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JC Post

JUNCTION CITY — One member of the public spoke to the Geary USD 475 Board of Education Monday evening concerning recent alleged racial comments endured by some JCHS students at the Junction City – Manhattan football game on Oct. 11.

Mary Edwards noted that she was a concerned parent of a youth attending Junction City High School.

” I would like to know what the status is of the racial harassment incident that occurred Oct. 11, 2019 at the football game in Manhattan,” she said.

Edwards added she would like to know why the JCHS administration has not kept the parents informed or even informed the parents of the incident.

Edwards stated the Board is in charge of the policies and creating the curriculum for the district.

“So I first ask that you either create or update a policy that provides instruction for the high school administration and school staff to follow if and when another incident occurs.” Edwards wants to see the schools required to provide diversity and inclusion training for school administration, staff and students. “Also require training for staff administrators on best practices, on how to respond to racial harassment as well as training for the students on what they need to do when they encounter these situations.”

Both the Geary County and Manhattan – Ogden school districts have previously issued statements indicating that they are working together to investigate the events and deal with the racial behavior as they move forward.

There was no response from the Board to Edwards Monday evening, but that is normal practice during the public comment period. Those sessions are intended to allow members of the public to give input to the school board and administration.

Hutch Post

HUTCHINSON — The Hutchinson City Council will take action on the new rental inspection program during Tuesday’s agenda session.

The city is proposing a licensing fee structure with incentives rather than the current permit fee. The Housing Commission has denied a recommendation on the proposal. That came during a meeting on Oct. 19 on a 4-2 vote.

“There were still some concerns from the housing commissioners that is this really going to solve any of the problems,” Planning Director Ryan Hvitlok said. “We also had two new slots filled on the commission so that changed the vote a little.” Several other members of the commission were absent, which also skewed the numbers, according to Hvitlok.

Hvitlok says the reason this has drawn so much attention is that most landlords in Hutchinson are not used to this kind of program, which is usually seen as routine business by owners of larger apartment complexes in metro areas.

“If you look at where the majority of rental licenses programs are in Kansas, they are in the K.C. metro area. They tend to be the larger landlords and it’s more of an expectation. They just see it as a part of doing business,” Hvitlok said. “We have a lot more individual landlords. These are generally local people that have put some money into the community to try and invest. So for them, I think it is a bit of a cultural shock.”

Hvitlok says that, while this program may not be the full answer, he feels that the council is wanting to keep the ball moving forward when it comes to better rental housing.

“Obviously we’ve made some good progress on it (condition of rental housing) with the international property maintenance code, but also the rental registration program,” Hvitlok noted. “I think that is the concern with some of the Housing Commission and (what) City Council members have voiced is they really don’t want to lose that momentum and kind of start going back to where we were 10 years ago.”

Tuesday’s City Council meeting begins at 9 a.m. in the Hutchinson city offices.

OSAGE COUNTY — A Kansas woman originally jailed on 20 counts of alleged animal cruelty has entered a plea agreement in the case.

On October 31, Christi L. Shaffer, 53, Lyndon, entered pleas of no contest, was convicted of two counts of animal cruelty and one count of allowing a dangerous animal to be at large, according to the sheriff’s department.

Shaffer was sentenced to the maximum sentence allowed by law on all counts and the sentences were ordered to run consecutive for a controlling sentence of 30 months in the Osage County jail.

KANSAS CITY (AP) — Emotions that simmered for nearly a year over the renaming of an historic major thoroughfare in Kansas City, Missouri, for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led to a tense scene at a black church as get-out-the vote efforts wound down ahead of residents going to the polls.

About 100 supporters of keeping the King name for the 10-mile boulevard were at a rally to court voters Sunday when opponents walked into the Paseo Baptist Church and stood along its two aisles. Those against the King name stood silently and did not respond to calls for them to sit down. Several speakers and people in the crowd told them they were being disrespectful.

On Tuesday, the debate will end, as voters decide if Kansas City’s reputation as one of the largest cities in the U.S. without a street named for the iconic civil rights leader will cease. The boulevard had been named The Paseo, and a group named Save the Paseo collected 2,857 signatures in April — far more than the 1,700 needed — to have the name change put to a public vote. Many of the opponents who stepped inside the small church along the boulevard Sunday were wearing Save the Paseo T-shirts at the voter rally.

Many supporters of the Martin Luther King name have suggested the opponents are racist, saying Save the Paseo is a mostly white group and that many of its members don’t live on the street, which runs north to south through a largely black area of the city. They say removing the name would send a negative image of Kansas City to the rest of the world, and could hurt business and tourism.

Supporters of the Paseo name bristle at the allegations of racism, saying they have respect for King and want the city to find a way to honor him. They are opposed to the name change because they say the City Council did not follow city charter procedures when deciding on the name change and didn’t notify most residents on the street about the proposal. They also say The Paseo was an historic name for the city’s first boulevard, which was completed in 1899. The north end of the boulevard is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The City Council voted in January to rename the boulevard for King, responding to a yearslong effort from the city’s black leaders and pressure from the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a civil rights organization that King helped start.

U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a minister and former Kansas City mayor who has pushed the city to rename a street for King for years, was at Sunday’s rally. He said the protesters were welcome, but he asked them to consider the damage that would be done if Kansas City removed King’s name.

“I am standing here simply begging you to sit down. This is not appropriate in a church of Jesus Christ,” Cleaver told the group.

Tim Smith, who organized the protest, said it was designed to force the black Christian leaders who had mischaracterized the Save the Paseo group as racist to “say it to our faces.”

“If tonight, someone wants to characterize what we did as hostile, violent, or uncivil, it’s a mischaracterization of what happened,” Smith said. “We didn’t say anything, we didn’t do anything, we just stood.”

The Rev. Vernon Howard, president of the Kansas City chapter of the SCLU, told The Associated Press that the King street sign is a powerful symbol for everyone but particularly for black children.

“I think that only if you are a black child growing up in the inner city lacking the kind of resources, lacking the kinds of images and models for mentoring, modeling, vocation and career, can you actually understand what that name on that sign can mean to a child in this community,” Howard said.

If the sign were taken down, “the reverse will be true,” he said.

“What people will wonder in their minds and hearts is why and how something so good, uplifting and edifying, how can something like that be taken away?” he said.

But Diane Euston, a leader of the Save the Paseo group, said The Paseo “doesn’t just mean something to one community in Kansas City.”

“It means something to everyone in Kansas City,” she said. “It holds kind of a special place in so many people’s hearts and memories. It’s not just historical on paper, it’s historical in people’s memory. It’s very important to Kansas City.”