The Wichita Eagle reports the group was struggling to gain even half of the $137,000 it was seeking on fundraising website Kickstarter until Thursday. It ended up surpassing its target by more than $3,000, earning some extra cash for restoring the B-29 Superfortress known as “Doc.”
The group that owns the plane, Doc’s Friends, plans to have the aircraft operating before the end of the year, making it the world’s second airworthy B-29.
Doc’s Friends Chairman Jeff Turner says he hopes donations will continue coming in even though the group hit its goal.
More than 750 people committed to donating money to the restoration project. The 30-day campaign will conclude on Oct. 29.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Topeka man has been charged in the fatal shooting of another man earlier this month.
Shawnee County District Court records show that 26-year-old Daris Laron Holliday is charged with second-degree murder in the Oct. 10 death of 43-year-old Keith Leon Reed.
Twenty-eight-year-old Andrea Nichole Godfrey, of Topeka, Godfrey was charged with felony counts of obstruction of apprehension of Holliday and interference with a law enforcement officer.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that Holliday and Godfrey were arrested Oct. 11 after a foot chase. The charges against them were filed last week but didn’t appear online until Thursday. Both remain jailed in Shawnee County.
Holliday’s attorney, Mark Bennett, said through a staff member that he has no comment. Godfrey’s attorney didn’t immediately return phone calls from The Associated Press.
Washington, DC – U.S. Senators Pat Roberts (R-KS) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced bipartisan legislation to help farmers purchase new equipment and replace worn-out machinery by amending the U.S. tax code to permanently set a five-year depreciation schedule for certain agricultural equipment.
The current tax code sets a seven-year depreciation cost recovery period for agricultural equipment. Changing the depreciation schedule for agricultural equipment to five years would make the tax code more consistent and support rural development by aligning the length of time that farmers can take a depreciation deduction with the average useful life of that property.
“This commonsense legislation will give farmers and ranchers the certainty they need to invest in new, more modern equipment so they can create more jobs and growth in our communities,” said Roberts, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. “A five year depreciation schedule allows for predictability and fairness in our overly complex tax code, giving the agriculture community the ability to produce more efficiently and at a lower cost.”
“Agriculture is cyclical in nature with producers making large investments in their crops, livestock, buildings, and equipment,” Klobuchar said. “We need to ensure our tax code is fair for farmers so that they can purchase the modern equipment that will allow them to produce more while spending less. This commonsense legislation will put money back in the pockets of our farmers and ranchers and enable them to grow our agricultural economy and strengthen our rural communities.”
Under the tax code, taxpayers are allowed a depreciation deduction to allow them to recover the costs of investing in certain property, like farm machinery and farm-use motor vehicles. The recovery period for the deduction should match the useful life and financing of that property. According to surveys from the USDA’s Farm Service Agency, on average farmers and ranchers finance farm equipment and machinery for five years.
This bill is supported by the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Farmers Union.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is declining to bring charges against Lois Lerner, the former IRS official at the center of a political controversy over the processing of applications for tax-exempt status.
Federal prosecutors announced their decision Friday in a letter to members of Congress.
A firestorm erupted more than two years ago with an inspector general’s audit that said IRS agents had improperly singled out tea party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status during the 2010 and 2012 elections.
The disclosure set off investigations by the Justice Department and multiple congressional committees.
The House voted to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress last year after she refused to answer questions at two House Oversight hearings. She has since retired.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — The U.S. Marshals Service says a Kansas City, Kansas, man who fled the U.S. two years ago was arrested when he flew back to the country from Africa.
Marshals say Wilson Tyler was arrested Thursday at John F. Kennedy airport in New York. He fled in 2013 after being charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and stealing $150. He was tracked to Sierra Leone.
The Kansas City Star reports Tyler was convicted as a teenager of second-degree murder in the 1980 killing of a Kansas City, Kansas, service station clerk. He was convicted of sodomizing another inmate while being held for the murder.
Because of Ebola in Sierra Leone, Tyler will be held in a special unit in New York until he is cleared to return to Kansas.
Photo by Andy Marso Mark Rude, executive director of the Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District No. 3, said Kansas water law generally is sound, but if the courts and the water office don’t interpret it the same way, it’s not effective. He spoke Thursday to a special legislative committee.
