LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office wants the county to commit to reducing the number of jail inmates who are seriously mentally ill.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports the sheriff’s office will the county commissioners to commit to the reduction during a meeting Wednesday.
Mike Brouwer, re-entry director for the sheriff’s office, says the request is part of a national initiative and coincides with recent developments on a potential county jail expansion and a mental health crisis intervention center project.
In September the sheriff’s office was also awarded nearly $200,000 to hire two case managers to assess potential inmates each month and divert an estimated 25 to treatment alternatives.
Milken Educator Award recipient Bill Smithyman is too stunned to smile as he stands in front of the packed gym at Blue Valley Northwest High School, where students, faculty and guests stand cheering. Kansas Commissioner of Education Dr. Randy Watson looks on with a smile. photo Milken Educator Awards
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A suburban Kansas City high school teacher has won a prestigious teaching award that comes with a $25,000 prize.
Language arts teacher Bill Smithyman has been named a recipient of the Milken Educator Award for Kansas. The Kansas State Department of Education said in a news release that Smithyman was told about the award this week in a surprise ceremony at Blue Valley Northwest High School.
Smithyman is one of about 40 educators around the country being recognized with the distinction.
Smithyman has been teaching for 15 years in the Blue Valley district. Deputy superintendent of education services Sue Dole says students and parents know that Smithyman is “fully invested in student success and they trust him.”
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas is among relatively few states in which legislators don’t provide live video or audio of at least some of their meetings to the public.
Two Republican legislators have been pushing the idea in recent years.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that lawmakers have cited the potential cost of starting video or audio streaming as a reason that the Legislature hasn’t started streaming meetings. The cheapest proposal would have cost $111,000 over two years.
But in legislative hearings, the idea has drawn no formal opposition, and supporters argue that it would make the Republican-dominated Legislature more transparent.
Republican Rep. Stephanie Clayton of Overland Park and GOP Sen. Kay Wolf of Prairie Village together have introduced five proposals during the past two years for live streaming of legislative meetings.
SHAWNEE, Kan. (AP) — A suburban Kansas City teen faces federal charges in an Overland Park bank robbery.
The U.S. attorney’s office says 19-year-old Mamoudou M. Kaba, of Shawnee, was indicted Wednesday on one count of bank robbery and one count of brandishing a firearm during a robbery. No attorney is listed for him in online court records.
Prosecutors allege that Kaba used a Ruger 9 mm handgun in September when he robbed a U.S. Bank branch. He faces up to 25 years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000 if he is convicted of the bank robbery charge.
SALINA -The Salina Bicentennial Center held an open house Tuesday to unveil the recent renovations the facility has undergone.
On hand for the open house were many local public officials as well as Bicentennial Center staff and representatives of the construction companies behind the renovations.
More than 100 people attented the event and toured the facility. A new piece of art work called “Revival,” desgined by Matthew Dehaemers of Shawnee, Kansas, was
Arena with new railing and the new Kurt Budke Court.
also lit as part of the festivities.
The renovations, which started in December of 2014, were completed earlier this month at a cost of $13 million. The upgrades brought the facility up to ADA regulation.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Health officials have concerns about a proposal under consideration by the Sedgwick County Commission to ask about the immigration status of people seeking immunizations and disease screenings at the county health department clinics. They fear such a move would jeopardize the health of the entire community.
Supporters say they want to collect data to see if immigrants who are living in the country illegally are getting taxpayer-funded services and contend no one would be denied immunizations. But opponents contend the practice would scare people away from seeking services from a public health program whose purpose is to prevent the spread of diseases.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment says it does not want to deter people from getting services needed to protect the public health of Kansas.
Pastor Francisco Lara (left) delivers a impassioned speech at an anti-violence rally in Kansas City, Kansas while his daughter, Raquel, translates his Spanish to English. CREDIT ALEX SMITH / HEARTLAND HEALTH MONITOR
Near a greasy spoon restaurant in the Quindaro neighborhood of Kansas City, Kansas, two young men were killed in a drive-by shooting on a sunny afternoon earlier this year. Two more killings after what had already been a violent stretch of months.
