Four hunters were stopped in Ellis County Tuesday with more than 200 doves over their daily limit.
According to Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism Captain Dan Melson, a game warden conducted a field inspection on a group of hunters in northern Ellis County Tuesday night just before sunset and discovered the group was well over their limit.
Doves seized in Ellis County. Courtesy of KDWPT
Melson said they had taken 269 doves, 209 over the group’s daily limit. The daily limit in Kansas is 15 doves per hunter.
At this time no charges have been filed because doves are a migratory birds and Melson said charges can be filed in either federal or Ellis County court.
Melson said KDWPT is in contact with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about possibly filing charges in federal court.
If USFWS declines, it will be left up to Ellis County whether to file charges.
According to Melson, a first offense is a class C misdemeanor. If it is a second offense, the fine is at least $250.
Melson said federal courts would typically impose higher fines.
In 2015, the city of Hays won’t have a mill levy increase. As 2015 budget talks begin to conclude, the city of Hays’ mill levy will be set at 25 mills for the fifth consecutive year. Compared to similar cities in Kansas, it is one of the lowest mill levies outside of Johnson County. Below is a list of similar cities and their mill levy rates:
-Garden City-31.13
-Emporia-41.58
-Great Bend-45.80
-El Dorado-47.24
-Liberal-47.85
-McPherson-51.02
-Dodge City-52.06
-Arkansas City-68.61
In 2006, the city commission decided to take several measure to ensure low property taxes such as transferring money from the Commission Capital Reserve in order to reduce it. This year, a $270,276 tansfer was require. According to Assistant City Manager Paul Briseno, over the past seven years, over $1.5 million has been transferred in order to reduce the levy. The commission has also decided to use excess funds in order to pay for large projects so that no new debt is incurred. Over $8 million in excess cash has been utilized in order to prevent the occurrence of any new debt.
The city has also capped employee health insurance at $9,500 per employee which prevents an annual increase of 15-20% in property taxes each year. According to Briseno, the city has spent approximately $10 million through these endeavors in order to reduce property taxes, which is equivalent to eight mills each year.
In the city of Hays, one mill is equivalent to $205,056 and the city has a proposed valuation increase of 2.7% in 2015.
When will these ISIS terrorist thugs realize that the phrase “U.S. journalist” concerns geography, not political science?
Killing journalists from this county does get you headlines, but history tells us that it’s an ignorant, tragic and foolish belief to think that the government of the United States will change geo-political directions because journalists die.
Gene Policinski is senior vice president of the First Amendment Center
Clearly, those who Tuesday killed journalist Steven Sotloff — and who killed photojournalist James Foley on August 19 — are as ignorant or deliberately dismissive of how a free press functions as they are brutal in their methods of gaining the world’s attention.
Journalists from a nation with a free press do not control the news. They do not make the news. And they do not collaborate with, nor are they controlled by, those who do. Here’s a headline from the real world: There is no direct line between the Pentagon, White House and any news organization in America where policy is set or strategy is determined.
For more often, the press in America — whether reporting domestically or from other nations — is seen as a counterweight to official statements by U.S. government officials, and a watchdog on whether the nation’s leaders are doing what they say they are doing.
Yes, at times, the U.S. press wrongly has taken government at its word: The failure to fully pursue what turned out to be unsupported claims of “weapons of mass destruction” still echoes today. But more often, journalists operating under the shield of the First Amendment have been seen as critics or even opponents of what the nation’s political leaders recommend or the course being pursued.
Famously, a U.S. press reporting freely from Vietnam is blamed by some as a reason “America lost the war.” Reports from journalists on the scene called into question information from U.S. military briefings and enemy body counts. The famed “credibility gap” that plagued several administrations was rooted in the difference between what high White House officials said about the progress of that war and what the nation on a daily basis read in newspapers and saw on TV.
It’s difficult to think of an important public issue on which there is not some American journalist asking the difficult questions or challenging official accounts, which makes the fate of Foley and of Sotloff — who disappeared while reporting from Syria in 2013 — as senseless as it is tragic.
If ISIS was serious about changing American public opinion, it would not do so with tactics that will simply harden public support for U.S. military strikes against it. We need look no further than the most serious terrorist strike against America, on Sept. 11, 2001. American policies in the Middle East hardened amidst a surge in patriotism and increased public sentiment for a military response against those who carried out the attack.