Kansas is making slow progress toward fulfilling Gov. Sam Brownback’s vision of a 50-year plan to preserve the state’s water supply.
But in the meantime, disputes over water among western Kansas residents are growing. Legislators now are talking about the need to not just conserve water but also reform the judicial process for deciding water rights.
Rep. Don Hineman is a Republican from Dighton whose western Kansas district sits atop the key Ogallala aquifer.
He told a special agriculture committee Thursday that the state needs to prepare for additional water rights cases because ongoing conservation efforts probably won’t be enough to prevent more wells from running dry.
“We know that the Ogallala is being depleted,” Hineman said.
“The state is taking steps to mitigate that and extend the life of the Ogallala to the extent we can, but we know that for at least the foreseeable future the resource will continue to decline. As it does, there will inevitably be increasing disputes among water rights holders.”
A trickle of disputes
Some of those disputes are in progress. Kansans who think someone with lesser water rights has impaired their water supply have two options: They can seek an administrative remedy through the state’s Division of Water Resources or they can file suit in district court. Lane Letourneau, director of the Division of Water Resources, told the 2015 Special Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources that his office is handling “two or three” disputes right now.
In addition, he said, one water impairment claim was filed in district court earlier this year and a second remains in litigation. The case still in litigation, Garetson Brothers LLC v. American Warrior Inc., spurred Hineman to introduce House Bill 2245.
It would provide more guidelines about which water disputes can go to court and what the court should consider in those cases.
Mark Rude, executive director of Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District No. 3, said the Garetson Brothers case also raised concerns for him. The court used a broad definition of “impairment,” he said, that differed from what the state’s water office generally uses.
Rude said Kansas water law generally is sound, but if the courts and the water office don’t interpret it the same way, it’s not effective. “We have a house of cards,”
Rude said. Sen. Marci Francisco, a Democrat from Lawrence who is on the special agriculture committee, said some language in HB 2245 concerned her.
It seemed to give regional groundwater management districts some authority over the state’s chief engineer, she said. Francisco also said she would like the committee to hear from Burke Griggs, the water resource division’s legal counsel, before making recommendations on the bill.
She praised a presentation Griggs gave at the annual Kansas Water Conference in August, when he suggested Kansas might want to establish a special water court to redistribute the limited water rights, similar to a bankruptcy court divvying up assets among creditors.
Sen. Garrett Love, a Republican from Montezuma and member of the committee, said any changes to water law are likely to be controversial. But he said there’s support for creating a “good, solid framework” for dispute resolution. Right now the water office and courts have the resources to absorb the handful of disputes coming their way, Love said, but if the number increases as expected that could change. “
At that point it would be a lot more difficult in terms of the costs to the court system going up, and to the water office as well,” Love said. “That would be a future thing.”
The governor’s plan
Susan Metzger, assistant secretary of the Kansas Department of Agriculture and former policy chief of the water office, briefed the committee on progress toward the governor’s 50-year plan. Metzger said a sub-Cabinet group of water experts has been meeting monthly since May to discuss how to coordinate the governor’s plan, which includes several local and regional goals. –
However, a blue ribbon task force focused on how to fund the vision has yet to form, and that delay has frustrated some lawmakers. “That one’s been a little slower to come together, but we are making progress,” Metzger said.
She said task force members should be announced before the governor’s water conference Nov. 18 in Manhattan, and they will start meeting during the legislative session that begins in January.
Local agreements popular
Metzger said legislation passed last session is helping make the governor’s vision a reality. One of the most effective changes, she said, was an expansion of a program that allows small local groups to enter into voluntary agreements. A 2012 bill allowed groundwater management districts to enter their members into such agreements, called local enhanced management areas, or LEMAs.
The Agriculture Department had high hopes for the program, but so far only one district has signed up. A bill approved last session expanded the program to allow informal groups of neighbors to petition the Agriculture Department for the right to form their own conservation area.
Metzger said that has proved more popular. The department is in “real serious discussions” with about 10 to 15 petitioners, she said, ranging in size from a single family with five water rights to a group of western Kansas landowners whose conservation agreement would cover half a county.
