has been a fixture at Shawnee City Hall for three decades, is set to wrap up a long and respected career for the city this week.
Charlesworth will officially retire on Friday, Dec. 14.
Charlesworth’s service to Shawnee started in November 1988 when she joined the staff as a personnel technician. She steadily rose through the ranks of the city’s administration, serving as personnel analyst, deputy city clerk, city clerk, and assistant city manager before become deputy city manager in 2012. Charlesworth took over as interim city manager in November 2017 after the departure of Carol Gonzalez for a position with MARC.
Nolan Sunderman, who was named new Shawnee City Manager this summer, praised Charlesworth for her work ethic and deliberative manner.
“Vicki was always the first one in City Hall every day and the last one to leave. She worked tirelessly to make thoughtful, fair decisions for our community for more than 30 years,” Sunderman said.
Geary County Commissioners met with members of the area legislative delegation on Monday at the Geary County Office Building. A main topic involved the upcoming working relationship between the legislature and the new incoming governor Laura Kelly.
According to Commission Chairman Charles Stimatze, State Senator Jeff Longbine is optimistic. “He’s worked with Laura Kelly in the past. he says it’s going to be a good thing.”
Commissioner Ben Bennett stated, “Most important thing was the confidence that working with the new governor will be a different tone. I felt like they were looking forward to having the session with some of the changes that possibly will be coming back.”
The Salina City Commission has announced its City Manager finalists. …the two City Manager finalists are Mike Schrage of Salina and Jeff Dingman of Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Mr. Schrage currently serves as Salina’s Interim City Manager. He has served Salina as Deputy City Manager for 12.5 years before accepting the interim role in June. His previous public sector experience includes 12 years as City Administrator in Smithville, Missouri and 2.5 years in Maysville, Missouri. Mr. Schrage holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Northeast Missouri State University and obtained a Master’s Degree in Public Administration at Wichita State University.
Mr. Dingman is the Deputy City Administrator at the City of Forth Smith, Arkansas. He has served Fort Smith for 7.5 years, including 10 months as Acting City Administrator. Prior to Fort Smith, he was the City Administrator in Baldwin City, Kansas for almost 8 years and was Assistant County Administrator in Sebastian County, Arkansas for 4 years. Mr. Dingman holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Baker University, along with a Juris Doctor and Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the University of Kansas.
Greenwood County Commissioners held a special meeting last Friday, December 7, to further discuss redistricting. Last Monday, commissioners were presented with three map options, generated by R&S Digital Services, Inc. Those maps were divided into five districts comprised of fairly equal populations. In each of those options, the city of Eureka was split into two districts, with the northern Eureka district limited to city territory-only. Because county roads and bridges are a large part of the commissioners’ roles, the current commissioners wanted to look at an option that added more county territory into the Eureka districts.
On Friday, they were presented with a new map, and invited a representative of each major political party for input. Carol Ann Flock, the republican representative, and Cindy Pelky, the democratic representative, agreed that area was more important than equal population distribution, for the commission districts.
Chanute city commissioners heard cost estimates at Monday evening’s meeting to provide fiber optic bandwidth to two neighborhoods that have requested it.
James Lightfoot, president of the Oklahoma City engineering company ACRS, presented information on designs to deploy the fiber optic cable.
One of the neighborhoods is east of Plummer Avenue between 7th and 14th streets with a potential of 373 homes, and the other is east of the golf course with a potential of 124 homes. Representatives of each neighborhood have asked the commission to be connected.
A full citywide build would involve 17 such service areas. Lightfoot said one area would require underground cable for much of the service, and would cost $319,729 to build 10.17 miles.
But he said the city could install the main line for $204,000, then add home connections as needed.
In a unanimous vote on Monday, Wichita’s Park Board decided to reject the only offer it received to purchase MacDonald Golf Course. The offer, submitted by GreatLife Golf & Fitness out of Kansas City, was for $850,000.
In October, two representatives from GreatLife, which owns Tallgrass Country Club, attended an informational meeting at MacDonald in response to a request for proposals that went out for the 146-acre, 18-hole course at 840 N. Yale.
A special selection committee tasked with studying and offer recommendations for any proposals that came in advised the Park Board to say no to the offer from GreatLife. Eddie Fahnestock, a Park Board member and a member of the committee, said the purchase price was paramount in the decision to urge the board against a sale.
