Peabody mayor Catherine Weems spoke longingly at a city council meeting Monday night about hiring a city administrator. “All our other municipalities have city managers, and they make a huge difference,” she said. “I really think we need someone who, on a consistent basis, is pulling the city together. I’ve done my best in the interim to help, but we really need someone on a daily basis to be calling the shots.” Source: Marion County RECORD

With only one law office left in the county, and that being a half-day satellite office of a McPherson County office, Marion County’s 11,690 residents are seriously underserved.... Newly installed county attorney Michelle Brown has ideas to recruit lawyers to the county. Source: Marion County RECORD

Kansas, especially in rural areas, faces a shortage of nurses that is expected to become worse, a recent Kansas Nursing Workforce Center report shows. ... [Marion hospital] chief executive Alex Haines ... explained that the hospital’s efforts to recruit and retain nurses is to involve them in decision making, ensure their pay is fair market value, and waive staff members’ patient responsibility for care they get at the hospital. Source: Marion County RECORD

An effort to get Marion’s downtown designated as a historic district — opening the door to tax credits to pay for building improvements — will continue after a five-year hiatus touched off by 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic. Source: Marion County RECORD

The old resolution prohibited burning when any part of the county was in high fire risk. The proposed amendment divides the county into four areas. Burning will still be allowed in quadrants where risk is not high. Source: Marion County RECORD

Although the 350,000-square-foot manufacturing campus for Grasshopper Mowers lies in McPherson County, outside Moundridge, 10% of its 280 employees hail from Marion County, with many workers making the 40-minute commute each day. Michael Simmon, who works in marketing communications at Grasshopper (and who commutes 40 minutes himself from Sedgwick County), said Marion residents appreciated the pay, the work environment, and job stability. Source: Marion County RECORD

The draft removes a stipulation that vendors could not sell within 150 feet of an existing restaurant without written permission of the restaurant owner. That is replaced by a requirement that a vendor may not obstruct an entrance or parking of an existing restaurant without permission. Source: Marion County RECORD

Hillsboro City Council agreed Tuesday that Hillsboro water system employees would help Peabody with its understaffed public works department. City administrator Matt Stiles discussed Peabody’s staffing with mayor Lou Thurston, Peabody mayor Catherine Weems, and Hillsboro water superintendent and Peabody resident Morgan Marler. “Peabody has seen a lot of employees leave the organization, which has created a situation where they don’t have the required operators or staff to address their system requirements,” Stiles said. Source: Marion County RECORD

Its removal can spell disaster for locals, who might be left with a corporate mega-chain as their only option for groceries, or at least be forced to drive much farther for quality food. The Wichita Eagle reported in 2016 that 51% of Kansas’ 675 communities had no local supermarkets. The future is not looking good for such businesses, either. One in five rural Kansas groceries closed between 2008 and 2018, according to the Rural Grocery Initiative at Kansas State University. Source:Marion County RECORD

Controversy surrounding the disappearance and death, confirmed Thursday, of Peabody’s interim city clerk has prompted the governor and lieutenant governor to promise to be “pursuing changes to the background check statutes this upcoming legislative session.” “Clearly, Jonathan Clayton was able to avoid the discovery of his criminal convictions,” Will Lawrence, chief of state to Governor Laura Kelly, said in a release Thursday. “His financial crimes coming to light, and questions about his involvement with local organizations that received ARPA grants, appear to have set off the chain of events that have occurred over the last several weeks.” Source: Marion County RECORD