KANSAS CITY (AP) — The Missouri River is causing new problems in a flood-battered part of northwest Missouri where the river broke through levees in March.
The rain-swollen waterway has again inundated the tiny village of Big Lake in Holt County, where some of its approximately 160 residents were beginning to clean up after the last deluge.
Water levels haven’t dropped enough to fix the failed earthen levees intended to protect the area, Holt County emergency management director Tom Bullock said Friday. That means even moderate rises in river levels can cause problems. He calls it “a continuous mess.”
Several roads in the region are closed again, including a portion of U.S. 59, a key transportation artery between northeast Kansas and northwest Missouri.
In eastern Missouri, water levels are falling along the Mississippi River after some levees were busted.
Northwestern Missouri’s new troubles come just as some areas were showing signs of improvement. A stretch of the Kansas Turnpike near the Oklahoma border has reopened, as has the Iowa Highway 2 approach to a Missouri River bridge that links southwest Iowa to southeast Nebraska.
The Kansas Turnpike section near Wellington, which is about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Wichita, flooded Wednesday when up to 10 inches (254 millimeters) of rain fell across parts of the state in just 24 hours. Flooding also forced evacuations and school closures.
The National Weather Service says the rain is expected to move across the Deep South this weekend, putting millions of people in the path of potentially dangerous weather. The Storm Prediction Center says there’s a marginal risk of severe storms from eastern Texas — where parts of Houston have already seen flooding this week — to South Carolina and western North Carolina.
Forecasters say wind damage and hail could be seen in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina on Saturday. On Sunday, there’s a chance of storms across central Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.
In Louisiana, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers planned to open a major spillway Friday, four days earlier than expected due to torrential rains that saw the Mississippi River rise 6 inches (15.24 centimeters) in the past 24 hours. Officials said opening the Bonnet Carré (BAH-nee KEHR-ee) Spillway relieves stress on New Orleans levees.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Gov. Laura Kelly says she hopes that extra state funding for the Kansas higher education system will lead to lower tuition for students and their families.
Kelly on Friday touted the additional $33 million included for higher education in a proposed $18.4 billion state budget for the fiscal year beginning in July.
She said during a Statehouse news conference that legislators included the extra money hoping that the Kansas Board of Regents could keep university tuition flat.
Kelly said she would like the regents to go further and reduce tuition. She said she’s worried that students are being priced out of higher education.
The regents have complained in the past that tight state funding has forced them to increase tuition to pay for vital programs on the campuses.
Kansas may soon turn to private contractors to take the overflow from its crowded prisons, raising questions about growing costs and the reliability of for-profit jails.
Kansas prisons are currently over capacity. Contracting with outside facilities could relieve the state’s underpaid and overworked prison staff. JOBS FOR FELONS HUB / CC BY 2.0
That plan ran into complications over the weekend when lawmakers insisted on a closer review from a state commission to OK some of the line-by-line spending. But taxpayers could soon be spending almost $36 million more to deal with a range of problems in the prison system.
Last month, Gov. Laura Kelly proposed changes to the state’s budget that included:
$16.4 million in contracts for 600 outsourced prison beds
$11.5 million in raises for the state’s prison staff
$4.5 million worth of Hepatitis C treatment for inmates
$3 million to move 120 inmates from the state’s women’s prison to an empty unit in its juvenile prison
$340,000 for stab-proof vests for staff
But following a heated week at the Statehouse, the Kansas Legislature only gave a fraction of that money immediately.
Lawmakers added just $5.5 million to the corrections budget for contracts next year, enough funding for only 200 prison beds. The Legislature also decided to give a pay raise only to employees of El Dorado Correctional Facility, at a cost of another $2.5 million. It also funded the stab-proof vests.
The State Finance Council, a board consisting of Gov. Laura Kelly and high-ranking members of the Legislature, will decide the rest of an additional $27.6 million in spending.
Now the Kansas Department of Corrections will have to make its case for that funding in front of the State Finance Council later this year.
Kelly, speaking to reporters on Monday, said she hopes to use her position on the finance council to clear the way for the added spending on prisons.
“That’s sort of a pain,” she said, “but certainly doable.”
But Corrections Secretary Roger Werholtz said the state’s prisons need the money now. The DOC has already taken contract bids to outsource 600 inmates to county jails or private prisons next year.
“The problem’s immediate,” he told reporters on Saturday. “I don’t know when that money is going to be released.”
Solutions For Overcrowding
State prisons currently have a capacity of 9,916 people. As of May 6, they hold 10,022 people, with a projected population of 10,655 by next year.