“We feel the golf system can be sustainable if we can continue to improve our overall efficiency in terms of marketing and operations,” Fahnestock said. “We need to make necessary capital improvements to entice golfers to play and stay. With the number of golfers in Wichita, we felt we would be directly competing for rounds and revenue if we accepted this proposal.”
Shortly after the Shawnee County Commission on Monday morning voted 2-1 to reject his conditional use permit request for a bed and breakfast and event center on land at 3521 S.E. Paulen Road, all Rod McCollum could do was shrug his shoulders and begin considering what to do with land east of Topeka that had been in his family for years.
“Broken-hearted,” McCollum said a few minutes after his plan had been rejected. “I wanted to stay home.”
McCollum, 62, petitioned the county for the conditional use permit to use his home as a bed and breakfast and a refurbished barn on his property as an event center, which would be used for weddings. The Shawnee County Planning Commission voted 2-2 in November on the request, which was made through the McCollum Family Trust. Three members of the seven-person planning commission were absent the day of the vote, and a tie by state statute is considered a rejection of the proposal.
The planning commission’s recommendation then was considered by the three-member Shawnee County Commission.
Wichita officials are pushing for Amtrak to restore rail service in the city that hasn’t had a passenger train service for nearly 40 years, but Sedgwick County officials aren’t ready to embrace the plan.
Bringing back the rail service is near the top of the city’s lobbying agenda when the state legislative session begins next month.
“Passenger rail is evolving as a key component for keeping and attracting young people as part of a strong workforce,” the legislative platform said. “In addition, it provides a safe travel option for an aging population.”
But Sedgwick County didn’t even put Amtrak service on its list of transportation priorities to a state committee evaluating Kansas’ long-term transportation plans.
David Dennis, the county commission’s chairman, said he can’t make a decision on the issue until he knows the service’s cost and benefits.
Wichita may have better chances of getting Amtrak restored this year, considering available federal funding and healthier state finances.
The Lawrence Humane Society wants the city to consider allowing colonies of feral cats to live in the city as long as the cats have been vaccinated and spayed or neutered.
Currently, allowing cats to roam free is against city code, and humane society representatives say the animal shelter previously has had to euthanize dozens of cats because they are not adoptable.
The Lawrence City Commission will consider various changes to the animal control ordinance and discuss the potential “community cats” program as part of its meeting Tuesday. The shelter is requesting the city change its animal control code to enable it to operate a community cats program that aims to reduce the feral cat population over time without the use of euthanasia.
A statement from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) says approximately $900,000 has been awarded to county health departments to address the opioid crisis in Kansas. The funding comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Opioid Overdose Crisis Response Cooperative Agreement which was awarded to KDHE earlier this fall.
The counties that will be receiving funding are: Barton, Crawford, Finney, Franklin, Geary, Harvey, Johnson, Labette, Mitchell, Neosho, Pottawatomie, Rawlins, Reno, Riley, Sedgwick and Stevens.
If you need new license plates for your car this week, make sure you go to the right place.
Three tag offices closed Friday and a new office opens on East Kellogg at noon on Monday.
Drivers from north and south Sedgwick County will have to drive farther to find a tag office. But waits should be shorter, county officials have said.
Now, Sedgwick County will have two, full-size tag offices instead of one large station and three satellite stations, county officials have said. The offices that closed last week were at 21st and Maize, 21st and Woodlawn, and Derby Towne Center in Derby. Those stations were smaller and had fewer employees than the main tag office.
The two remaining stations are in west Wichita and east Wichita. The main office is in the former Dillions at Douglas and Meridian, and the new office opens in the former Ultra Modern Pool and Patio at 5620 E. Kellogg, near Kellogg and Edgemoor.
“This new location will be more convenient for our customers and our staff,” Sedgwick County Treasurer Linda Kizzire said in a news release on Friday.
The City of Topeka said Monday it has been a potential victim of a cyberattack and has identified up to 10,000 customers who may have been affected by the data breach.
City spokeswoman Molly Hadfield said Monday the city was notified of the incident by its utility billing payment system software vendor, Central Square, on Friday afternoon.
The potential data breach hasn’t been confirmed at this time, Hadfield said.
The breach occurred between Oct. 31 and Dec. 7 and would affect any city utilities customer who made a one-time payment or set up autopay during that time. E-checks and customers who set up autopay before Oct. 31 won’t be affected, the city said.
