County treasurers across Kansas are trying to convince people that longer-than-normal waits in motor vehicle offices will be well worth the benefits of a new computer system designed to make day-to-day operations more efficient.
(Read more at http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/20/3619352/kansas-officials-say-new-computer.html)
For all practical purposes, the Garden of Eden in Lucas once again is the people’s garden.
An open house for the cleaned and repaired vision and flat-out hard work of Civil War veteran Samuel P. Dinsmoor is set for 1 to 4 p.m. today under the big top adjacent to the Garden.
Garden of Eden in Lucas, Kansas
It’s a way to thank the community for its support as well as welcome back members of the Kohler Foundation, based in Kohler, Wis., and its restoration team.
Last year, the foundation purchased the iconic Garden of Eden, sending in a team of people to restore and repair the unusual mix of concrete statues.
That team will be back, said Lucas artist and Garden neighbor Erika Nelson, to give the statues a protective coating. They’ll have to clean off a fresh coating of bird droppings before the coating can be applied.
One of the 8 Wonders of Kansas Art, the Garden of Eden was first started by Dinsmoor in 1907. He worked on it for 22 years, using more than 100 tons of cement to fashion a mix of sculptures — including the iconic Adam and Eve.
(Read more at http://www.hdnews.net/Story/gardenofeden052012)
City and county officials have agreed on basic details behind the merger of their code enforcement departments, slated to take effect Jan. 1.
The merger will eliminate union inspectors and staff through attrition, but its effect on inspector and staff salaries is yet to be determined, according to a memorandum of understanding obtained by The Eagle.
The merged department will be built on the Metropolitan Area Planning Department model, a similar merged planning and zoning office housed at City Hall. Included will be a new inspection director hired by July 1 and responsible to Wichita City Manager Robert Layton and Sedgwick County Manager William Buchanan. The city-county codes it will enforce are essentially similar, officials said.
(Read more at http://www.kansas.com/2012/05/19/2341678/city-county-code-department-to.html)
An early Sunday morning fire damaged the Lumberyard Arts Center in Baldwin City, 718 High St.
The fire started around 4:30 a.m., and firefighters reported fire showing on the north side of the building.
Baldwin City Fire Department Chief Allen Craig said there were no injuries and he wasn’t able to give a damage estimate….
The Lumberyard Arts Center, at the location of the 1914 Ives-Hartley Lumber Company building, was designed in 2003 at a cost of around $1,000,000. The nonprofit center serves as a downtown Baldwin City arts center.
(Read more at http://signal.baldwincity.com/news/2012/may/20/fire-damages-lumberyard-arts-center-downtown-baldi/)
There are no stores and only a few homes along the wide main street.
Windthorst never had much of a business district. The post office closed at the turn of the 20th century. The old school, which closed as a high school in 1970, burned about a decade ago and the gymnasium – where standout athletes took to the hardwood – was torn down in recent years.
Yet, from several miles away, a steeple of a church emerges on the nearly treeless prairie – one of just a few vestiges of a town centered on the Catholic faith.
It hasn’t been a parish church since 1997 – when the Catholic Diocese of Dodge City closed it largely because of a shortage of priests. But folks here don’t want to forget their past, nor do they want to see the nearly 100-year-old church, crumble away.
“It’s one of a kind,” said retired farmer Bob Hattrup, whose farmstead is not far from the townsite.
Hattrup talks lovingly about the prairie church – the pillar that has long held the community together – even after the parish closure.
“We’ve always been a pretty close-knit community,” he said.
Known as the area’s historian, Hattrup tells of how his great-grandfather Frank Klenke was among the men who scouted the area back in the mid-1870s.
(Read more at http://www.hutchnews.com/Todaystop/windthorst-dead-town–1)
TOPEKA – State lawmakers reached a compromise late Saturday night that would mean $40 million more in spending for schools.
The budget deal comes after a series of stalemates on issues all day Saturday, including education, as moderate Republicans sought to lock in more money for schools and conservatives pushed for education policy changes sought by Gov. Sam Brownback.
Earlier, the Senate rejected a wide-ranging offer from Brownback that sought to end the session by giving the Senate the education funding and budget deals it sought in exchange for approval of a batch of redistricting maps and an alternative tax-cut plan that wouldn’t hit the state’s budget as hard as the massive tax-cut bill sitting on Brownback’s desk.
(Read more at http://www.kansas.com/2012/05/19/2341372/kansas-gov-brownback-done-with.html)
HARPER COUNTY, Kansas – At least six tornadoes were reported in parts of South-Central Kansas, including in parts of Harper and Kingman Counties.Tornadoes were spotted near the towns of Spivey and Norwich around 6:30 this evening, damaging a few houses.
Viewers have sent pictures and videos in of the tornadoes and hail from Saturday’s storms.
Besides tornadoes, the storms produced tennis-ball sized hail in parts of Central Kansas.
(Read more at http://www.ksn.com/s/DvgGwtvKeUSe9mpSsVYSjA.cspx)
Kansas is headed toward massive income tax cuts because of disagreements between conservative Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and the state Senate’s moderate GOP leaders.
