City and St. Benedict’s Abbey negotiate Memorandum of Understanding

In September of 2022, the Planning Commission reviewed and recommended to the city commission for approval of the re-zoning of the property, formerly the Youth Center, acquired by St. Benedict’s Abbey through a tax sale. The rezone requests the property be rezoned from A-1, General Agriculture, and R-3, Multiple Family Residential, to P-D, Planned Development. The city staff worked with representatives of St. Benedict’s Abbey to negotiate a permanent easement for access to utilities, in orders to allow the city access to the city’s water tower, water lines, and other utilities. Out of the meetings the representatives presented a Memorandum of Understanding memorializing the understanding between the city of Atchison and St. Benedict’s Abbey that the utility easement indicated on the final plat, running north and south on the east side of the plat, is believed to contain a private sewer line within that easement and that the city is not responsible to maintain, repair, replace, or service that sewer line.
Source: News | atchisonglobenow.com

Ranson Financial2023-03-27T23:17:12-05:00March 27, 2023|News|

This Shawnee Mission school has a new climbing wall thanks to local neighborhood group

Roesland Elementary students can now enjoy a new way to get active in gym class: a climbing wall. The brainchild of physical education teacher Blair Bodermann, the climbing wall was made possible with the help of Neighbors for a Better Roeland Park. The citizen-led group, which originally formed out of the 2015 effort to pass the city’s non-discrimination ordinance, used donations from free summer concerts in 2022 to pay for a majority of the $5,000 cost of the climbing wall, which is now installed and being used in the school’s gymnasium.
Source: Prairie Village Post

Ranson Financial2023-03-27T23:12:32-05:00March 27, 2023|News|

What should Overland Park residents do with ash trees in their yards?

Overland Park is ramping up efforts to remove thousands of ash trees in public right-of-ways in an attempt to thwart the spread of the emerald ash borer pest. But how should homeowners handle potentially infested ash trees on their private property? The city has some recommendations for what residents can do with ash trees in their yards they believe are infested by the invasive beetle species, which lays larva that cuts off the passage of nutrients and water from the tree’s roots to its canopy.
Source: Prairie Village Post

Ranson Financial2023-03-27T23:10:53-05:00March 27, 2023|News|

Change in direction: Converting downtown Wichita’s one-way streets to two way

Once designed to get people in and out as efficiently as possible, downtown city centers have seen a change in direction in recent decades. “If you look at communities across the country, there was this mass exodus out of the downtowns and suburbia was growing,” said Gary Janzen, who is director of public works for the city of Wichita, “but there’s a real energy now in most cities our size, and we’ve seen it in Wichita. “There’s a lot of dynamic things happening with retail, with business, with commercial, with living — we’ve got a lot of residential living downtown now, and there’s a lot of demand for that to continue.”
Source: Wichita Business Journal

Ranson Financial2023-03-27T23:07:51-05:00March 27, 2023|News|

Wichita rental market stays hot to begin 2023

According to a new national report, finding an apartment or other rental unit in the Wichita market is not getting any easier. On Monday, apartment search website RentCafe.com released a study that listed the city as having the ninth-hottest small-sized rental market in the U.S. based on competitive score. Wichita’s score of 106 was tied to several metrics, as of the close of 2022’s fourth quarter, including average vacant days (23 in Wichita, according to RentCafe), occupancy (96.5%), prospective renters per vacant unit (seven), lease renewal rate (65.1%) and share of new apartments completed during Q4 2022 (0%).
Source: Wichita Business Journal

Ranson Financial2023-03-28T06:59:20-05:00March 27, 2023|News|

Overland Park is the most pickleball obsessed city in U.S., study finds

A Johnson County city has an obsession with pickleball, according to a new ranking. Betting and online casino guide website, Offers.bet, says Overland Park is the top pickleball-obsessed city in the country. The game started becoming wildly popular during the pandemic. Offers.bet said 83% of current pickleball players started playing in 2020 or later. While the popularity of pickleball is skyrocketing, one of the problems is that there aren’t enough courts, even with public courts and the opening of businesses like SERV and Chicken ‘n Pickle. Some fans have turned to playing pickleball on tennis courts, and have even added courts to their yards. That doesn’t always go over well with neighbors because of the noise pickleball makes.
Source: fox4kc

Ranson Financial2023-03-27T08:47:24-05:00March 27, 2023|News|

State lawmakers eye local limits: Bills would prevent plastic bag bans, vacant home fees and more

Several bills in the Kansas Statehouse are designed to take away local control from local governments. In one, legislators from across Kansas could roll back pieces of Topeka’s registry of vacant properties, as well as those in other communities. As introduced, House Bill 2083 would have banned cities from creating vacant property registries. It was later amended to allow those registries — but if passed would ban local governments from imposing fees on owners of vacant properties. … Lawmakers are considering legislation proposed by the Kansas Chamber, House Bill 2446, that would block local governments from banning, regulating or taxing “auxiliary containers.” … Pushed primarily by the Kansas Chamber, HB 2447 would ban cities and counties from banning the sale of products that are otherwise legal under state law. The original version of the bill also applied to services.
Source: Hutch News

Ranson Financial2023-03-27T08:41:40-05:00March 27, 2023|News|

Rural grocery stores are dying off. Here’s what some communities are doing to save them

in many small towns, a grocery store is a thing of the past. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 76 counties nationwide are without a single grocery store, and 34 of those counties are in the Midwest and Great Plains. Rural communities have been losing population for decades making it harder for businesses to stay afloat, said Rial Carver, program leader for the Rural Grocery Initiative at Kansas State University. “So as small towns get smaller, that means fewer sales coming in the door for our grocery store,” Carver said. Big box stores and grocery consolidation have added even more pressure on local grocers. A recent USDA report shows the percentage of grocery sales from the nation’s top 20 retailers more than doubled from 1990 to 2020, while the consolidation was more pronounced in rural areas. The Rural Grocery Initiative was created in 2006 to help establish and sustain grocery stores in rural communities throughout Kansas. Carver said innovation can help keep stores in small towns.
Source: KCUR News

Ranson Financial2023-03-27T08:28:21-05:00March 27, 2023|News|

Municipal Bond Trends for March 24, 2023

The interest rate table above illustrates recent changes in a sample of MBIS “investment grade” yields. 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, Beth Warren or Henry Schmidt.

Henry Schmidt2023-03-27T05:17:07-05:00March 27, 2023|News|

Home rule again on chopping block

Kansas is officially a Home Rule state. It has been since 1961, when an amendment to the Kansas state constitution officially declared that Kansas cities are “empowered to determine their local affairs…except when” such actions are “limited or prohibited” by an act of the state legislature. That’s an important acknowledgement of local democracy—or at least potentially so. In my observation over the years, though, our elected representatives in Topeka tend to pay far more attention to the “except when” clause, thus leading the principle of Home Rule to be observed more often in the breach than in fact.
Source: Cowley CourierTraveler

Ranson Financial2023-03-27T06:55:09-05:00March 26, 2023|News|