Central Square has turned over the information to a forensics investigator to confirm the potential breach. The staff worked with the software vendor on Friday to transition the current online payment system to a more secure platform, as advised by the vendor. On Saturday, the city’s information technology staff went through the data breach system and didn’t find any malicious activity.
The third Wednesday of each month is a busy day for Anna Wolf. That’s the only day the Tonganoxie Municipal Court is in session.
Wolf is the Tonganoxie city prosecutor.
“Everything depends on that one day, and you need to have everything ready,” said Wolf, L’12. “Otherwise, you’re going to go a whole other month before you get another opportunity. It puts a lot of pressure on that one day.”
The Kansas Department of Commerce has recently announced a grant program that could pay for 50% of a new swimming pool in Kansas communities. There will be several requirements (which aren’t set in stone yet), including:
communities must be be 500 and 25,000 in population (it’s possible the population minimum could be lower)
must meet the LMI (low-to-moderate income) objective
maximum grant would be $1,000,000
this is for a fairly basic pool (NO lazy rivers, slides, splash pads, etc. – although you can design to add those later)
grants will likely be due by the end of March, so applicants will need to act fairly quickly
$20 million may be available statewide to help many Kansas communities!
The ACLU filed a motion Friday opposing the dismissal of its voting rights case against Ford County Clerk Deborah Cox.
The legal action requests additional polling places in Dodge City.
“We aren’t asking for the moon,” said ACLU of Kansas legal director Lauren Bonds. “Our plaintiffs need, deserve and are legally entitled to an accessible polling place, in town. That’s more than reasonable.” The ACLU filed a federal lawsuit in October accusing Cox of disenfranchising voters, particularly those in the Hispanic community, and asking a judge to halt the use of the site located on the outskirts of Dodge City.
Although there are a lot of unknowns with funding and a new Kansas Governor to take office in January, Great Bend Chamber of Commerce CEO Jan Peters is confident the road construction project along K-96 Highway from Nickerson to Lyons will be reconsidered. The Kansas Transportation Task Force is finalizing their pitch to the Legislature for a new transportation comprehensive plan in 2020.
Peters says the Task Force heard a lot of input for their plan. Peters went with four other area representatives to testify in front of the Task Force in October to promote the completion of the K-96 project or “Northwest Passage” that was delayed a few years ago because of funding being raided from K-DOT to balance the state budget. The new stretch of highway would connect Hutchinson to north of Sterling.
Blowing or raking leaves onto city streets is prohibited in both Winfield and Ark City, but that doesn’t stop people from doing it.
Area resident Jim Bossi called the CourierTraveler recently about the problem.
Bossi, of Ark City, said he’s seen a lot of residents rake leaves off the curb into the street.
“I think a lot of people just don’t realize it clogs up the city sewer system,” he said. City Manager Nick Hernandez said this this week that the city does have a rule against pushing leaves into the street. Winfield does, too.
But the cities don’t strongly enforce that law, preferring to encourage people to comply rather than issue fines.
“It’s a worldwide issue, no community is exempt,” said
For almost a year, Kansas City, Kan., Police Chief Terry Zeigler has lived in a house owned by Wyandotte County. County residents, open government advocates and a Unified Government commissioner point to the fact that no written lease was in place for almost eight months after Zeigler moved into the house.
Zeigler pays little or no rent on a monthly basis because of credits granted for expenses to make improvements on the house. Officials put the lease in writing after a citizen inquired about it. Although the lease was retroactive to the beginning of the year, Zeigler has yet to make a rent payment. Under the agreement, he is credited for expenses, labor and mileage he’s incurred while working on the house.
Because of the credits, Zeigler owes less than $1,300 in rent. From Dec. 29, 2017, through July 26, he has claimed more than $18,530 in expenses, including $672.53 in mileage and $5,765 in labor costs by him and others.
“I paid the rent in advance by doing the work and spending my own personal money on fixing it up,” Zeigler said. “So now when that credit runs out, I got to write a check to them by the end of the year. I’ll get them the last bit and I’m done for 2019. And in 2020, I have to start paying them $1,000 a month.”
For more than a quarter of a century, Douglas County Administrator Craig Weinaug has looked out on South Park from his second-floor office in the southwest corner of the Douglas County Courthouse.
He has not tired of the view from his desk, nor has he lost his passion for the work he does at it.