Werholtz said he had repeatedly told the Legislature about overcrowding problems, including increased inmate violence, danger to staff and inmates not getting the mental health treatment or training that they need.
“I want something to lower the pressure in the system so we can operate it more safely,” he said. “We’ve laid out in detail, with money figures attached, what it would cost to fix the problem.”
With that in mind, Kelly last week asked legislators to put an additional $16.4 million in the state’s budget for “contract beds” — agreements with outside prisons to house Kansas inmates for a fee. The proposal would essentially rent 600 prison beds and everything else it takes to keep inmates locked up for $75 each per day.
Now that the Legislature has awarded enough funding for only 200 beds, Werholtz said the DOC will still consider bids from outside contractors. But it is still deciding how those beds will be used. He said in a phone interview that the department has three major needs: to reduce crowding in the system overall, to increase the number of solitary confinement units and to move some inmates out of El Dorado Correctional Facility to relieve staff, some of whom work 16-hour days.
“We have to choose,” he said. “Two hundred beds is only sufficient to partially address any of those three.”
Some of those contract bids could go to county jails in Kansas. The state already contracts with two county jails, in Jackson and Cloud counties in the north-central part of the state, to house about 80 inmates at a cost of about $45 per inmate per day.
But most likely, contracts will be awarded to private prisons outside of the state with room to take in more inmates and the ability to ship them to the new locations.
Private prisons may have a poor reputation, but Werholtz said the state could successfully monitor any contracts with them.
“There’s nothing inherently good or inherently bad about either a public or a private prison,” Werholtz said. “It all hinges on who’s operating it, what resources they have available to them, and how closely you monitor the terms of the contract.”
Werholtz said the DOC would track security, operations and mental and behavioral health programs, possibly sending a full-time staff member to work on site if one contract facility takes on hundreds of inmates.
However, he said he would prefer to contract with county jails in Kansas, where inmates can be closer to their families and the medical services provided by the DOC provides in state prisons. But the state’s county jails won’t have enough beds.
“We’ll look at those first,” Werholtz said. “But I’m not optimistic that that will satisfy all our needs.”
Among those needs are 300 beds for people assigned to solitary confinement.
As of May 6, nearly 900 people were in solitary confinement in Kansas. It’s used as a form of discipline or to isolate inmates who exhibit suicidal tendencies, have a contagious illness, intimidate witnesses or attack others. The state has to swap them in and out because there aren’t enough beds.
“In order to put somebody in who’s engaged that kind of behavior, we’ve got to take somebody out who just did the same thing, maybe two or weeks prior to that,” Werholtz said. “That makes it much more difficult to discourage that sort of behavior.”
Staff in private prisons, however, are often inexperienced and paid less than employees of public prisons, said Marc Mauer, executive director of the nonprofit Sentencing Project, based in Washington, DC.
“Private prison operators have promised many things to public officials. They say that they can keep people housed in prison at less cost to the state. They told their shareholders that they’re going to make a profit,” Mauer said. “If you want to cut costs in order to meet both of those goals, the main cost is personnel.”
Mauer says moving inmates out of state can affect inmates’ quality of life in other ways.
“If you’re far away from your home state, that means your family visits are going to be limited,” he said. “If you have a legal case pending, it’s going to be very difficult to meet with your attorney.”
Sentencing Reform
Ultimately, Werholtz said, lawmakers will have to contend with the root cause of the problem: the ever-growing prison population. He credits the growth to the state’s sentencing guidelines, which determine the length of prison or probation time.
Those recommended sentences can only be reduced through legislative action. And the DOC’s aging computer system would need time to adjust to those changes, Werholtz said.
“You’re looking at, at an absolute minimum, a two-year process,” he said. “More likely a three or three-and-a-half-year process.”
In the meantime, he predicts the state’s prisons will remain full, with contract beds catching the overflow, and costs increasing every year.
“We’re going to be overcrowded,” he said, “for the foreseeable future.”
Nomin Ujiyediin is a reporter for the Kansas News Service. You can send her an email at nomin at kcur dot org, or reach her on Twitter @NominUJ.
We are giving away the Chicken Soup for the Soul book “Mom Knows Best.”
Listen during a KZ Country Morning with Theresa Trapp Monday, May 13-Friday May 17, 2019 for chances to call 785-628-2995 and win.
No age requirement to win.
Winners will need to pick up their books at the KZ Country Studio, 2300 Hall, Hays, KS within 30 days of winning.