Brownback spokeswoman Sherriene Jones-Sontag said Saturday evening that the governor’s office was no longer involved in talks with legislators about taxes.
She said Brownback plans a Monday afternoon ceremony in Wichita to sign legislation to cut individual income tax rates for 2013 and eliminate income taxes for 191,000 businesses.
(Read more at http://www.kansas.com/2012/05/19/2340851/kan-lawmakers-declare-end-to-debate.html)
TOPEKA — Gov. Sam Brownback offered the Senate a massive deal that would give the Senate the education funding and budget proposals it wants in exchange for a batch of redistricting maps, education policy changes and a tax-cutting bill that is more modest than the one sitting on the governor’s desk.
“The governor thought it was a fair compromise on all the important issues before the legislature,” said Brownback’s spokeswoman Sherriene Jones-Sontag
Senate President Steve Morris declined the plan. He said the Senate isn’t comfortable with the tax-cutting proposal because it could tank the state’s budget within a few years. Morris said the courts will likely decide how Kansas political boundaries are redrawn because lawmakers can’t agree on a map.
(Read more at http://www.kansas.com/2012/05/19/2341301/brownback-offers-massive-deal.html)
By TIM UNRUH
Salina Journal
JEWELL — In 1997, LeRoy Bourbon started a business with one truck that today boasts a fleet of 19.
After millions of miles of moving farm products, dried distillers grain from ethanol plants and other commodities, LeRo …
(Read more at http://www.salina.com/news/story/bourbon-trailers-for-Money-May-20–5812)
Jose Aguilar is like so many immigrant workers in Dodge City, Kan., who provide easy prey for American-born-and-bred Latino gang bangers. That may be changing. The message from the Dodge City police chief that even immigrants in the country illegally should call for help — “we want to protect them from crime, and that’s it” — seems to be getting through.
(Read more at http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/19/3618914/bust-of-gang-offers-hope-for-dodge.html)
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Google appears to be delaying the launch of its promised ultra-fast Internet service in Kansas City, Kan.
The company announced more than a year ago that it was giving Kansas City, Kan., Google Fiber, and that residents there could start signing up in late 2011.
Kansas City, Kan., was chosen from among 1,100 communities — Topeka being among them — vying for the company to test its network. The search giant plans to stretch fiberoptic cables directly to homes and offer Internet speeds 100 times faster than common broadband.
(Read more at http://cjonline.com/news/2012-05-19/google-again-delays-kck-launch)
TOPEKA | As the Kansas Legislature slowly moves through what could be its final day, the fate of education funding is still in doubt.
The Senate and the House disagree with how much money to put into schools. The Senate wants $77 million. The House wants to put in $50 million.
The Senate wants to take the money from general taxes. The House wants to take it from the state highway fund.
(Read more at http://www.kansas.com/2012/05/19/2340955/education-funding-in-limbo-as.html)
County and city officials have been working with leaders in education to create a new technical school in the county.
(Read more at http://www.morningsun.net/news/x639943827/County-technical-school-in-the-works)
TOPEKA — Income tax cuts, school funding and the state budget all hang in limbo today as lawmakers spin out new deals aimed at locking in conservative or moderate Republican ideals and bringing the grueling legislative session to an end.
Gov. Sam Brownback wields one of the most powerful bargaining chips – a sweeping income tax cut plan that some conservatives see as the zenith of tax relief and economic growth, but that moderates and Democrats say could devastate schools and state services Kansans rely on.
After the Senate and its moderate Republican leaders bounced a milder tax-cut plan back to a committee Friday as the legislative clock ran down, Brownback reaffirmed that he will sign the big tax-cut bill and find ways to cut the budget and rein in spending to afford it.
(Read more at http://www.kansas.com/2012/05/18/2340660/brownback-is-ready-to-sign-income.html)
Long before there were humans to see it, a sheet of ice plowed into northeast Kansas, so heavy that it pushed down the ground, so powerful that it dragged thousands of pink boulders from Minnesota, dumping them as it melted.
The residents of Blue Rapids, a small town located on Kansas Highway 9 in Marshall County, have decided this significant but largely unreported historical event deserves a monument. They plan to dedicate it today, in the town square, what may be one of the world’s only monuments to the ice ages of the world’s past. “We’re now world headquarters for monuments to the ice age,” joked Phil Osborne, a Blue Rapids resident.
During one of the last advances of the world’s past ice ages, according to the Kansas Geological Survey, giant glaciers changed the courses of our biggest rivers – and left thousands of heavy Sioux quartzite boulders and smaller stones behind when it all melted. That glacial period took place 400,000 to 500,000 years ago, said Rex Buchanan, interim director of the geological survey. Some geologists date the period further back, to about 600,000 years ago.
(Read more at http://www.kansas.com/2012/05/19/2340672/ice-age-monument-to-be-dedicated.html)
Lindsborg City Band to perform patriotic concert
LINDSBORG — The Lindsborg City Band will open its summer concert series with a patriotic concert beginning at 8 p.m. Friday at the Swensson Park Memorial Bandshell.
