Municipal News & Jobs

Parts of central Topeka have a history of high crime and low overall neighborhood health, but it’s motivating people to inspire positive change. The Central Topeka Grocery Oasis, Omni Circle and Keep America Beautiful are leading an effort to clean trash and repaint outdoor amenities in the Capital City. “It’s nice when people see the need and are ready to jump in and fill the need, which is to tidy up the community,” said Omni Circle COO Nikki Ramirez-Jennings. “We’re going to be repainting the playground equipment with the help of Shawnee County Parks and Rec. Stormont Vail is going to lead that charge. Schendel Lawn and Landscaping will be planting beautiful flowers and will help us maintain them.”
Source: KSNT 27 News

It may not be every council member’s favorite time of the meeting, but purchase requests are part of the job. On Monday, the Arma City Council reviewed and approved multiple requests from city superintendent Austin Spragg with one pertaining to utility poles. Earlier this year, a utility pole failed and caused the loss of power to an entire neighborhood in the midst of a winter storm. To stay ahead of the game and avoid future hefty costs and repairs, Spragg and city electrician Chuck Burns recently patrolled the city and compiled a list of utility poles that need to be replaced entirely, noting the ones that are of the highest priority.
Source: – Latest Stories

The interest rate table above illustrates recent changes in a sample of AA rated bond trades reported to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s EMMA® system. Every issuer’s credit is different, and other financing sources may be available. To obtain comprehensive Financial Advisory services for your local government, contact your Ranson Financial Municipal Advisor, Larry Kleeman, or Henry Schmidt.

The interest rate table above illustrates recent changes in a sample of AA rated bond trades reported to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s EMMA® system. Every issuer’s credit is different, and other financing sources may be available. To obtain comprehensive Financial Advisory services for your local government, contact your Ranson Financial Municipal Advisor, Larry Kleeman, or Henry Schmidt.

Governor Laura Kelly joined federal, state and local officials this past Saturday to officially mark the opening of Hilmar Cheese Company’s new production facility in Dodge City, Kansas.
“I am pleased that Hilmar Cheese Company chose to build its new production facility in Dodge City,” Governor Laura Kelly said. “This investment in our state is a strong signal to industry leaders around the globe that Kansas has the workforce and infrastructure for companies to be competitive.” Hilmar Cheese Company, Inc. is one of the world’s largest cheese manufacturers and a global supplier of high-quality whey ingredients. Hilmar’s new Dodge City facility makes American style cheese which is then sold wholesale to customers and used in a variety of nutritious foods. The site also produces a wide range of high-quality innovative proteins to meet the needs of customers worldwide. “We are grateful to the state and local officials who supported this project and are thrilled to celebrate with them today,” Hilmar’s President and CEO David Ahlem said. “We chose to build in Dodge City because of the local and skilled labor force, supportive and expanding agricultural region, and excellent transportation network. The superior collaboration with local, regional, and state leaders in Kansas has further confirmed that we made the right choice.”
Source: Press Releases – Kansas Department of Commerce

The City of Wichita has taken steps to clear a homeless encampment from a park in the Riverside neighborhood, shortly before a cleanup event takes place. Notices were posted at Sim Park and homeless residents there were given until the end of the day Thursday, and the Police Department’s Homeless Outreach Team has been working to move them to shelters and into services and programs. The city has reported a number of complaints online and by phone about the encampment. The city is working to enforce an illegal camping ordinance after the City Council voted to approve changes in December. The changes provide for faster cleanup of camping sites on public property, and some penalties have been lowered, but some in the community feel the ordinance criminalizes homelessness.
Source: 101.3 KFDI

