KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Four former Kansas governors have launched a bipartisan campaign to retain Kansas Supreme Court justices in November’s election.

The first of three invitation-only events featuring former Republican Govs. Mike Hayden and Bill Graves and former Democratic Govs. John Carlin and Kathleen Sebelius took place Tuesday in Kansas City, Missouri, and are sponsored by Kansans for Fair Courts. That group says it wants to keep the state’s courts independent.

Voters will determine whether five of the seven justices receive another six-year term. They are Chief Justice Lawton Nuss and Justices Carol Beier, Dan Biles, Marla Luckert and Caleb Stegall.

Conservatives are targeting all of them except Stegall. He is Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s only appointee.

FRONTENAC, Kan. (AP) — A former city clerk in southeast Kansas has been charged with misusing public funds and several other felonies.

The Pittsburg Morning Sun reports that Doug Sellars, of Frontenac, was arrested Friday morning. Other felonies he is facing include official misconduct and theft. He has been released on $10,000 bond. His attorney, Rick Smith, declined to comment.

Sellars began working as the Frontenac city clerk in 2004 after more than a decade with the city’s police department. He was appointed interim city manager in 2014. Sellars abruptly resigned from both positions August 2015.

Authorities say the alleged misconduct occurred in 2014 and 2015. The allegations include that he purchased about $8,100 of “personal merchandise” with city dollars.

The charges follow a Kansas Bureau of Investigation probe.

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — An eastern Kansas sunflower farm was so popular on Labor Day that law enforcement closed access to it after cars were backed up several miles to get a glimpse of the state’s botanical symbol.

The Kansas City Star reports the Grinter farm in Leavenworth County has drawn huge weekend crowds as the 40 acres of sunflowers reaches its peak, which is in late August and early September.

But with a combination of nice weather and the holiday, so many cars lined up along U.S. 40/24 between Lawrence and Tonganoxie that the county sheriff closed off access in mid-afternoon.

A message left on the farm’s Facebook page apologized for those who drove a long way to see the sunflowers before being turned away. It encouraged visitors to return this week.

But with a combination of nice weather and the holiday, so many cars lined up along U.S. 40/24 between Lawrence and Tonganoxie that the county sheriff closed off access in mid-afternoon.

A message left on the farm’s Facebook page apologized for those who drove a long way to see the sunflowers before being turned away. It encouraged visitors to return this week.

BROWN COUNTY – A Kansas man died in an accident just after 9a.m. on Tuesday in Brown County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 1995 Honda Civic driven by Nathan Cortez, 32, Hiawatha, was west bound on U.S. 36 just east of Mallard Road in the east bound lane.

The vehicle hit a semi head-on.

Cortez was transported to Hiawatha Community Hospital where he died.

The semi driver Lucas Keebler, 32, Highland, was also transported to the hospital in Hiawatha.

Cortez was not wearing a seat belt, according to the KHP.

The accident remains under investigation.

BARTON COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in Barton County are investigating a shooting and searching for a suspect.

Just after 9 p.m. on Sunday, officers from the Great Bend Police Department responded to the area of the 300 block of Fruit Street in reference to a disturbance, according to a media release.

Upon arrival, officers located a 36-year old man named Walter Vasquez who had a gunshot wound to his left arm.

During the course of the investigation, officers learned that the gunshot wound was sustained during the course of an argument.

Great Bend Fire/EMS transported Vasquez to Great Bend Regional Hospital.

Officers are currently searching for Ever Olivas, who is believed to be the shooter.

Police indicated anyone with information on Olivas should contact the Great Bend Police Department at 620-793-4120. If you want to stay anonymous, you can call the Crimestoppers hotline at 620-792-1300.

FINNEY COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in southwest Kansas are investigating a suspect on a variety of charges following a weekend high-speed chase.

Just after 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, deputies in Finney County attempted a traffic stop for a stop sign violation on a 1990 Lincoln Continental driven by Steve Olivarez, 45, Garden City, at the intersection of Farmland and Mansfield, according to Undersheriff John Andrews.

Olivarez refused to stop. He led deputies on a thirty-five mile high-speed chase into western Gray County. A deputy from the Gray County Sheriff’s office assisted with stopping the vehicle at the intersection of 11Road and R Road south of Ingalls.

Olivarez was arrested without further incident and remains in custody on a $40K Bond, according to Andrews.

He faces charges of driving while suspended, fleeing, or attempting to flee and elude, reckless driving, expired registration and no proof of insurance. He was also wanted on a municipal warrant in Garden City.

By JIM MCLEAN

A large section of what used to be Mercy Hospital in Independence has been torn down in the year since it closed.

On a hot August day, a bulldozer prepares the lot where it once stood for construction of a new city garage.

Andy Taylor, editor of the weekly Montgomery County Chronicle, said many residents of the community of about 10,000 still aren’t sure exactly what happened. But he said they believe city and state officials could and should have done more to save the hospital.

“What the average citizen knows is there’s not a hospital here,” Taylor said. “The day in August of 2015 when Mercy Health System said, ‘We’re closing this hospital,’ people woke up and they said, ‘OK, elected officials, where were you?’”