“We’re really excited about this possibility,” she said. Metzger said the department also is still working on a plan to increase fines for landowners who overpump their water rights. Stakeholders have been calling for that change for years. “We heard consistently that our current penalty matrix was not harsh enough to deter overpumping,” Metzger said. “
We’re seeking feedback on what the should be the penalty matrix that would actually deter the behavior.” She provided no timeline for presenting a draft of new overpumping regulations.
The Agriculture Department also would like to increase the fine for failing to submit an annual water use report. The fine is currently $250, and Metzger said a small number of Kansans routinely fail to file their reports.
Andy Marso is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.
OSAGE CITY, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Bureau of Investigation is investigating the death of a Topeka man who collapsed after sheriff’s deputies used stun guns on him during a domestic dispute.
The Osage County Sheriff’s Office says Kenneth Schick died during the confrontation early Tuesday at a home in the county.
Deputies who went to the home encountered a domestic dispute that included a hostage situation. The sheriff’s news release said deputies used stun guns and a disabling spray to gain control of Schick.
He was taken to a Topeka hospital, where he died. The cause of death hasn’t been released.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports the Osage County Sheriff’s Office declined further comment until the KBI completes its investigation.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will be on the ballot for the Kansas GOP caucus in March.
The real estate magnate has paid the $15,000 filing fee to be on the party’s caucus March 5. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are already on the ballot.
Trump has led the GOP presidential race in most national polls for several weeks.
His closest challenger is Ben Carson, who was visiting Topeka and Overland Park on Friday. Carson has not yet filed for the caucus.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Authorities are investigating after a bank inside the Wichita State University student center was robbed.
A crime alert that the university sent to students, faculty and staff says a man walked into the Commerce Bank in the Rhatigan Student Center around 3 p.m. Thursday. The alert says bank staff members were threatened and that an undetermined amount of money was taken.
The Wichita Eagle reports that a Sedgwick County emergency dispatcher says the man “tossed them a note” over the counter.
The WSU alert said no one saw any weapons. No one was injured.
Authorities are asking anyone with information to come forward.
FINNEY COUNTY – A Southwest Kansas man was injured in an accident just before 7:30a.m. on Friday in Finney County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 1996 Kenworth semi driven by Zachary R. Humphreys, 31, Abilene, was eastbound on Kansas 156 seventeen miles north of Cimarron.
The semi crossed the centerline at a bridge and hit a westbound 2009 Chevy pickup driven by Wayne S Herron, 53, Jetmore.
Herron was transported to St. Catherine’s Medical Center.
Humphreys and a passenger in the Chevy Samuel A. Herron, 28, were not injured.
They were all properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A French-based airplane parts manufacturer has broken ground on a new addition as it prepares to move its North American headquarters to Wichita.
Gov. Sam Brownback joined Figeac-Aero officials Friday for the groundbreaking on a 70,000- square-foot expansion and a new structure at its northeast Wichita manufacturing plant. It plans to hire 200 more workers in the next five years.
The estimated project cost is more than $20 million. It is expected to be completed by 2016.
In Wichita, the company manufactures parts for Airbus, Bombardier, Triumph, Gulfstream, Embraer and Spirit AeroSystems.
The Wichita Eagle reports the city and Sedgwick County have each approved $250,000 loans to the company. The city also approved a five-year property tax abatement and industrial revenue bonds to abate sales taxes for the project.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) issued the following statement following President Obama’s veto of the fiscal year 2016 defense authorization bill:
“The president’s veto of our nation’s defense authorization bill is a reckless political maneuver that leaves our nation at risk. Our greatest constitutional responsibility is protecting our nation, and we must make certain our men and women in uniform are trained, ready and able to defend our nation from the ever-changing threats we face – especially in the rapidly deteriorating Middle East. By rejecting the bipartisan work of Congress, the president is putting the safety of those who serve our country at risk.”
The bill passed with broad support from senators who recognized the importance of putting the defense of the country ahead of engaging in a show of partisan politics. Funding for the military in fiscal year 2016 will remain in question pending a congressional override of the president’s veto.
WICHITA- A Kansas teen was injured in an accident just before 6p.m. on Friday in Sedgwick County.
