TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A state commission has approved a plan to allow an extra $3.5 million for Westar Energy for upgrades to a coal plant.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports (https://bit.ly/1uJI3mZ ) the Kansas Corporation Commission approved a plan Tuesday for Westar Energy for improvements at the La Cygne power plant.
Westar Energy and Kansas City Power & Light own the plant together and need to make upgrades to comply with federal emissions rules.
Under the agreement, Westar Energy said it wouldn’t ask for a rate increase until March. It means new rates based on the costs of operating the plant won’t be effective until October 2015.
Kansas City Power & Light will file its rate case in January and work on the basis of estimated costs until then.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A prominent Washington attorney is part of the effort to get the Democratic nominee off the ballot in the U.S. Senate race in Kansas against Republican Sen. Pat Roberts.
A Topeka attorney representing Democratic candidate Chad Taylor filed a request Wednesday with the Kansas Supreme Court, asking it to allow out-of-state attorney Marc Elias to practice before the court.
Elias is a partner in a Washington law firm, and his online biography says his clients include the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. But a spokesman for the group said he is not representing it in this case.
Taylor petitioned the court Tuesday to force Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to remove him from the ballot after Taylor ended his campaign last week.
The move potentially boosted independent candidate Greg Orman.
Justin Choitz, following KC stair climb Sunday. Choitz thanked HFD Chief Gary Brown for the “privilege of representing the HFD.” Courtesy photo
By KARI BLURTON Hays Post
Hays Fire Department’s Justin Choitz, 41, is honoring 343 of his fallen “brothers” as he joins firefighters across the country to climb 110 stories at Denver’s 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb Thursday — a tribute Choitz said he feels called to undertake.
“They did the same job, the same daily routine that we did here in Hays,” Choitz said. “It was just the similarities between their lives and ours that got to me. We are not wanting to forget who they are and the sacrifices they made that day.”
Choitz has participated in eight memorial stair climbs over the last five years.
He said Thursday’s climb begins at 9:11 a.m. in the parking garage of CenturyLink Tower, a 53-story skyscraper in downtown Denver, with 343 firefighters from across the country representing a firefighter who died 13 years ago in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Before each event, the firefighters are given the name and biography of a firefighter who died and will then climb the tower twice in their honor, the equivalent of the 110 flights of stairs the New York firefighters were able to make before the World Trade Center towers collapsed.
Choitz climbed for NYFD battalion chief Tommy DeAngelis Sunday in KC Memorial Stair Climb.
Choitz admitted the climb is physically draining but said the end of the climb, when each firefighter rings a bell and announces the name of the person they are representing, is the “hardest” part.
“It blows your mind when you look … and see 343 guys. That in a single day, in a single event weren’t there anymore,” he said. “To go through all the climbing and finally make it to that floor and ring the bell and have that bell sound. … It’s pretty sobering.”
Choitz also participated in Sunday’s 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb in Kansas City along with four members of the Great Bend Fire Department, where he climbed for New York City Fire Department Battalion Chief Thomas “Tommy” DeAngelis, who died on 9/11.
Choitz’s lanyard holds pictures of fallen firefighters he has honored in previous 9/11 Memorial Stair Climbs.
DeAngelis’ picture remains affixed to Choitz’s airtank, along with a lanyard of the pictures of five other firefighters Choitz has represented in previous climbs, a reminder of the sacrifice firefighters made.
Not only does Choitz feel “called” to participate in the climbs, but also feels he was called to be a firefighter.
“When I was offered a full-time position in 2004, I contemplated it and asked (the administrative assistant) if I took the job ‘When would be my first day be?’ ” he recalled.
“She looked through (the calendar) and said Sunday, September 11th, so I thought ‘Well, I guess that kind of answers it,’ ” Choitz said with a smile.
Choitz is pictured in center with Great Bend firefighters, Tony Leeds, Nick Maddy, Captain Luke McCormick and Blake Kratzer, Courtesy Photo
TOPEKA — Gov. Sam Brownback today ordered flags to be flown at half-staff from sun-up to sundown today in observance of Patriot Day.