“I have loved this job,” he said. “I won’t say I’ve loved every minute of it, but I have loved this job for a very long time, and I love this community and county government.”
Despite his love for the work, Weinaug said it’s time for him to hand the reins of county government to a younger generation. He will retire Friday from the job he accepted in 1992. An avid bicyclist, he looks forward to riding more and spending more time with his four grandchildren, for whom he has already picked out bikes.
There’s also a professional factor, Weinaug said. Public administrators have expiration dates, he said. It’s a point when citizens and community leaders don’t turn to them for advice or welcome phone calls. He reached that point on May 15 when county voters rejected Proposition 1, which would have funded a $44 million expansion of the county jail, as well as an $11 million behavioral health campus.
The Reno County Commission’s decision against a moratorium on the proposed wind farm in the county was good news for the Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce, which works to bring new industry to Kansas.
Marcy Kauffman, director of membership, represented the chamber at the meeting this past Tuesday. She says the chamber was against the moratorium and explains why:
The city’s governing body, consisting of the nine council members and Mayor Michelle De La Isla, plans to discuss but not act regarding proposed changes it plans to consider Dec. 18 to its rules and procedures.
Those include increasing — to five minutes from four — the length of time members of the public are given to make public comments while doing away with the current practice of enabling the governing body to give speakers extensions. Discussion with governing body members would not count as part of a speaker’s five minutes.
The Geary County Public Health Department has been notified about the award of an Opioid Overdose Crisis Response Cooperative Agreement from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. This project will augment Central Kansas Foundation efforts in substance abuse treatment by adding emphasis to policy and Geary County agencies and providers.
Health Department representative Dani Holliday stated the grant will total $62,155. ” It is predominantly to assist with the development of policies and protocols that will aid our local health system in responding to opioid overdoses and underlying substance abuse problems. ”
The project will include with community partners including Geary Community Hospital, Central Kansas Foundation, USD 475, Fort Riley and Irwin Army Community Hospital and the Geary Community Healthcare Foundation.
To err is human. To really louse things up requires a computer.
Neosho County Commissioners met Friday morning with the county clerk, treasurer and appraiser over errors in hundreds of tax statements sent out at the end of November.
Commissioner David Bideau initially said 1,800 statements had errors, but Appraiser Bob McElroy said up to 8,000 were flagged with issues that could be errors. The commission spoke with a representative of the county’s software supplier by conference call, and other department heads were present for other items on the agenda.
County offices have been in a lengthy process of training and conversion from the old software to a new program supplied by CIC. At one point Bideau said his voice was raised to be heard on the conference call with Joe Morris of CIC, but his displeasure was also evident.
“You need to send a team of about 10 people to Neosho County to get this fixed,” Bideau told Morris. “What time will they be here this afternoon?”
Some changes have been made to a proposed improvement project at the Fort Scott Municipal Airport.
The Fort Scott City Commission on Tuesday approved measures that will revise the layout plan for the airport as well as an environmental assessment for a project that would extend and widen the current airport runway.
The runway is currently 4,400 feet by 75 feet. The city had planned to expand the runway to 6,100 feet by 100 feet. The change would add 1,100 feet to the runway length, making it 5,500 feet by 100 feet.
A Wichita real estate company says the Starlite Drive-In on the city’s south side has a new owner, saving the beloved theater that was thought to have closed for good in October.
Landmark Commercial Real Estate announced Friday that Tulsa drive-in theater owner Blake Smith has agreed to take over the Starlite in south Wichita from current owner Chuck Bucinski. It will reopen under the same name next spring. A news release says all sides are calling it “the right deal, at the right time, with the absolute right thing to do for Wichita.”
A system designed to detect gunfire in city neighborhoods will be deployed in a pilot program starting next week, Wichita officials announced Friday.
The system will work by using state-of-the-art sound sensors that can pick up and triangulate gunshots, so police can be guided to the site faster and more accurately, said Mayor Jeff Longwell.
“The council’s goal is to have a safer city, period,” Longwell said.
The pilot project to test the system will be deployed in areas of the community with a history of gunfire and residents’ requests to do something about it.
The city of Salina is interested in hearing from residents, commuters and interested persons on what should be done to slow traffic on North Ninth Street to make it safer for pedestrians.
The Ninth Street corridor is a major gateway into the city of Salina. Recent efforts to improve this corridor include overlaying the street, removing trees, replacing sidewalks, landscaping yards and repairing homes.
