The Gardner City Council approved a $150,000 agreement with the Gardner-Edgerton chamber of commerce for business and tourism services during a council meeting Jan. 7. The agreement, which will run through the year, is $115,000 more than the $35,000 the chamber received from the city last year. According Mathew Wolff, finance director, the increased budget allocation will fund tourism services for the community. He said the funding will in part be drawn from transient guest tax revenue the city will get once the Hampton Inn opens later in the year. “The city shall pay the chamber the sum of $115,000 for [...]

ohnson County #1 spent Jan. 14 training in snow and 30 degree temperatures. The day was spent deploying and advancing pre-connected hoselines. According to the district, the current weather was a perfect scenario for recruits to adapt and overcome obstacles including the cold snowy elements. (Read more: Gardner News)

Heavy snow has left Edgerton City Hall in the dark – literally. “Power is out at city hall,” said Don Roberts, mayor. An alert was sent to area residents via the Johnson County notification network. “We are trying to get moved to a priority list,” Roberts said. Edgerton is serviced by Kansas City Power and Light, which had over 80,000 customers out Jan. 11. Although city hall has no phones, no lights, no internet, Roberts said he was only aware of about five Edgerton residential customers without power. “People can still call in to city hall, it won’t be the same [...]

The Gardner City Council adopted a resolution to create a neighborhood revitalization program in four zones within Gardner during a meeting Jan. 7 The zones, three business and one residential, will benefit from a tax rebate once the program is completed. According to Larry Powell, Gardner director of business and economic development, the proposed revitalization program follows the success of a similar program that ran between 1997 and 2007. (There was a final payout in December of 2017.) He said Gardner was the first city in the county to establish a neighborhood revitalization project and the first to complete it. He [...]

Since the creation of Johnson County in 1855, the county court system has occupied three different facilities. The current building has housed the Tenth District Court of Kansas for more than half a century. In the beginning, Johnson County used space on the second floor of the Harry Case Building (built in 1859) as the county courthouse. Then county voters approved a special tax to build the first official county courthouse at a cost of $36,414. Located north of the present courthouse, the three-story brick building opened in 1892. The current courthouse opened in 1952. When construction began in 1951, the [...]

There was spirited debate at the Edgerton city council meeting Dec. 13 over a proposed city staff pay raise. Beth Linn, city administrator, presented the results of a compensation and benefits study that compared Edgerton’s city employees’ pay scales to those of employees in other cities in the region. The study looked for cities that mimicked Edgerton in several categories including economic growth, workload and quality of life. Linn told the council that Edgerton has unique characteristics that presented challenges in selecting the most comparable cities to conduct the study. “Similar to the unique characteristics of having small town charm in [...]

The City of Gardner will host its annual citizens academy, Gardner You! beginning Jan. 24. Gardner You! is a seven-week interactive civic and public information program that focuses on educating residents and business owners about the city’s governmental processes. Gardner You! sessions will be held on Thursday evenings from 6:30 to 8p.m. at city hall. Session topics include finance and budget, business and economic development, utilities and billing, city functions and programs, and boards and commissions. The academy also includes a tour of city facilities on April 26, and a graduation ceremony on May 9. The academy is open to Gardner [...]

The City of Gardner announced today that the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) granted funding for improvements to the interchange at I-35 and Gardner Road. The funding will cover the first and second phase of the project. KDOT will provide $3.925M for phase 1, which consists of the realignment of 191st Street west of Gardner Road and signalization of the intersection ramps. Construction is scheduled to begin in late 2019. An additional $6M will be granted for phase 2 for the replacement of the existing Gardner Road bridge over I-35 with construction starting in 2022. KDOT is currently designing a diverging [...]

The Gardner Police Department is one of three law enforcement agencies in Johnson County that will soon roll out a new records management system. The new system, named NICHE, will replace the current ILEADS system and is meant to not only simplify data entry components of police records but also greatly enhance the sharing of information between agencies in the region. “Gardner, Olathe and Merriam police departments were selected to go first before the system is rolled out to other agencies in the region,’ said Sgt/ Steve Benz, GPD public information officer, and one of 14 officers leading the effort throughout [...]

Gardner is one of 129 communities across the nation that was awarded grant funding as part of the AARP Community Challenge for “quick action” projects. This funding was used to help Gardner create a parklet, which is a sidewalk extension that repurposes vehicle space into space for people. The city will use this portable pop-up mini-park as a place for citizens to rest or socialize in the shade along the city’s sidewalk network within close proximity to City Hall, businesses, churches and schools. This accessible parklet will be the first step toward creating civic greens for flexible community activities in the [...]