Giving to the project isn’t an investment in the traditional sense — there’s not a financial return — but gifts are tax-deductible, and Angela Cato [marketing director for Wichita's arts and cultural division] says organizers still view contributions as investments in the process of making art.
“People can take personal ownership in what’s going on,” she says.

Read the full story here

Ulysses, Kansas (CNN) – Out on the broad west Kansas prairie the tiny farm town of Ulysses is undergoing a quiet revolution.

About 15 years ago Ulysses, like many small rural communities, was slowly dying as the town’s youth grew up and left, seeking greater opportunities elsewhere. Then a handful of new residents began arriving in the mostly white town: recent immigrants from Mexico and Central America.

What started as a trickle soon became a flood. “It seems like every year it’s more and more,” says Irene Ramirez. Irene and husband Sefeino operate a Mexican bakery that has been doing a booming business.

…
Today Ulysses – population about 6,000– is more than 50% Latino.

Long-time residents could easily have become resentful over the demographic changes, but not that didn’t happen in Ulysses. “It’s just not a big deal,” according to Mayor John Battin. “They’re good neighbors. They’re good people,” Battin says of the new Latino community members.

View the full story on CNN’s website, and here’s the video that aired:

Shawnee County is taking a stance against two bills before the Kansas Legislature regarding term limits for county commissioners …

Commissioners Ted Ensley, Mary Thomas and Shelly Buhler voted 3-0 Monday to authorize county counselor Rich Eckert to testify on the county’s behalf against … HB2190 … when the Kansas House of Representatives’ local government committee meets at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday in Room 144-S at the Kansas Statehouse.

Eckert told commissioners the Kansas Association of Counties contacted him Friday regarding the bills. He first discussed the proposal regarding term limits.

Ensley, who is serving his fourth elected four-year term on the county commission, said: “I think that’s already in place. I think the people in each community…”

Eckert interjected, “Every four years, there’s a term limit.”

Specifically, HB2190 would change state law to say “The board of county commissioners of any county, by resolution, may establish term limits for members of the board of county commissioners of not to exceed two consecutive four-year terms.”

Such a resolution wouldn’t take effect until it had been approved by a majority of county voters in a ballot question election.

The bill also would allow the public, by submitting a petition containing signatures of 5 percent or more of the county’s registered voters, to force a ballot question election on whether to establish county commission limits not exceeding two consecutive four-term terms. Commissioners would be required to put those limits in place if the ballot question were approved.

Read the full story in the Topeka Capital-Journal.

It would give the board of county commissioners of any county the authority to establish, by resolution, term limits for county commissions. Length in office could not exceed two consecutive four-year terms.

To take effect, voters in the county would have to approve the term limit resolution at a general election.

Read the full story here

Lynn Schoonover, director of the CTB that exists under the auspices of the county and promotes ways to put “heads in beds” for the benefit of the local economy, told her board members Thursday that the high tax receipts were due in part to strong fourth quarter collections.
“We earned $175,250, a very strong finish,” she said. “We budgeted very conservatively, and it puts us in a very nice position going into this year.”

Read the full story here

A bill that will give Junction City more time to pay down debt related to growth at Fort Riley was overwhelmingly approved by Kansas House members Thursday. The measure, which passed 98-25 on final action, now heads to the Senate. It is a piece of Junction City’s multi-step plan to restore its financial health, said City Manager Gerry Vernon. The measure gives the city an additional three years to reduce the ratio of outstanding debt to its total property valuation. The limit would remain at 37 percent under the bill through June 30, 2016.

Read the full story here

In GMD 3 in southwestern Kansas, where the levels dropped 3.78 feet during 2011, the wells are screened mainly in the Ogallala aquifer and—in selected areas—the Dakota aquifer. Average water levels in the district dropped about 3 feet in the previous year and have fallen 29 feet since 1996.

Much of the district’s greatest decline occurred in a triangular area from Garden City to Liberal to northeast of Dodge City. GMD 3 includes all or part of Grant, Haskell, Gray, Finney, Stanton, Ford, Morton, Stevens, Seward, Hamilton, Kearny and Meade counties.