Reducing traffic speeds is a concern expressed by several North Salina residents because of the residential character of the neighborhood, and the need for pedestrians to cross Ninth Street to access the bus stop, the convenience stores and the library.
The existing four-lane street was striped as a two-lane roadway this summer in hopes of reducing traffic speeds. The city performed traffic speed studies as a four-lane street before Ninth Street was overlaid with asphalt and performed speed studies after the roadway was overlaid and re-striped as a two-lane roadway.
Topeka City Councilman Tony Emerson said this past week he admires the job general manager Susan Duffy has done with Topeka Metro, the city’s bus service, which won the 2018 Transit of the Year award from the Kansas Public Transit Association.
Still, Emerson suggested at Tuesday’s City Council meeting that because “we already tax people so much,” he felt reluctant to support Duffy’s request that the city raise the property tax mill levy assessed by the Topeka Metropolitan Transit Authority, which oversees Topeka Metro.
The TMTA’s request was a “hard sell,” Topeka Mayor Michelle De La Isla acknowledged at that same meeting.
Still, she said, increasing the TMTA’s levy would be an investment in the families here who depend on Topeka Metro to access the resources they need.
For the eighth year in a row, Prairie Village’s Police Department and the Prairie Village Foundation have teamed up to help ease the burden on some families facing that situation.
Through the Shop with a Cop program, Prairie Village police officers escorted 10 local kids on a shopping trip to the Target in Mission Thursday. With funds provided by the Prairie Village Foundation, each kid got $200 to spend on gifts for themselves as well as members of their family.
A dilapidated and vacant house in the 4800 block of West 50th Street in Roeland Park was a topic of discussion this week, with the city exploring several options for how it could proceed to remedy the unfit structure—including demolishing the house or turning it over to Johnson County.
A sinking front porch and peeling paint are among the code violations at the structure. Photo via the neighborhood group.
A group of Roeland Park residents, organized by Eric Carson, petitioned the city to address the home commenting that it “poses an imminent threat to the health and safety of the public, particularly the many children that live within walking distance – including the grade school two blocks away.”
In the wake of a dead-end board election for Terry township, Finney County commissioners discussed Monday the option to dissolve and merge the area with a neighboring township, a new action for Finney County that potentially could pave the way for other townships looking to do the same.
Terry, a township in the northwest corner of the county and home to Friend, has long struggled with filling its township board, a three-member committee that sets the area’s budget.
Holcomb resident Mary Chandler has served as the township treasurer and the board’s lone member for several years. In November, the race for the board’s clerk garnered one write-in vote and did not secure a candidate. Now that Chandler wants to exit her position, the board soon will sit empty unless the county can appoint any volunteers.
The Shawnee County Courthouse’s snack bar has a revamped look that reflects the professionalism of the county, Shawnee County Commissioner Shelly Buhler said during the space’s unveiling Thursday.
County officials began considering the renovation last year, and in December 2017, Schwerdt Design Group signed onto the project.
“We walk past this space every day, and every day I was reminded that it needed a little attention,” Buhler said. “They worked their magic.”
Greg Schwerdt, president of Schwerdt Design Group, said the eatery had looked dated and that “there were some pretty obnoxious colors.”
Schwerdt and interior designer Melea Stone worked on freshening up the snack bar.
“We just tried to open up the space, make it a lighter, brighter, kind of fun and entertaining space where they can have a different variety of options for seating,” Stone said.
District Judge Mark Braun said he remembered spending time in the eatery as a law student and young lawyer when it had a grill. It was a space where a lot of lawyer work got done, he said, adding that he thinks with the new look, activity may shift back to the snack bar, which is located in the courthouse basement.
Cowley County commissioners had a request list for state Sen. Larry Alley, R-Winfield, when he stopped by the commission meeting Tuesday morning.
Alley said he has been visiting all the county commissions in Senate District 32 that includes parts of seven counties: Cowley, Barber, Comanche, Harper, Sumner, Kingman and Sedgwick. He is collecting information on what counties want him to focus on in the next legislative session that starts Jan. 14.
The No. 1 issue facing the county is money, Cowley County Commission chair Alan Groom said.
Following up on the need for money, commissioner Wayne Wilt said the county would like help applying for a grant that would pair the county with another so that each could get a bridge built. Cowley County has many bridges that need to be replaced, but does not have the resources at hand to do the job.