He said it confuses people in the community and the officers. He added that the 30 mph for unmarked residential areas doesn’t suit every situation. “You have to look at what’s happening in your community to see if that’s a safe speed,” Hall said. He said people would be upset if they wrote tickets for three or four miles an hour, people would be upset. “That 30-mile-an-hour zone effectively becomes a 38 to 40-mile-per-hour zone before officers are writing tickets,” Hall said. “That’s way too fast.” Last year, Wamego passed an ordinance to drop all of its unmarked city streets to 20 miles per hour. Hall said he thinks 20-25 mph in Sedgwick’s neighborhoods is reasonable because they weren’t going to stop people for three to four miles over.
Source: Harvey County Now

A line recently greeted Jessica Warkentin at Tractor Supply. Warkentin showed up, planning to expand her family’s very small flock of backyard chickens in Newton, which a neighbor gifted them in November. “We said if they survived the winter, we were going to get chicks,” she said. “Last week, we spent several days calling stores to see when their chickens got in.”
Tractor supply promised chicks at noon for sale. She arrived at 11:30 a.m. to be the fourth in line. She said one woman had been waiting since 9:30 a.m. While plenty of people are starting backyard flocks in Harvey County, city rules vary depending on where you live. Both Newton and Halstead allow up to 12 chickens with the proper coop and issue permits. In total, Newton had 12 active permits. Halstead had seven. There are more chicken flocks on the down low, however. Harvey County Now sought chicken permits, looking for contacts, after a number of people declined to speak to not draw attention to their chickens. Usually, most neighbor complaints, from this reporter’s experience covering local government, come from keeping roosters. Sedgwick limits the number of chickens to six and doesn’t issue permits. Hesston allows eight chickens in a flock on lots smaller than 10,000 square feet. It allows an additional chicken for every 1,000 extra square feet on larger lots. North Newton allows for birds but has no ordinance. “We encourage residents to be responsible and try to keep them in a fence and preferably only one rooster,” City Clerk Pat Redding stated. “So far, we haven’t had issues that require us to pass an ordinance.”
Source: Harvey County Now

North Newton City Administrator Brad Harris told city council members one of the city’s strategic-plan goals that has to do with land development will be a year-long process. They want to identify and rank available land for development. “It’s an ongoing process,” Harris said. “We are starting to talk to some landowners, and we’re starting to get some interest to start talking about what that looks like, so we’re pretty pleased that they’re coming forward to us and beginning this conversation, so we’re going to keep working away at that throughout the year and see which pieces of land are available for development in town and what lies just outside of town.” He also talked about another strategic-plan goal for this month. “Looking into March, the two items that were initially put here were to develop opportunities for the city council and staff to collaborate with community organizations, and we kind of talked about packaging that into our work session, re-exploring those, so that’s something we’ll talk about later this month,” Harris said. North Newton Mayor Ron Ratzlaff asked Harris to provide a strategic plan chart quarterly to the council.
Source: Harvey County Now

The Hillsboro City Council meeting was interrupted on Tuesday, March 4 on the Zoom side when a pornographic image began flashing across all of the screens. The meeting, which is held in person and streamed live across Zoom to allow more people access to the meetings and provide a recording for future viewings, was paused as Hillsboro City Administrator Matt Stiles worked quickly to figure out where the cyber attack was coming from while Hillsboro Mayor Lou explained to the council, guests and Zoom attendees what was going on. “We are getting cyber-attacked via Zoom,” said Thurston. “I think that’s a first.” Eventually Stiles kicked a Zoom caller named John off, and the images ended. Thurston asked City Attorney Andrew Kovar if he had ever encountered anything like that, and he said he had heard about it but had not. “It’s just because anybody can log in. There’s no password,” said Kovar.
Source: Hillsboro Free Press

The Spring Hill School District is asking voters this spring to approve a new $60 million bond measure that would pay for several projects to accommodate the district’s growing student population. The district, which straddles the line separating Johnson and Miami counties, is reportedly one of the fastest-growing in Kansas. The Spring Hill Board of Education agreed at a special meeting in January to place the bond proposal on the ballot. In a statement provided to the Post via email, Link Luttrell, superintendent of Spring Hill Schools, noted there will be no mill levy increase with the bond proposal. Luttrell also said a community stakeholder group met for several months to create a vision for managing the district’s growth effectively. That same group ultimately developed the bond proposal.
Source: Johnson County Post