Read the full story here

In accordance with Executive Order 10-12, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback has ordered flags to be flown at half-staff from sun-up to sun-down on Saturday, February 11th in Honor of Judge Wesley Brown, who passed away at the age of 104 on January 23rd, 2012 in Wichita. Judge Brown was the oldest active federal judge in U.S. History.
Judge Brown was born in 1907 in Hutchinson, and earned his law degree from Kansas City School of Law in 1933. Judge Brown served in the U.S. Navy from 1944 to 1946, and was appointed to the federal bench by President Kennedy in 1962.
“Judge Brown was an exemplary American and an exemplary Kansan. His tireless work ethic was proof of his dedication to the country and to his duty. Judge Brown is a shining example to all Kansans. He will be sorely missed,” Governor Brownback said.
A celebration of his life is planned for 10 a.m. Saturday at College Hill United Methodist Church in Wichita.
Judge Brown is survived by a son and a daughter, four granddaughters and eight great-grandchildren.

Inside a locked storage room on the third floor of City Hall there’s a whole corner full of the books. Most of them are a good 18 inches tall and heavy. Inside many of them — the oldest ones — are line after line of handwritten ink.

They’re city ordinances. To make a law in Lawrence, you first have to pass an ordinance. And there is one thing about an ordinance that was true in the Horse and Buggy Age of the 1850s and the Electronic Age of the 21st century. An ordinance, according to state law, has to have a home in a book — a real, honest-to-goodness paper creation.

Douglass’s office has spent the last half of 2011 sorting and destroying old records stored in the city solid waste facility in North Lawrence. While they were at, they discovered quite a bit of history of Lawrence:

Even in the mid-1800s, some of the issues city government dealt with were similar to those of today. Well, sort of.

• Sidewalks. An ordinance in September 1859 might be the first in Lawrence authorizing sidewalks to be built. And just like today, the city was emphatic that it is the property owner’s responsibility to maintain the sidewalks, not the city’s. Actually, they were pretty serious about it. The city marshal was instructed to look for broken sidewalks and notify the adjacent property owner. If the repair wasn’t made within 48 hours, the city would fine you $5. In 1859, that was the equivalent of about $120 today, according to an inflation calculator.

• Speeders. In January 1863, people must been out of their mind. Speeding. Speeding, I say, on bridges. It got to the point that the city had to make a law making it illegal to drive any horse or horse-drawn vehicle “faster than a walk” on any bridge in the city.

• Nuisances. Presumably, loud stereos and Lady Gaga were not something the city fathers had to deal with. Instead, when they wrote an ordinance titled “Nuisances” in 1863, it included 10 sections related to the disposing of dead animals on the ground and animal excrement. Maybe Lady Gaga is not looking so bad after all.

• Vagrants. If there was one thing you didn’t want to be labeled as in 1863, it was a vagrant. The city spelled out in an ordinance that any person “found to be loitering, wandering or loafing about dram shops, saloons, restaurants or any other place by day or night without any visible and lawful means of support shall be deemed a vagrant.” The first offense came with a minimum $1 fine, the second offense a minimum $5 fine and the third offense a minimum $25 fine. In case you’re wondering, that’s equivalent to about $440 per day. Now get back to work.

• Rocks. And then of course there was this: In November 1858, the city declared that all persons shall be prohibited from “hauling or carrying away” any rock from the fort on Capitol Hill. Pesky kids. They never change. Always stealing rocks. And, no, City Hall staffers don’t know where Lawrence’s Capitol Hill is either. Technically, the ordinance is no longer in force, but they would prefer that you kids keep your hands off the rocks.

….

The last ordinance entered into the book on Aug. 12, 1863, had a subject that seemed more likely. Ordinance No. 115 clarified that the city marshal indeed had the power to arrest anyone for violating a city law. Perhaps residents had an inkling of what was to come.

Just nine days later, on Aug. 21, 1863, the greatest tragedy in the city’s history struck. William Quantrill and his band of raiders burned the city and killed more than 150 residents.

Read the full article here.

[City Administrator Larry] Paine said the city benefitted twice from a survey of residents living along First Street to determine the percentage of low- and moderate-income households. The survey helped secure funding for that street-replacement project, but the funding also qualified as the city’s cash-match requirement for the KDOC grant for Cedar and Birch.

Read the full story here