As it turns out, several area lawmakers were among those who, with Gov. Sam Brownback and Republican legislative leaders, blocked something that might have helped: Medicaid expansion.
“The refusal to expand Medicaid is part of the reason (the hospital closed),” said Chuck Schmidt, a Democrat running for the Kansas Legislature seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Jeff King of Independence.

“We know that hospital lost $1.6 million a year as a result of not having Medicaid expansion,” Schmidt said, referring to the amount the hospital would have gained in higher reimbursements under expansion.

Two area lawmakers who were vocal opponents of Medicaid expansion were defeated in the August primary election.

Rep. Virgil Peck, a conservative Republican from Tyro, lost his bid for an open Senate seat to Dan Goddard, a retired businessman from Parsons. Sen. Forrest Knox, of Altoona, an 11-year legislative veteran, fell to Bruce Givens, an educator from El Dorado.

Both Peck and Knox were supporters of Brownback’s 2012 income tax cuts. Those cuts and the budget problems that followed were, Taylor said, the main reasons for their defeat. But he said Peck’s perceived inaction on the hospital issue also was a factor.

“The hospital was in his district,” Taylor said. “And he said absolutely nothing to help the situation.”

Even with Kansas hospital administrators calling for the expansion of KanCare, the state’s privatized Medicaid program, candidates approach the issue with care because of its connection to the Affordable Care Act, the federal health reform law that many in this part of the state still refer to as Obamacare.
The campaign card that Schmidt gives to voters when he goes door-to-door doesn’t mention expansion and the fact that it would provide health coverage to tens of thousands of low-income Kansans. Instead, it says he supports “quality rural health care.”

Schmidt said other area hospitals could be at risk without the additional federal dollars expansion would provide.

“Labette County hospital is losing $3 million a year now, and Coffeyville is losing $2 million,” he said, noting that Neosho Regional Medical Center in Chanute would get an additional $2.5 million a year under expansion.

“Those are significant numbers,” he said. “If we don’t get turned around and get Medicaid expansion, we could have other hospitals close as well.”

To date, the Kansas Hospital Association estimates the rejection of expansion has cost the state nearly $1.4 billion in additional federal funds.

It’s not just Democrats who now are amenable to expansion. Goddard, Schmidt’s GOP opponent in the general election, favors it.

Doug Blex is the conservative Republican running for Peck’s old House seat. A retired state employee who now ranches near Independence, Blex said he initially was skeptical of Medicaid expansion as another program that he didn’t think the debt-strapped federal government could afford.

“Quite frankly, before the shock of the hospital (closure) hit me, I was leaning against it,” he said.

But seeing the hospital where he and his children were born close caused him to rethink his position. Now, after “a lot of discussion with other people,” he has concluded that expansion isn’t all that different from other federal programs important to rural America.

“Farmers get federal subsidies,” he said. “And if it takes a federal subsidy (to stabilize rural hospitals) and it’s not costing Kansans a lot of money … I’m leaning to probably support Medicaid expansion.”

The ACA requires the federal government to permanently cover no less than 90 percent of the costs of expansion.

Jean Kurtis Schodorf of Sedan, Blex’s Democratic opponent in the Nov. 8 election, also favors expansion.

The emerging bipartisan support for expansion is an indication that no candidate in southeast Kansas wants to run the risk of the local hospital being the next to shut its doors.

Jim McLean is executive editor of KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team.

GEARY COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in Geary County are investigating a weekend shooting.

The Geary County Sheriff’s Department has reported that a 19-year old Beatrice, Nebraska man, Dylan Binnick, was shot and wounded by a Sheriff’s Deputy in an incident Sunday morning on Skiddy Road.

Life Star transported Binnick to Stormont Vail Hospital in Topeka where his condition was listed as stable, with no surgery required, according to Geary County Sheriff Tony Wolf said

Just before 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, Sheriff’s deputies responded to a rural Geary County in response to a report of a possible vehicle accident, with three suspicious subjects walking in the area of Skiddy Road and Skiddy West, according to Wolf.

When Deputies arrived in the area about one mile north of Skiddy Cemetery they made contact with two male subjects, and one female subject, who were walking on Skiddy Road after an earlier accident near the Geary – Morris County line.

“Deputies met the subjects in the roadway, got out, started to do some investigation on the accident that occurred and tried to find out who these individuals were,” said Wolf.

“One individual ( Binnick ) was very apprehensive about giving up any identification or anything.

He finally gave up his identification, then drew a gun out of his waistband on the Deputy. The Deputy was then placed in a very threatening situation, and he drew his weapon and shot the individual,” said Wolf.

Binnick was shot in the right side of his chest, but no surgery was required, according to Wolf.

Deputies administered first aid to Binnick until Junction City Fire / EMS arrived on the scene until Life Star arrived.

The other two subjects were identified as Noah Marshall, 18, and a 16-year old juvenile female, both of Beatrice, Nebraska.

Wolf reported it was later determined that these individuals were suspects in reported felony crimes in Beatrice within the previous few days.

The initial report of the possible accident, revealed a reported stolen vehicle from Beatrice with ties to the three subjects.

Wolf confirmed Marshall and the 16-year old female were arrested on suspicion of Aggravated Assault and other counts.

No formal court charges have been filed at this point. The case has been turned over to the KBI who will be handling the investigation.

Wolf noted the deputy who fired the shot, and another who was providing backup at the scene have been both been placed on administrative leave with pay