Congress designated Sept. 11 of each year as Patriot Day, and by Public Law 111-13, approved April 21, 2009, requested the observance of Sept. 11 as an annually recognized National Day of Service and Remembrance.
“On Sept. 11, we honor the memories of the men, women and children who perished that day,” said Brownback. “We remember their families and friends. And we remember the courage of our first responders who rushed forward in the face of extreme danger to rescue those who needed help. I urge all Kansans to take a moment today to pray for those we lost, their families and friends and to remember the bravery of first responders across the nation.”
Patriot Day is an annual observance to remember those who were injured or died during the terrorist attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
At Thursday’s regular meeting, Hays city commissioners will consider the purchase of new waste-disposal polycarts, as well as funding for the city’s downtown advocacy organization.
Downtown Hays Development Corp. has requested $53,655 to fund its operations, which were the topic of a lengthy discussion at last week’s commission work session. They also report receiving an estimated $37,150 from fundraising, partnership programs, events and activities and interest for a total budget of approximately $90,805.
When DHDC was created 14 years ago, their initial goal was to purchase six properties in downto Hays to “jumpstart the redevelopment of downton.” The buildings were purchased in partnership with Liberty Group, the primary developer of the Chestnut Street District. Liberty Group is currently in the process of developing a downtown hotel and events center in downtown Hays.
Information distributed to commissioners last week indicated more than $10.5 million private dollars have been reinvested in downtown buildings and businesses since 2001. Downtown sales tax collections make up approximately ten percent of Hays general sales tax collection.
Commissioners expressed concerns at last week’s work session about communication problems with the city and what exactly DHDC does.
Commissioners also will consider the purchase of 400 new 95-gallon polycarts from Rehrig Pacific Co. in DeSoto to replace aging units and have additional polycarts available for new customers.
According to ID Creech, the new carts would be less expensive and a little more durable.
The purchase would cost just more than $21,000.
Click HERE for a complete agenda for Thursday’s meeting, scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall.
GREAT BEND — The Kansas Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday appealing a murder conviction in a Great Bend teenager’s death.
A Barton County jury convicted Adam Longoria in 2012 for the murder of 14-year-old Alicia DeBolt. Longoria, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole, is appealing that ruling.
Debolt, formerly of Hays, went missing in August 2010. Her badly burned body was found days later at an asphalt plant near Great Bend. During the trial, prosecutors told the jury that after DeBolt disappeared, Longoria asked people to make up alibis for him. His semen was also found, mixed with DeBolt’s DNA, on a vehicle floorboard.
Longoria was not in court yesterday, but Capital Appeals and Conflicts Defender Reid Nelson represented him. Seven Supreme Court Justices, five men and two women, have the power to change Longoria’s punishment. In that Appellate Court, justices must look at the case in the light most favorable to the prosecution.
Longoria appealed numerous issues from the trial. One argument stated that jurors were not given the option of a lesser murder charge, reckless second-degree murder.
Another part of the appeal included a challenge to the sexual assault conviction. Nelson told the Justices there was insufficient evidence of criminal sodomy or attempted rape.
The Supreme Court Justices have not said when they will make a decision on the appeals.
The fifth annual free community block party, hosted by CrossPoint Church of Hays, is coming up at 5 p.m. Sept. 13 at Municipal Park on Main Street, just south of the Hays Aquatic Park.
There will be free food and prizes including gift cards for many local restaurants, Walmart and Dillons. There will be a junk food walk and five inflatable bounce houses for the kids, as well as the Hays Fire Department safe house and the pace truck from Teel’s Trucks. There also will be a miniature horse petting zoo.
John Richard Schrock is a professor at Emporia State University.
