A $12.5 million payout to Lamonte and Rose McIntyre will be funded by a bond that will accumulate interest, raising the cost to taxpayers. The settlement was unanimously approved Thursday by the Unified Government’s board of commissioners, marking an end to years of litigation. Lamonte McIntyre spent 23 years in prison for a double homicide in Kansas City, Kansas, that he did not commit. The commissioners voted unanimously in approving the settlement financed with general obligation bonds, meaning the money will be borrowed and paid back over a period time with interest. Source: KC Star Local News

A 7-year-old boy was reunited with his scooter at Lawrence Police Department headquarters on Tuesday afternoon after the red, three-wheeled vehicle was stolen from outside of an area Walmart while he was shopping with his mother. Brantley Lammo, 7, covered his mouth and appeared overjoyed as a Lawrence officer walked out carrying the recovered scooter, along with a new one and a helmet. “Thank you,” the boy said excitedly. Source: KC Star Local News

Tornado damage was reported Saturday night after storms moved through the Kansas cities of Manhattan and Marysville. The National Weather Service in Topeka warned about 7:13 p.m. that a radar-indicated tornado was moving south toward Manhattan. Reports of damage, including downed trees and power lines, soon followed. North of Manhattan, the police chief of Marysville, Kansas, took to social media to report damage in the city’s downtown area. Marysville is about two and half hours northwest of Kansas City. TOP VIDEOS × In a Facebook Live video, Police Chief Matt Simpson asked members of the public to say away from the [...]

Emergency responders in Johnson County rescued a man stuck from the waist down in a 10-foot trench in Leawood, authorities said Friday afternoon. Authorities responded at 2:50 p.m. to the 10000 block of Meadow Lane in Leawood. The person who was stuck in the trench was awake and stable, said Alyson Angell, public affairs officer for Johnson County’s Department of Emergency Services. “These types of rescues are very tricky as we have to be very careful not to vibrate the ground in any way and trigger more dirt to collapse,” Leawood Fire Chief Colin Fitzgerald said in a news release. Source: [...]

Leawood has named Patrick J. Geschwind as the interim city administrator after the sudden death of the previous administrator Scott Lambers in May. Lambers, 66, was found dead in his home May 31 after working for the city for over 20 years. The Leawood City Council unanimously voted to approve Geschwind on Monday, according to a statement. Geschwind worked for SBC, which is now AT&T, for over 25 years before starting his own business in management consulting, according to the statement. He previously was the interim city administrator for Roeland Park, interim CEO of VisitKC, superintendent of Blue Ridge Christian School [...]

Lori Curtis Luther, who has been hired as Overland Park’s new city manager, might have a familiar look — she worked for the city in the early 2000s. Luther, most recently the city manager for Beloit, Wisconsin, is returning to Overland Park where she served as the assistant city manager from 2001 to 2005, the City Council and Mayor Curt Skoog announced in a news release on the city’s website. “Lori has a proven track record of local government leadership, and I’m excited about her passion and energy to move our organization forward,” Skoog said in the news release. Source: KC [...]

At a special meeting Monday, the Johnson County Board of County Commissioners approved a set of regulations for solar energy facilities that was less strict than those recommended by the county planning commission. Commissioners met to discuss the planning commission’s latest recommendations for regulating a utility-scale solar energy generating facility that it submitted on May 10.... The board went against the planning commission’s recommendation to cap the maximum acreage for facilities to 1,000 and approved a 2,000-acre maximum instead. It also voted to keep the original proposal that any solar facility be one and a half miles from a city border [...]

The Lenexa Cemetery located on 87th Street Parkway and Pflumm Road could become the city’s responsibility by the end of the year. The Lenexa Cemetery Association has been responsible for the grounds since 1872. On Tuesday, the Lenexa City Council was presented with a memorandum of understanding seeking a change in operations. The association says it’s concerned about its ability to take care of the property in the future with a dwindling number of volunteers. There are about 2,000 burial plots in the four-acre cemetery and 700 have been sold. At a rate of about 10 burials a year and approximately [...]

Commissioners in Johnson County approved a $1 million loan Thursday to aid in the construction of an affordable housing development in Shawnee. The measure passed 5-2 with Commissioners Charlotte O’Hara and Michael Ashcraft voting against the funding. At last week’s meeting, the Board of County Commissioners was asked to give $1 million in community support funds to help construct the Hedge Lane Apartments in Shawnee. The project is a joint venture between Sunflower Development Group and Consolidated Housing Solutions. Source: KC Star Local News

Shawnee resident Val French said she first learned about the city’s controversial co-living restrictions by scrolling through Twitter. She said she was upset. She didn’t get a direct notice from the city or her councilmember and was concerned her housing would soon be in jeopardy. French currently lives with her blended family of five, including herself, her husband, her son, her stepson and her son’s girlfriend, who are all over 18. The recently passed ordinance states that “co-living” is defined as four or more “unrelated” people living together. It also states that if one person in a group is unrelated to [...]