The Kansas Court of Appeals has largely sided with a district court judge’s rulings on three controversial resident-led petitions that roiled Prairie Village nearly two years ago. Like the Johnson County judge’s 2023 ruling, the three-judge panel of the Kansas Court of Appeals on March 7 found two of the three Prairie Village petitions — one dealing with limitations on rezoning and another that aimed to adopt a new city government — ineligible to go before voters. The appellate court also agreed with Judge Rhonda Mason’s decision that a third petition, which seeks to abandon the city’s current form of government, can appear on a ballot. Both the city of Prairie Village and PV United, the resident-led group behind the petitions, had appealed the district court decision, which put their fate in the hands of the state appellate court.
Source: Johnson County Post

One Kansas City Democrat has developed a plan that he believes could lower Wyandotte County homeowners’ tax bills and utility costs as division among Kansas Republicans threatens to undermine the relief lawmakers promised in 2025. It’s not the first time Sen. David Haley has proposed giving counties the authority to impose a local earnings tax of up to 1%. But it is the first time his bill calls for 100% of new collections to help offset the property tax revenue that makes up most of local governments’ budgets. Like in Kansas City, Missouri, where voters have renewed their support for a local earnings tax every few years since 1963, Haley’s bill would authorize local governments to tax both residents and people who commute to the county to work.
Source: Local Kansas City Missouri & Kansas News |

Lawrence’s Rock Chalk Park is one of three sites in the Kansas City-area that could be selected as a base camp for a 2026 World Cup team. A base camp includes medical staff, trainers, chefs, fans, the team and family, and could draw up to 15,000 people to the area. That’s according to Ruth DeWitt, a sales operations manger with eXplore Lawrence and a member of the Unified Command planning team. The Unified Command — comprised of the City of Lawrence, Douglas County, University of Kansas and eXplore Lawrence — is assessing how the Lawrence area will address hospitality, transportation, public safety, and economic impact. Kansas has approved $28 million in World Cup funding. However, what of that funding is accessible to Lawrence is currently unknown.
Source: Up To Date

The Wichita City Council is scheduled to vote at its Tuesday evening meeting on implementing a city-wide municipal ID program to lower barriers for Wichitans who lack standard documentation for a state-issued ID, such as the homeless. If passed, IDs will be issued at the Multi-Agency Center starting sometime in April. The IDs, also called Air Capital Cards, will display a person’s name, photo, address, date of birth and ID number, making it I-9 compliant to verify an individual’s identity for employment. Lacking ID prevents many homeless people from establishing residency and applying for jobs or housing. It is also harder to apply for benefits, fill prescriptions or open a bank account without any photo identification. Officials committed last May to establishing a municipal ID after Justice Together, a grassroots coalition of interfaith communities in Sedgwick County, lobbied city and county officials on homelessness policies.
Source: KLC Journal

Nitrate levels for the water district that serves the Yoder community are still too high. The Reno County Public Works Department says tests earlier this month show that Rural Water District 101’s nitrate levels remain above EPA guidelines. The EPA recommends that public water supplies have a nitrate level of 10 mg/l or less. The district’s nitrate level is 12 mg/L. High nitrate levels are especially dangerous for infants and can lead to a life-threatening condition called methemoglobinemia. It decreases the infant’s oxygen-carrying blood cells’ ability to transport oxygen across the body. Studies have also shown an increased risk of colon, kidney, and stomach cancer in those who ingest higher water nitrate and eat larger quantities of meat. High nitrate levels are often seen in agricultural communities — runoff from fertilized fields, animal waste, and septic systems can lead to higher nitrate levels in groundwater. Upon request, the county is providing bottled water to all households in the water district for those with increased risk due to nitrate exposure, including infants under 6 months of age, pregnant or nursing mothers, and other at-risk customers served by Rural Water District 101. Reno County has been working on a permanent solution to the nitrate problem.
Source: KSN-TV