A sad irony also follows both deaths. Neither Foley nor Sotloff’s work focused on the political or military aspects of whatever ISIS wants from the Obama administration. Each was focused — and perhaps more vulnerable to the abduction that put them in ultimate harm’s way — by reporting directly on the “people” angles of the Syrian civil war and other conflict in the region.
About a week ago, Sotloff’s mother, Shirley Sotloff, made a video plea to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi not to kill her son. In it, she said, “Steven is a journalist who traveled to the Middle East to cover the suffering of Muslims at the hands of tyrants. Steven is a loyal and generous son, brother and grandson,” she said. “He is an honorable man and has always tried to help the weak.”
In the most recent video, the terrorist speaking to the camera said, “I’m back Obama and I’m back because of your arrogant foreign policy towards the Islamic State, because of your insistence in continuing your bombings. Just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people.” A third captive journalist, a British citizen, was shown at the end of the Sotloff video, with warning of a third execution.
Yes, Sotloff apparently was forced in the video, just prior to his death as was Foley, to recite a statement questioning U.S. involvement in Iraq. But that recitation does not politicize his work as a journalist nor in any way justify his senseless execution. And with many news organizations declining to show the most recent video, as they did with one of the Foley murder — the desired policy impact is even more remote.
The only real message — so cruelly delivered not by the news media but these online merchants of deaths — is one of futility and shame on those who composed the statements, held the cameras, posted the videos and wielded the knives.
Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Washington-based Newseum Institute and senior vice president of the Institute’s First Amendment Center. [email protected]
WASHINGTON (AP) — Architect Frank Gehry is revising the design for a memorial honoring President Dwight D. Eisenhower near the National Mall after objections have delayed the project.
On Thursday, Gehry’s team will propose eliminating metal tapestries on the sides of the memorial square, along with some columns. The designers are trying to win approval from the National Capital Planning Commission. The federal panel voted to reject a previous design in April.
Stainless steel tapestries depicting the Kansas landscape of Ike’s boyhood home are a unique piece of Gehry’s design. One long tapestry would remain as a backdrop for a memorial park. The site also includes statues of Eisenhower as president and World War II general.
Eisenhower Memorial Commission spokeswoman Chris Kelley Cimko says the group hopes the changes move the project forward.
Dillons is partnering with Fort Hays State University to donate food items that are near expiration to the Tiger Food Exchange, a place where students, faculty and staff can access information regarding food and health along with the access to a food pantry. It is located on the first floor of the Forsyth Library and is open during library hours.
The Campus Food and Hunger Initiatives Committee manages the exchange and will receive both perishable and non-perishable items from Dillons. Dr. Shala Mills, chairwoman of the Department of Political Science and co-chair of the committee, hopes the partnership will “increase and diversify” stock in the pantry.
“Almost everyone runs short on cash now and then and needs a little help,” said Mills. “But it isn’t just for folks who are food insecure.”
Mills said a student baking cookies in a residence hall may not need to go out and buy a dozen eggs but may use the pantry for two eggs. Or, a student who misses lunch hour can use it for a late lunch.
Tiger Food Exchange is equipped with a refrigerator to store any of those close-to-expiration, non-perishable items. The exchange also seeks donations from anyone in the community with excess garden produce.
Fridays at the exchange will now be known as Fresh Food Fridays and will feature a fresh food item. During the first week of school, the featured item was eggs, supplied by Hays’ Hall Street Dillons. A Kansas Health Foundation Healthy Living Grant makes fresh Food Fridays possible.
Mills described the exchange policy as, “Just go in, get what you need and leave what you can.”
“Maybe you need some help this month, but maybe you can be the person bringing some canned goods by to donate to the pantry another month,” she said. “It is all about exchange, not about hand-outs.”
This semester, the committee hopes to add more information to the exchange through sharing nutritious recipe ideas, kitchen safety tips, USDA and K-State Extension information, and other valuable resources.
A search for any leaks in the city of Hays’ 180 miles of water lines is underway through September 19.
The city contracted with Wachs Water Services of Buffalo Grove, Ill., to perform a non-invasive water line leak detection survey on the water distribution and raw water transmission lines from the Smoky Hill River well field.