Every mom knows that she’s usually right. It just takes a while for the kids to catch on. These stories celebrate the experience, understanding and wisdom of mothers, grandmothers, stepmothers, and mothers-in-law.
What a great way to show the mothers in your family that you know they were right all along. New moms and experienced moms will enjoy these stories of love and appreciation from grown and almost grown children of all ages. This is a popular gift for mothers, grandmothers, stepmothers, and mothers-in-law all year round.
Congratulations Mark Kranawitter, Roger Legleiter, Mila Burns, Michael Hiss and Linda Palmberg!
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say a suspected drunken driver who fled from police with two children in his car crashed into a parked vehicle outside a Wichita senior center.
Adkins photo Sedgwick County
34-year-old Markston Adkins, of Wichita, was booked into jail on suspicion of driving under the influence, aggravated child endangerment and several other charges.
The Kansas Highway Patrol says a trooper attempted to stop him Wednesday for a traffic violation. The crash report says the trooper stopped the pursuit before Adkins’s car jumped a curb and struck the parked vehicle.
Adkins was taken to a hospital with a suspected minor injury. The crash log says a 3-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl in his car had complaints of pain, but the report indicates that they weren’t taken to a hospital.
Low bids from DHC (Dustin Hynes Construction) of Hays were approved by the Hays city commission Thursday night for new sidewalks at Rolling Hills Park – $26,841.90 – and at 13th and Canterbury – $35,135.53.
Both projects will offer safer options for walkers, Jeff Boyle, director of parks, told commissioners.
“At 13th and Canterbury, generally speaking, all of these areas that are basically just grass and dirt right now are going to be connecting to existing sidewalks at the Hays Recreation Commission (HRC) and Hays High School,” said Boyle.
One section of the sidewalk on the north end of HRC will be eight foot wide instead of the standard five foot width in anticipation of a proposed multi-use path to be built in east Hays. “We’re just trying to plan ahead,” he explained.
“That concept will actually be brought back to the commission later this year during the 2020 budget process,” interjected City Manager Toby Dougherty.
The southwest corner of 13th and Canterbury is a vacant lot which is for sale.
Hays Mayor Henry Schwaller, who abstained from the vote, said he is one of 11 owners of the property.
“Some people think as mayor, I’m getting a free sidewalk. I didn’t ask for the sidewalk. I didn’t know about the sidewalk,” said Schwaller. “In fact, I kinda don’t want the sidewalk.”
Vice-Mayor Shaun Musil pointed out that current city policy requires developers to put in sidewalks.
“This is a situation where we are addressing past oversights,” Dougherty said.
“The current development policy says that if you build a property out, you put a sidewalk in. For example, if you’re in a residential area you have three years from 50% build-out to put the sidewalk in to eliminate the connectivity issues.”
“This was a remnant of the policy that said if it’s not built-out, you don’t put a sidewalk in, and we’re not going to take into consideration what gets built-out past that,” explained Dougherty.
“So what happened here is we had a somewhat undeveloped intersection – there’s actually still two corners of this intersection that are still undeveloped – and we built a high school on one quadrant and Hays Rec Commission on the other quadrant.
“The mindset back then was we’ll just put the sidewalk in whenever we deal with it. It’s led to some of the areas we’ve been addressing over the last few years in the sidewalk program. We’re trying to infill areas that were developed.”
He cited as an example another area in east Hays where a sidewalk was installed last year between Indian Trail and Donald.
“You had a sidewalk going through a commercial corridor, and then nothing, because it was undeveloped, and then residential housing that goes a quarter mile to the east to a park without thought of how you’re going to get there. There was, and is, a well-worn path in all these areas where people are actually (walking). That’s how we identified all these areas. We looked where the paths were in the dirt.”
Rolling Hills Park, bordered by 41st Street to the north and Autumn Lane to the east, has no connecting sidewalks for pedestrian traffic.
“We want to go from the existing curb cut sidewalk area all the way down 41st. It’ll actually drop off down into the park area and go all the way to Autumn Lane where it will turn south,” explained Boyle. “That’ll provide full connectivity for everybody in the neighborhood to get up to the walking path on 41st. We’ve seen a lot of folks trying to walk on 41st Street and it’s just not safe.”
Commissioner Sandy Jacobs agreed.
“I’m really happy that we’re doing this. It is a dangerous area and there are a lot of people up there walking.”
RUSSELL – The Downtown Russell Market Pop-up Event will take place the Saturday before Father’s Day, June 15 from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. We would like to invite all types of vendors to join us for a busy weekend in Russell, with over 1,000 spectators planned to arrive in our community for a Father’s Day Softball Tournament, we are anticipating a lot of foot traffic.
