The City of Columbus, Kansas hired Mr. Jake Letner as their City Administrator. Mr. Letner will assume the City Administrator position on Monday, April 4th, 2022. “Mr. Letner will be a great asset to our team as City Administrator.” says Columbus Mayor Grant Spieth. “Jake is dedicated, hardworking, and is heavily involved in our community. The City of Columbus is looking forward to a lengthy and rewarding relationship with Mr. Letner.” … Mr. Letner holds a Bachelor of Arts from Pittsburg State University and Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. For the last two years, Mr. Letner has been employed with the City of Columbus as the Community Development Coordinator and managed securing over $260,000 in grants for the City of Columbus. His focus was writing and administering grants on behalf of the city, managing the Columbus Land Bank, and working on special projects and initiatives. Letner is a member of professional organizations, including the Board of Directors for the CHC/SEK as the representative for Cherokee County, the treasurer for Columbus PRIDE, and as a volunteer firefighter with the Columbus Fire Department. Jake Letner and his wife Sean Gilmore live in Columbus.
Source: City of Columbus

A few days ago, I was asked if the City receives more tax money when valuations increase. The answer is, “It depends.” Property tax is the most criticized and misunderstood source of government revenue. The citizen was interested in recent media reports indicating statewide increases in property valuation. While in Russell County, we have not yet seen our valuation notices, it is probable, based on media reports across the State, we will experience the same. Naturally, we are all concerned about an increase’s effect on our property tax. Different property classes – residential, agriculture, commercial – have different assessment rates, adding to the difficulty of answering the concerned citizen’s question. The straightforward answer is this: Your taxes increase if your property valuation goes up and all the local taxing entities keep the mill levy the same, or the combination of levies remains unchanged. Conversely, a decrease in the overall levy should offset an increased valuation. If the taxing entity’s budgeted revenue from property tax remains the same as the prior year, then the mill levy for that taxing entity would go down if values go up (more on that below).
Read more: KRSL

The Genesis Sports Complex will be one of the premier complexes in all of Kansas and hopefully the Midwest. The complex in Goddard has five functional high school-sized baseball fields being played on and five more fields under construction – not to mention a water park, sports bar, hotel, Genesis Health Club, daycare and a large indoor swimming pool also in the works. The pool will be used to host future swimming events, such as the state swim meet and other large meets. There are big plans to have the fullblown, near-100-acre complex all ready by summer.
Source: Hutch News

Brett Kell and Marcus Clark were political opponents Nov. 2, when Kell beat Clark to win the District 5 seat on the Topeka City Council. But last week, Kell appointed Clark as that district’s representative on the commission assigned to redraw the boundary lines for the city’s council districts. “We may have been opponents in the recent election, but I believe he had a great message and was running for the right reasons,” Kell said. He said that Clark, the pastor of Love Fellowship Church, will make “the decisions that are best for Topeka.”
Source: CJonline

The City of Lawrence has shed more light on why it is trying to shut down a local strip club that it says has been operating illegally. In a lawsuit filed Feb. 2 in Douglas County District Court, the city alleged that Allstars has been operating without the license required for a sexually oriented entertainment business… The city also claimed Allstars is ineligible to receive such a license .. There are various provisions in city code that would make a business ineligible or disqualify it from being provided a city license for a sexually oriented entertainment business, and previously the city had not specified which of the code’s provisions it believed Allstars had violated. But in a recent court filing, the city stated that Allstars was in violation of a provision that prohibits such businesses from being located within 1,000 feet of certain properties, including schools, churches, city parks, residences and certain businesses.
Source: LJWorld.com