Pastor Sheldrick Walker was in his church a few miles away when he got the news from fellow pastor Adrion Roberson.
“I was up here praying and Pastor Roberson called me,” Walker says. “And we began to talk to each other, and our hearts were broken, because – man – you get tired of this, man.”
There have been 25 homicides in Kansas City, Kansas, so far this year and Walker says many residents have become almost numb to the violence.
Walker and several other church leaders have been working together in recent months to address violent crime and especially the one factor they say has led to crime going unchecked: the reluctance of community members to cooperate with police because they’re intimidated by pressure to “stop snitchin’.”
While homicides occur in Kansas City, Kansas with tragic frequency, the shooting on August 18 particularly troubled Walker and Roberson.
“This is a young boy that didn’t get the opportunity to get married, to go to school, to work a job, to be whatever God predestined him to be,” Walker says, recalling the homicide and phone call from Roberson. “So he called me, and we cried and we said, ‘Brother, we got to do something. We got to change this.’”
A few days later, Walker, Roberson and a handful of other church leaders led dozens of marchers down the street where the shooting took place. They wore white and carried signs reading “Stop Killing Each Other.”
The organizers spoke passionately about the need for neighbors to take responsibility for their community and the importance of providing the police with any useful information they had.
‘Stop Snitchin’’
As long as there’s been crime, there’s been intimidation by offenders to keep witnesses from talking to police. But the ‘stop snitching’ mantra really took off in Philadelphia in the mid-2000s.
Since then it has become almost a brand, appearing on T-shirts and in rap songs. Walker says in neighborhoods like Quindaro, this mind-your-own-business mentality has become a norm contributing to the spread of crime.
“Your silence is consent,” Walker says. “If you don’t say anything, you’re saying ‘I agree. I agree that’s it’s cool that you murder folks’ kids. I agree that you sell drugs and destroy your community.’”
And in Kansas City, Kansas, a lot of criminals don’t face justice.
Last year, KCK police only made an arrest or identified a suspect in about half of all murders or manslaughters, according to the FBI. For violent crime in KCK overall, it’s about a third of cases. That’s not as bad as the highest-crime cities in the U.S., but it’s worse than the national average.
The Quindaro neighborhood to which the marchers took their message has a long history as a mostly African American neighborhood. But it’s far from the only one struggling with violent crime and ‘stop snitching’.
Strained relationships
Pastor Francisco Lara leads the largely Hispanic church Iglesia Vida Abundante south of Quindaro. He says he was moved to work with the Walker and Roberson’s group on the problem of violence after one of his congregants was struck by a stray bullet.
“There a saying around here that there is force in unity and we want the united churches to bring a great impact to the community,” Lara says.
Lara’s church consists mostly of Latinos who have lived in the area for years, if not generations. But his daughter Raquel, who leads youth programs in KCK, says that for some Latinos – who may be undocumented or have undocumented friends or family members – complicated relationships with the police makes cooperation difficult.
“The idea of who a police officer is and what that represents – it’s more of a fear of being taken away from your family and being deported back to your country,” she says.
Relationships with law enforcement in many communities have been especially strained in the past year in the aftermath of high-profile police shootings like the ones in Ferguson, Missouri, Baltimore, Cleveland and other cities. And Roberson says many people already had a mistrust of police owing to racial profiling and the high rates of black incarceration.
But for many of his neighbors, these concerns are now taking a back seat to restoring safety.
“There’s getting to the point they don’t play. Because we’ve got seniors that’s been there thirty years. And when Ms. Block can’t sit on her porch, that’s a problem,” Roberson says. “We’ve got all these kids down there, when they can’t play – no, you’re going to get up outta here. And as much as we hate to see another man of color get locked up, that’s a decision you made.”
At the August rally, one of the speakers shouts through a megaphone, “Snitch to get rich!” In other words, inform on criminals to get reward money.