Months ago, Lawrence city commissioners approved an increase to the number of adults who can live in a home in most areas of town. With two weeks left before the change is set to take effect, some neighborhoods are pushing back. The city’s new land development code was created over a two-plus-year process, with a 14-member steering committee and several public meetings. Yet when commissioners approved the code in November, many community members said they felt the process had moved too quickly. The code aims, among other things, to improve affordability and availability of housing. One way the code intends to do that is by increasing the occupancy limit in some neighborhoods from three to five unrelated people who can live in a home together. Some neighborhood groups are saying the code change will have the opposite effect, and they’re asking the commission to keep the cutoff at three. Others in the community say that lower occupancy limits are rooted in classism and racism, and that they hurt people’s chances of affording housing and prospering.
Source: The Lawrence Times

As the measles virus spreads around the country, with Kansas’ first case reported in Stevens County March 13, Sedgwick County health officials are preparing for possible cases. “It’s a matter of time before it reaches Sedgwick County,” Adrienne Byrne, the county’s health department director, said in a March 12 interview. If the measles is confirmed in Sedgwick County, Byrne said the agency is planning ways to educate the public on the virus, which hasn’t been widespread in the U.S. in more than two decades. The measles is a highly contagious virus that’s spread through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes. The current U.S. outbreak has 301 confirmed cases in 15 different states, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There have been a total of three outbreaks reported with the majority of cases being tied to known outbreaks. One child associated with the outbreak in Texas has died. “It is extremely contagious, and it’s a respiratory illness, and it can really can cause life-threatening illness to anyone who’s not protected against the virus,” Byrne said. If cases do reach Sedgwick County, this will be the first time in eight years the county has seen the measles, Byrne said. The last time the county confirmed cases was in 2017, and before that, 2014. “We’ll be sending out information through the medical society, because … the majority of physicians have not dealt with measles before,” Byrne said.
Source: Wichita Kansas Local News, Crime & More |

One resident of a Yates Center nursing home did suffer smoke inhalation after Friday’s fire destroyed the facility. The remaining residents, patients, and staff were all safely evacuated following the wildfire. Fire officials say they are not 100% certain what caused the rapidly spreading prairie fire that burned down the Yates Center Health & Rehabilitation facility, in Woodson County, Kansas. According to a news release issued by Mission Health Communities, owners of Yates Center Health and Rehabilitation, they say it was a “swift and coordinated response” by everyone that saved lives Friday. Reports say the fire initially set a group of cedar trees ablaze, south of the facility, and eventually spread to the building’s roof. Dry conditions and high winds drove the fire to quick acceleration, requiring an immediate emergency response. Temporary quarters at Yates Center High School were used to house the 38 residents and patients.
Source: KSNF/KODE | FourStatesHomepage.com

Residents needing some sidewalk repairs may be able to get some help from the city of Emporia. The city is publicizing its annual Hazardous Sidewalk Program, and City Engineer Jim Ubert says it’s a good way to get portions of sidewalks replaced. Sidewalks are considered hazardous — and thus eligible for repairs under the program — if they have portions deemed unsafe because of “broken or missing pieces, unevenness or upheaval which causes a ½-inch or more difference in height between two adjoining portions of the sidewalk.” Sidewalks are also eligible if they have “an abrupt change in elevation.” As Ubert mentioned, the program is a cost share, where residential owners pay 25 percent of the cost and commercial owners pay 50 percent of repairs. The city picks up the remaining amount in either case. Homeowners can also hire their own bonded contractors for work at set unit prices if approved. Replacing any connected sidewalks and handicapped-accessible ramps is done at no cost to the owner, and the city does not include those costs in the cost-share agreement.
Source: d2430