The band will perform the John …
(Read more at http://www.salina.com/news/story/A2-Lindsborg-City-Band-brief-event-is-May-25–use-over-the-weekend)
More than a year ago, the world’s largest Web company said that it was blessing Kansas City with an ultra-fast Internet service and that it would deploy the hookups at “Google speed.”
(Read more at http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/18/3617398/googles-schedule-for-kansas-city.html)
In a press release sent today, City Administrator Danny Matthews stated all zebra mussels have been removed from the raw water intake tower at the Council Grove City Lake.
(Read more at http://www.wibw.com/home/headlines/Zabra_Mussels_Cleared_from_Council_Grove_City_Lake_152094645.html)
A week after the scheduled end of the legislative session, and there’s still no budget or redistricting agreement.
(Read more at http://www.kwch.com/news/kwch-taxes-budget-redistricting-tie-legislature-in-knots-20120518,0,7705488.story?track=rss)
By DAWNE LEIKER
dleiker@dailynews.net
The Kansas Sampler Foundation recognized a Hays resident’s efforts to preserve and sustain rural tourism at the Kansas Sampler Festival in Liberal early this month.
Ruben Schuckman, city of Hays tourism mar …
(Read more at http://www.hdnews.net/Story/schuckman051812)
Don’t delay if you need to renew your motor vehicle licenses this month in Wyandotte and Johnson counties.
(Read more at http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/18/3617223/renewing-a-drivers-license-in.html)
A city council election in West Texas is going to be decided with a coin toss Friday.
(Read more at http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/18/3616954/coin-toss-to-decide-texas-city.html)
The city of Emporia is considering its options in starting curbside recycling and handling trash collection.
(Read more at http://www.emporiagazette.com/news/2012/may/18/privatize-trash-service-or-city-run/)
John Brown and Osawatomie are linked in the national and international mind, and further evidence of the depth of that connection was confirmed at the Kansas Sampler Festival in Liberal, Kan., on May 5 and 6, 2012.
(Read more at http://www.kccommunitynews.com/osawatomie-graphic-news/31081970/detail.html)
Week-long shutdown followed by long lines cause big problems in many Kansas cities.
(Read more at http://www.kansasreporter.org/93228.aspx)
Most agree there is always room for improvement when it comes to education.
And so each school year, Topeka Unified School District 501’s District Citizens Advisory Council studies topics of importance to the board of education and then recommends ideas through reports.
The DCAC, which meets once a month throughout the school year, delved into two ideas for 2011-12 — parental communication and engagement in USD 501 and high school reform.
(Read more at http://cjonline.com/news/2012-05-17/advisory-council-reports-usd-501-board)
The wacky folks in Lucas have always been known for their keen sense of humor.
The town of 407 residents is home to the “Garden of Eden,” which features the peculiar work of S.P. Dinsmoor.
…In recent years, it has become known as the grassroots art capital of Kansas, in large part because it is home to the Grassroots Art Center dedicated to 20th-century Kansas grassroots folk art.…
But now, Lucas can add one more notch in its quirky belt: The town has turned to bathroom humor and created a monument making Lucas home of the largest, most blingy toilet in Kansas.
The town has been working on its $100,000 public restroom project for the past four years, and it is almost complete.Bids are currently being taken on e-Bay for the honor of a first flush, which is scheduled for 3:21 p.m. on June 2 in Lucas. As of late last week, 19 bids had been received; the highest was $110.
The town has scheduled activities throughout the day on June 2, beginning at 10 a.m., to celebrate.
Why a toilet?
Several years ago, some of the town’s leaders gathered to discuss the one thing Lucas needed the most: a public restroom.
“The Garden of Eden has none and there were no accessible public restrooms on Main Street, except in the arts center,” said Rosslyn Schultz , the Grassroots Art Center director. So, town residents constructed a massive building designed to look like a large toilet.
The exterior of the giant toilet bowl is sunken so people can sit outside and talk. A giant toilet paper roll sits outside as a conversation starter.
The giant toilet’s 14-foot-tall mosaic lid is up.
“Our lid is always up,” Schultz said. “This was done by volunteers and took thousands of hours to put together.”
(Read more at http://www.kansas.com/2012/05/17/2338872/town-of-lucas-auctioning-first.html)
You can bid on Ebay here.
The state is prohibiting skiing, swimming and wading in four lakes because of high levels of toxic blue-green algae. The warnings cover Memorial Veterans Lake in Great Bend, Winfield City Lake, Marion Reservoir and Marion County Lake. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment is advising people to avoid contact with the water and to keep pets out of the water.
The state is also advising people to avoid contact with water at the Old Herington City Lake in Dickinson County, where lower levels of blue-green algae have been detected.
Eagle staff
(Read more at http://www.kansas.com/2012/05/17/2338788/state-warns-of-toxic-algae-in.html)
If you’re running a business out of your home, the Basehor Community Library wants to be your water cooler.
(Read more at http://www.basehorinfo.com/news/2012/may/17/basehor-library-planning-group-home-business-owner/)