Work started Tuesday, according to Jason Riegel, the Water Conservation Specialist for the city of Hays.
“There won’t be any interruption in water service,” Riegel explained. “Since it’s non-invasive, they’re just listening for leak sounds.”
“The survey crew will be accessing water valve boxes, and, in some cases may need to access water meter pits in front of houses and buildings to pinpoint a leak:”
Riegel said crews will be able to determine exactly where water leaks may be occurring, and “that means we (city workers) won’t be digging any dry holes trying to find a leak.”
Any leaks found by Wachs will be repaired as soon as possible by the city.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Sedgwick County officials are considering their options after none of the 10 potential buyers made a bid for the closed Judge Riddel Boys Ranch.
The county closed the ranch in July after unsuccessfully trying to persuade the Kansas Legislature to increase funding to the county to run it. The county last month sent out requests for groups interested in leasing the property for 10 years.
The Wichita Eagle reports three groups toured the ranch last month but the county said Wednesday no one made a proposal.
Assistant County Manager Ron Holt says he and other county officials will meet soon to consider what options are available for the property.
The county estimated last year that the ranch needed a minimum of $2.6 million to make repairs.
Ned Day, a Fort Hays State University alumnus, was accepted into the 2015 biennial ceramics exhibition of the “Lively Experiments” of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts in Providence, R.I.
“I am very excited and honored to have the opportunity to show my work at this level of the ceramic arts and education field,” said Day. He is an art teacher at the Great Plains Art Institute on the Sinte Gleska University campus on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation, Mission, S.D.
His work has been exhibited in several national and international shows over the last few years, “which I credit to my education from FHSU,” he said.
Day said that teaching and working on his own art are “much the same,” in that both involve communicating and sharing ideas and information.
He graduated from the University of Nebraska-Kearney with a B.F.A. in 1999 and from Fort Hays State in 2013 with a Master of Fine Arts with an emphasis in ceramics and sculpting and a minor in art history.
“This is a huge honor for Ned and our M.F.A. program,” said Linda Ganstrom, professor of art at FHSU. “This international competition is hugely competitive and features the best and the brightest.”
Before teaching at Sinte Gleska, Day worked as a catalogue art director for Cabela’s, the outdoor life and sports retailer, in Sidney, Neb. During his time in Sidney, he helped establish the Sidney Fine Arts Center, where he also directed ceramic workshops at the arts center.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — State health official say whooping cough cases are increasing across Kansas, with Pottawatomie County particularly hard hit.
The state has recorded 405 confirmed cases of the disease so far this year, compared with 172 in all of 2013. In Pottawatomie County 17 confirmed cases have been reported. Last year, the northeast Kansas county had one case.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that all schools within the Wamego School District have had free vaccination clinics for staff members. A clinic for students was held Wednesday at West Elementary, the hardest hit school in the district
The disease, also called pertussis, is a highly contagious respiratory tract infection. It can be prevented by vaccine.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — One of three men suspected of stealing a wedding ring from a dying woman at a Wichita restaurant will be sentenced in October.
Twenty-year-old Quanique Thomas-Hameen was scheduled to be sentenced Thursday for one count of obstructing prosecution and one count of misdemeanor theft. The Wichita Eagle reports court records show the sentencing was rescheduled for Oct. 9.
Thomas-Hameen reached a plea agreement in the case in July. His two co-defendants are facing trial on stronger charges.
The men are accused of removing the ring and other belongings from 43-year-old Danielle Zimmerman as she was dying from a brain aneurysm in the Taco Bell drive-through in December. The theft sparked outrage in Wichita and a reward was offered but the ring has not been recovered.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Democratic challenger Paul Davis has pulled his first television ad of the Kansas governor’s race after the state Republican Party questioned the background of an actor in the spot.
The ad featured Davis responding to criticism from Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s campaign and other groups. Topeka actor Jeff Montague was in it.
City of Topeka spokeswoman Suzie Gilbert confirmed that Montague was arrested in October 2007 for soliciting sodomy and entered into a diversion agreement but could provide no further details. Such agreements allow people to avoid prosecution.
Kansas GOP Executive Director Clay Barker questioned Davis’ judgment for using Montague.
Davis said he pulled the ad immediately and apologized for what he called a mistake.
Montague did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment.