It’s a message that many criminal offenders probably aren’t happy to hear, and the marchers say they may be risking their own safety by going public with it. But Walker says it’s a risk that needs to be taken.
“The stuff that we’re seeing on the streets – that’s bold. You think you’re going to make a change being passive and fearful?” Walker says. “There’s a sense of urgency in the air that something needs to be changed, and it starts with the church. We can’t change the world, but each one reach one.”
Alex Smith is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to receive the 2015 Dole Leadership Prize at the University of Kansas.
The Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics said Wednesday that Bill Clinton will receive the prize at the university on Nov. 23.
Dole, a former senator from Kansas, said in a statement that he speaks with Bill Clinton “now and then,” and that he and the former president have become friends. Clinton served as president from 1993 to 2001.
Previous winners of the The Dole Leadership Prize, which is awarded each year, include Nelson Mandela, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former President George H.W. Bush.
SALINA, Kan. (AP) — Health officials say Saline County is dealing with an outbreak of syphilis.
The Salina Journal reports that through June of this year Saline County did not have any reported cases of syphilis. But Jason Tiller, coordinator for the Saline County Health Department, says that in the past 75 days more than 11 cases have been reported in the county.
Tiller told Saline County commissioners Tuesday that officials think more cases of syphilis are going undiagnosed, and the department is trying to raise awareness.
Tiller says syphilis is a bacterial infection spread through sexual contact, and is easily treatable with antibiotics during the first year after infection. It can be treated later, but it’s more difficult to treat.
The Obama administration is hoping new regulations will reduce the amount of debt college students accrue and make it easier for them to repay their loans once they graduate.
A pair of rules the Department of Education finalized on Tuesday restrict the way bank cards can be used to distribute financial aid and expand eligibility for a program that ties loan payments to the borrower’s income.
The first regulation takes aim at the debit and prepaid cards more schools are using to distribute aid.
The Government Accountability Office has said the convenience the cards offer has been offset in some cases by excessive user fees.
The second rule will allow anyone meeting certain low-income requirements to have their loan payments capped at 10 percent of their annual discretionary earnings, an option previously available only to recent students.
TOPEKA – Governor Sam Brownback today issued a statement following the release of National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores for K-12 schools across the nation. Results show test scores across the nation, including in Kansas, are lower than in 2013. NAEP assessments are conducted every two years using a random sample of 4th and 8th grade students in each state.
“Today’s NAEP scores reflect the need for real education reform to benefit our students. This is a complex issue with no single cause or solution and today’s results confirm a trend showing that even though education funding has increased by more than $1 billion over the past decade, NAEP scores have remained largely flat.
“During my campaign, I called for a renewed emphasis on improving student performance in science, engineering, technology and math (STEM) disciplines. Today’s results underscore the importance of those efforts. We will continue to work toward educational reform that includes the innovative programs, collaborations and strategic investments that best serve our Kansas students.
“While our Kansas schools remain above the national average, we can and should do more. We want our students to excel and have the skills they need to succeed in school and life in the 21st century. To do that, we must work to get more dollars into the classroom and into the infrastructure our teachers need to improve student performance, particularly in math. We need flexibility at the local level to address students’ needs, and we should support the great efforts of the thousands of teachers who work every day to help give our students opportunity for a brighter future.”
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas officials won’t learn for weeks whether a six-week tax amnesty program raised the $30 million that legislators anticipated.
Department of Revenue spokeswoman Jeannine Koranda said Tuesday that the agency is still processing paper amnesty applications. She said the department is not likely to have a figure for collections from the amnesty program until mid-November.
A law enacted by legislators earlier this year allowed the department to waive interest and other penalties for anyone who paid back taxes from Sept. 1 through Oct. 15.
The amnesty program was part of a larger package of measures for balancing the state budget that included increases in sales and cigarette taxes in July. Some legislators thought the $30 million projection for the amnesty program included in the budget was too optimistic.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office wants the county to commit to reducing the number of jail inmates who are seriously mentally ill.