Counselor Mark Krusor said the county would like the state to look at giving counties the same power cities have to require nuisance properties to be cleaned up. Wilt said the chief opponents of such legislation — the Farm Bureau and the cattlemen’s association — are afraid such legislation would lead to zoning. Krusor said the county is not looking for zoning but for remedy in certain nuisance cases that they do not currently have.
Four police cars will be receiving mounted camera system upgrades. Council approved the request for the purchase of wi-fi adapters, software, and a video storage server from Watch Guard in the amount of $8,040.
The department uses in-car video recording systems in marked units to provide documentation of traffic stops, prisoner transports and other enforcement related activities. the camera systems are vital in evidence documentation and for investigating complaints of officer misconduct.
The Prairie Village governing body this week denied a resident’s appeal of the city’s decision to invest heavily in accessible playground equipment at Franklin and Harmon Parks, a move he said denied kids with disabilities the chance to be incorporated in play at other neighborhood parks.
James Olenick, the father of a now-adult son with disabilities, challenged the public works department’s planned investment of nearly $120,000 in new play equipment at Franklin Park in the coming months. The city also has tentative plans to invest around $575,000 in a complete revamp of the playground at Harmon Park that would feature a large amount of play equipment accessible to kids with disabilities, though that new inclusive play area has yet to be designed. While Olenick conceded that the equipment the city had planned for Franklin Park met the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act, he said that the concentration of accessible equipment in a couple of parks put families who didn’t live near those parks at a disadvantage.
Lenexa will undertake an extensive review and planning process for the former city hall facility on 87th Street as leaders look to ensure the city has the space to house its public safety needs — from the police department to municipal court — for years to come. The council unanimously agreed on Tuesday to hire PGAV Architects Inc. for $204,600 to review the current and future space needs of the Lenexa Public Safety Complex and then develop a comprehensive master plan for the current facility.
The proposed study would provide recommendations on facility size, location and cost to accommodate the Lenexa Police Department, municipal court and other city departments, according to deputy city administrator Todd Pelham.
A new operating agreement between the Derby Recreation Commission and the city of Derby for Rock River Rapids was approved by the City Council at its
Nov. 27 meeting.
The contract was due to expire on Dec. 31 and the new agreement is for two years. The DRC manages the water park, which is at 1900 E. James, and the city owns it.
The new agreement includes annual 2.5 percent increases in the management fee for a total of $107,919 in 2019 and $110,616 in 2020.
Given cost increases in salaries and health insurance, the amount is reasonable, said Zahra Ehtisham, assistant to the city manager and who prepared and presented the report to the council.
There were a few proposed changes to the fee schedule for the 2019 season, which are intended to increase attendance.
Marion assistant police chief Clinton Jeffrey will take over as chief of police effective immediately after Monday’s city council meeting.
Jeffrey comes to the position with 11 years’ experience in law enforcement. He comes to the role with support and affirmation of many Marion County law enforcement and judicial communities.
Jeffrey was sworn in Monday after a statewide search. An interview panel comprised of community members unanimously recommended his appointment, Mayor Todd Heitschmidt said.
Even though there is still some work to be completed, Ellis County officials, along with those from the recently formed Cottonwood Extension District, celebrated the completion of the last of three building renovations.
“We’re so excited because we’re done!” Ellis County Administrator and project manager Phillip Smith-Hanes told the crowd gathered in the lobby and an adjacent conference room for a Hays Area Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting at the offices of the Extension district, formed in 2017 by a merger of the Ellis and Barton county Kansas State University Research and Extension programs.
You’ve heard the phrase– “location, location, location!”– and that’s certainly key for a Kansas store near the Nebraska state line.
Even though it’s in the small town of Belleville, shoppers come from all around the Midwest.
“Our business began in 1947,” said Lynette Beam, assistant manager of The Feathered Nest. It started as a traditional furniture store, but now, is an example of modern-day marketing.
“It was about 11-12 years ago, we decided we really need to make a change, diversify, become a destination shop for women,” said Beam.
The Feathered Nest now offers an endless variety– 10,000 square feet– of virtually everything for the home, family, fashion, and food.
“We turned this space from rows of furniture to a coffee lounge,” said Beam, pointing to one section of the store.
The gourmet espresso bar, plus fresh baked scones and cookies, convinced two customers to drive here from Hebron, Nebraska!