Across the United States, public universities are focusing on providing resident students with the “college experience.” With the movement to present lectures online as a strictly audio-visual experience, there is a natural feeling that something is missing from the post-high school experience. This has led administrators to contrive to restore the social interactions that occur on campuses and proclaim this is the missing 50 percent of a university education. Unfortunately, just as the online “course” is barely a shadow of face-to-face teaching, the fun-and-games socializing that passes for the out-of-class “college experience” also fails to provide the real college experience.
In 1987, a Distinguished Professor at my university spoke to assembled faculty and students. He advised students to not only attend every class, but to also get a full education outside of class.
He meant that students should stop in at professors’ offices. At a good university, faculty doors are open. They are there to help, not just when a student is struggling in coursework, but also to listen to where you are in life. To share the difficulties of being an intellectual. To help advise in career decisions from an experienced position. To help a student see a bigger world of ideas.
In this last year, research by Pascarella and Gillig at the University of Iowa confirmed this advice and found that “meaningful interactions with faculty members outside class, along with clear and organized teaching, had the strongest positive effects on students’ motivation during their first year of college, which otherwise tends to drop significantly.”
The Distinguished Professor went on to stress the importance of extending that classroom learning into student interactions. In academic campus clubs, senior students can share advice with entering freshmen in the same major, helping the youngsters decide on careers and demonstrating that they can survive. These contacts with older classmates and professors also help students mature. If they just study hard, in a few years they too can enter medical school, etc.
Many elite schools, such as Harvard, house the majority of their students in thematic residence halls to maximize this out-of-class educational experience.
And the philosophy and literature and music addressed in class discussions can continue late into the night, from top bunk to bottom bunk, as classmates carry the lesson further as they share their own life experiences. The study of academics is not just for a grade. Academics are for moving each student’s understanding of life to a higher level.
And the Professor recommended travel. Students view the world as their hometown viewed the world. Travel helps students gain a wider view. Even if they cannot travel, there are foreign students on campus, sitting next to them in class and in the cafeteria. Deep engagement with foreign students helps students realize that on the one hand, they have the same human needs and desires. And yet the foreign students often view the world much differently than we do. Students learn that there are many other ways to view world problems, and perhaps our provincial view is not the correct view.
Sadly, in today’s national discussion of “the college experience,” nothing academic is included. Social clubs, pep sessions, fun and games, recreational facilities—yes. But more faculty doors are closed. Advising is done by an impersonal computer. Each student feels like a number because they are treated as a number.
This problem has been caused by confining academics to classroom “teaching” and considering it just an audio-visual experience. Just as this was a failure in the 1960s as televised instruction, it remains a poor excuse for teaching today when delivered over the Internet.
A new breed of American university administrator thinks that the teaching task is completed in the classroom or on-screen. The rest of the college experience is considered “time-to-party.”
But when you remove academics, you have taken “college” out of “the college experience.”
WAKEENEY (AP) — A northwest Kansas man charged with killing his ex-girlfriend’s fetus by putting a crushed abortion pill on her pancake has entered a not guilty plea.
The plea was entered Tuesday for Scott Bollig during his arraignment on a first-degree murder charge in the death of the 8- to 10-week-old fetus. He is accused of causing Naomi Abbott to lose her fetus in January by lacing her food with the drug mifepristone. Bollig also is charged with aggravated battery and misdemeanor distribution of adulterated food.
The Salina Journal reported Bollig’s attorney, Dan Walter, was granted a deadline extension for discovery of information.
During Bollig’s preliminary hearing in July, WaKeeney Police Chief Terry Eberle testified that Bollig admitted to putting the drug on a pancake he served to Abbott.
The Fort Hays State men’s basketball team receives a verbal commitment. Scott City senior Trey O’Neil tweeting Wednesday night that he will be a Tiger next season.
O’Neil helped lead the Beavers to the 4A Division II state title game this past season. He scored 67 points while grabbing 16 rebounds and dishing out 18 assists in Scott City’s three state tournament games.
O’Neil joins Derby’s Aaron Nicholson who verbally committed last month.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A state commission has approved a plan to allow an extra $3.5 million for Westar Energy for upgrades to a coal plant.
