Three wildland certified firefighters from the Hutchinson Fire Department — Brent Fisher, Jacob Ice and Caleb Dunn — are part of the group battling the Mullen Fire in the Medicine Bow-Rout National Forest in Wyoming. They arrived in Wyoming last week in the HFD’s Type 5 wildland engine truck and are on deployment for 14 days. According to HFD, Hutch crews were assigned the swing shift working from 1 p.m. to 1 a.m. most days.
Source: Local – The Hutchinson News
The U.S. municipal bond market would benefit from higher taxes either under a Democratic sweep of the White House, Senate and House, or to a lesser extent, if the coming election results in a second term for President Donald Trump and a continued split Congress, a Citi research report said on Monday. Under either scenario “taxes will be going up one way or the other,” according to Citi. States, cities, schools and other issuers sell debt in the $3.9 trillion muni market that attracts mainly higher-income investors due to an exemption from federal income taxes and at times from state and local taxation as well.
Source: Reuters.
Kansas has 65 counties with so many new cases of COVID-19 that their incidence rates have moved into the red zone of the school reopening guide. Only seven of the 105 counties in the state had a green zone rate of new cases compared to population. The county numbers are based on a map published on Monday by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. The map shows the county incidence rates, which are a measure of new coronavirus cases over the past two weeks compared to 100,000 population.
Source: Local News | Wichita Eagle
Three officials guiding Sedgwick County’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, including the county manager, have come down with COVID-19 themselves, it was confirmed Monday. County Manager Tom Stolz said he hasn’t been to the office since testing positive a week ago and he began experiencing noticeable symptoms Friday. “It’s a really weird deal,” Stolz said. “Sometimes you feel really, really good and sometimes you feel really, really bad.
Source: Local News | Wichita Eagle
Overland Park officials are considering a slew of changes to the rules governing all kinds of signs – from digital displays to real estate and political signs. The city’s planning staff presented the results of over three years of work overhauling the city’s sign ordinance on Monday to a joint meeting of city council and planning commission members. The most noticeable change involves a new category of “incidental signs” that would include the ubiquitous leasing signs at apartment complexes. The proposed ordinance requires a permit for those types of signs and allows them to be 20 square feet, building or ground mounted and non-illuminated.
Source: Prairie Village Post
Heather Horton has a few pandemic messages for her fellow Kansans. “Don’t give up. Take each day as it comes,” she says, which is good advice in any situation. But also: “Think about the people, not the profit margin, because that’s what matters in the end.” Horton and her husband, Roger, co-own two small businesses in Pittsburg. They opened Sweet Designs Cakery, where they bake party-type desserts, in 2009. A block away is Toast, which they opened last October, with a concept that was unusual for Pittsburg. … All along, their plan was to buy as many ingredients as possible from farmers markets or farmers she knew. “You go to Kansas City and you have probably a restaurant on every block trying to source locally and promote those farmers, but we don’t really have that in Pittsburg,” she says.
Source: Kansas Reflector
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.
Lawrence city commissioners will soon consider whether to continue suspending utility late fees and shut-offs for the thousands of Lawrence residents who have gotten behind on their bills during the coronavirus pandemic. The City of Lawrence provides water, sewer, and trash and recycling collection service citywide, and as of Sept. 9, there were about 3,300 active utility accounts with a balance more than 21 days past due, totaling about $944,000 in delinquent payments, according to Finance Director Jeremy Willmoth. Willmoth said the commission would soon decide how long those protections should remain in place and that the city was in the process of setting up a utility assistance program.
Source: LJWorld.com.
Douglas County has joined a new multiyear initiative that aims to measurably reduce jail stays for people with serious mental illness, or SMI, and to track their connections to care. The “nationwide call to action,” called Set, Measure, Achieve, pushes for a 10% annual reduction in jail bookings of people with SMI and a 5% annual reduction in average length of stay, according to a news release from the county. It also calls for a 5% annual reduction in recidivism. The county’s goals for 2021 are to reduce its SMI population in the jail by 1% from 9%, average lengths of jail stays from 27 days to 25 days and recidivism from 66% to 62%.
Source: LJWorld.com.
Autumn doesn’t seem quite the same without the normal rush of festivals and craft fairs, and no one feels that more than the craftspeople who sell their wares at these places. Pandemic cancellations have forced these to creative people to get, well, a little more creative. For many, craft fairs are sideline, a supplemental income. Melanie Harvey spends her days teaching chemistry at Johnson County Community College, but for the past six years, fall weekends have been a time for selling her many ceramic creations at festivals.
Source: Joco 913 News
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