The market event will take place outdoors on the bricks in Downtown Russell. We are currently searching for vendors of all categories ranging anywhere from antiques to clothing. Food and children’s activities will also be available. Vendors will be set up in the parking stalls between 6th and 8th street while Downtown businesses utilize the sidewalks for sales and specials.
If you are interested in joining us the cost per vendor booth is $30.00 for Non- Members and $20 for Members. Booth space is approximately 12’x15’. We ask that all booths be set-up before 8:30 am the day of the event. Event will take place rain or shine. Each vendor is responsible for all their own display tables, racks, tent, etc. Power is limited, please document on the registration form if electricity is needed, there will be an additional $10 fee for electricity. Please call before scheduling if you plan to bring a food truck or trailer.
To be included in this year’s Russell Downtown Market, vendors must register online at russellmainstreet.com/downtown-market or mail registration form and payment to 207 E. 8th Street in Russell.
For more information call the Russell Main Street, Inc. office at 785-483-2897.
WOODSON COUNTY — The search for one of three inmates who escaped from the Woodson County jail in Yates Center ended just after 8a.m. Friday.
Stout photo Woodson Co.
Three inmates escaped from the jail Thursday. Two were found approximately an hour later, according to the sheriff’s department. The manhunt for 29-year-old Jordan Alan Stout continued overnight.
On Friday morning, law enforcement authorities received a tip that Stout was returning to town.
They located him in Yates Center where he drove away in Chevy S-10 pickup on Thursday, according to the sheriff’s office.
On Monday Yate’s Center Police arrested Stout for alleged criminal threat. He had been held on a bond of $6500.
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WOODSON COUNTY — Authorities are investigating after three inmates escaped Thursday from the Woodson County jail in Yates Center, according to the Kansas Highway Patrol.
Two are back in custody but the search continues for one inmate identified as 29-year-old Jordan Alan Stout.
The Woodson County Sheriff’s office had no new information on the search as of 7a.m. Friday.
Stout is described as 6-foot-2, has brown hair and hazel eyes and was wearing orange jail scrubs.
He was possibly driving a maroon 2001 Chevy S10 pickup with a dark greet tailgate and a Kansas license 303HYV, according to the sheriff’s department.
Stout was arrested by Yates Center Police on May 6, according to online jail records. He was being held on a bond of $6500.
Authorities released no additional details.
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WOODSON COUNTY — Authorities are investigating after three inmates escaped Thursday from the Woodson County jail in Yates Center, according to the Kansas Highway Patrol.
Two are back in custody but the search continues for one inmate identified as 29-year-old Jordan Alan Stout.
According to the Woodson County Sheriff’s department, Stout is described as 6-foot-2, has brown hair and hazel eyes and was wearing orange jail scrubs.
He was possibly driving a maroon 2001 Chevy S10 pickup with a dark greet tailgate and a Kansas license 303HYV, according to the sheriff’s department.
Stout was arrested by Yates Center Police on May 6, according to online jail records. He was being held on a bond of $6500.
Vox.com took a deeper look at the “chumbox” sponsored ads populating websites, including the ones often located around the comments section on Hays Post.
An interesting read can be found HERE if you’ve ever wondered!
Former Hays city commissioner Eber Phelps has been appointed to fill the unexpired term of commissioner James Meier.
By BECKY KISER Hays Post
Hays city commissioners on Thursday unanimously voted to appoint former City Commissioner Eber Phelps to the unexpired term of James Meier.
“I really believe that we should have the people vote for them, but we don’t have a choice now by state statute,” said Vice-Mayor Sean Musil who made the motion to appoint Phelps.
“I think Eber Phelps — that guy cares so much about this community. He’ll do a great job in the seven months remaining. That’s why, in my opinion, we should appoint him,” Commissioner Ron Mellick seconded Musil’s motion.
Meier’s seat is up for re-election in the Nov. 5 general election. He vacated the position May 3 and will be moving to Wichita. By state law, the city commission has 10 days to appoint the replacement.
“A lot of changes going on right now,” said Mayor Henry Schwaller, “and one of them is the city manager working solo. There’s no assistant city manager. So bringing someone up to speed (about city commission activities) would be rather challenging for all of us at this point.”
Phelps will be sworn into office at the May 16 work session.
Schwaller said several people contacted commissioners to express interest in the position.
We are giving away the Chicken Soup for the Soul book “Mom Knows Best.”
