ELLSWORTH COUNTY — A Kansas man was injured in an accident just after 7p.m. Friday in Ellsworth County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2015 BMW Motorcycle driven by Jesse C. Goetz, 37, Ellsworth, was eastbound on Interstate 70 six miles east of Wilson in the right lane.

The motorcycle struck a 2015 Dodge Ram pickup pulling a trailer that was slowing with emergency hazards lights on.

Goetz was transported to the hospital in Salina. The driver of the pickup Vincente C. Conley, Cushing, OK., was not injured.
Goetz was wearing a helmet, according to the KHP.

LYON COUNTY -Law enforcement authorities are investigating two suspect for alleged prostitution.

On Wednesday, detectives with the Lyon County Sheriff’s Department and the Emporia Police Department Narcotics Unit conducted a sting for prostitution. Through the course of the investigation they identified 2 suspects, according to a  media release.

Officers arrested Timothy Worthen, 48, Emporia, for the selling of sexual relations.

On Thursday, police arrested John Potter, 33,  Allen, KS, was arrested for the selling of sexual relations, possession of methamphetamine, possession of marijuana, possession of

paraphernalia, child endangerment, and use of telecommunications in drug transaction.

SALINE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a suspect after an alleged altercation with a woman in her home.

According to Salina Police Capt. Paul Forrester Joshua Gene Capsey, 40, Salina, went to the woman’s residence on the 2000 block of Oxford to gather some personal items. The woman has had problems with Capsey in the past and attempted to prevent him from entering the home.

An argument ensued after Capsey made it into the home and began taking a shower.

During the course of the argument, Capsey allegedly pushed the woman into the kitchen stove, choked her and threatened to kill her. While this was occurring, she urged her 11-year-old daughter to call the authorities, according to Forrester.

Capsey allegedly took the woman’s cellphone and fled before police arrived. Authorities issued an attempt to locate for Capsey’s white Chevy Silverado.

Just after 7p.m., Abilene police arrested Capsey and he was booked into the Saline County Jail for aggravated domestic battery, aggravated intimidation of a witness and theft.

Bye Cole Reif

GREAT BEND-Not a single Great Bend City Council member that voted to suspend Great Bend Police Chief Cliff Couch showed up at Friday’s special meeting, causing the meeting to be cancelled for insufficient numbers to conduct business.

Council member Dana Dawson sent a letter to Mayor Mike Allison Thursday to conduct a special session to discuss the city’s job vacancies that was approved by Allison for Friday night.

When 5:30 p.m. rolled around, only four members were present, one short of the needed quorum to conduct the meeting at the Great Bend Events Center. Dawson expressed his disappointment in the council members that did not show up, especially Joel Jackson, who said earlier that he would be there.

The agenda included the election of a new council president, following council member Wayne Henneke’s resignation from the board Thursday. The special meeting was to also address vacancies in key administrative and executive positions and the possibility of a forensic audit on the City of Great Bend.

Along with Jackson; Vicki Berryman, Allene Owen, and Allison did not show up for the meeting. Dawson says he has not spoken to Owen or Berryman since problems with the Police Department publicly surfaced on June 5, 2017. As for Jackson, Dawson was frustrated that the council member failed to notify them of his absence. It was said that Jackson claimed he was with a work client and would not make the meeting.

Dawson, Mike Boys, Cory Zimmerman, and Brock McPherson were at Friday’s meeting, all of which voted to have Couch reinstated at the August 7 meeting. Jackson, Owen, and Berryman all voted to keep the suspension. The next regularly scheduled council meeting is Monday, August 21, but it remains to be seen if any discussion of these matters will be allowed to be brought up since they are not on Monday’s agenda.

Couch was suspended with pay July 24 following multiple executive sessions discussing Couch’s claims of misconduct and unethical procedures from City Administrator Howard Partington and Allison. Hundreds of citizens showed up again Friday night only to quickly realize the meeting would not happen because of the no-shows.

Couch did not know how the Wednesday resignation of Partington affects his case, but stated he and his attorney are just working to get him reinstated and back to work at the moment. Couch mentioned there is no date confirmed for his hearing and chance of rebuttal to his suspension, but tentatively September 5 is the date.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The family of a mother and daughter killed in a double murder-suicide near Lawrence is planning a celebration of life for the two.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports 36-year-old Erin Berg and her 3-year-old daughter Mazey Berg were found dead Sunday. Police say Mazey’s father, 41-year-old Peter Sander, fatally shot them and himself.

Berg’s family is planning a celebration of life for the mother and daughter Saturday in Lawrence. Their obituary says their deaths are the result of “a senseless act of domestic violence.”

Berg’s mother, Kim Thomason, says her daughter and Sander never married but shared custody of Mazey. Thomason says Sander had been mentally and emotionally abusive but that he had never physically abused Mazey or her mother beforehand.

She says Berg was empathetic and genuine.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Two U.S. senators from Kansas and Missouri say an emphasis on protecting the nation’s food supply has waned since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and it’s time to make the issue a priority again.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri, and Sen Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, met Friday with government, education and private officials involved in ensuring the nation is prepared to protect food, agriculture and livestock from terrorism and infectious diseases.

Glad to join @AgBizKC @McCaskillOffice & @DHSgov for a bipartisan roundtable on #agroterrorism & our efforts to keep our food supply safe. pic.twitter.com/4seoLLYCff

— Pat Roberts (@SenPatRoberts) August 18, 2017

McCaskill and Roberts stressed that the nation’s food supply is still the safest in the world and they were not reacting to any imminent threat. But Roberts, who leads the Senate Agriculture Committee, says the nation and media’s focus often shifts to other problems and it’s important to “ramp up” agriculture protection efforts again.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say one person has died in an industrial accident at a building demolition site in north Wichita.

The incident happened around 1:40 p.m. Friday when debris fell on the worker. Firefighters responding to the call say the dead worker was trapped under the debris. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Further details were not immediately available.

SEDGWICK COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating an attempted robbery and fatal shooting and are asking the public for help to identify possible suspects.

Early Sunday morning July 16, an unknown intruder entered the home of Arthur Goebel and his wife at the Lamplighter Mobil Home Park in the 2300 block of E. MacArthur in Wichita, according to police detective Wendy Hummel.

Goebel apparently heard the intruder and briefly confronted him. The intruder shot Goebel twice and immediately fled the home. Goebel died of his injuries shortly after arriving at a local hospital.

According to Hummel, the intruder is described as a medium sized man in height and weight.
Goebel was a veteran of the Vietnam War a devoted father and grandfather and a valued member of his community and church.

Anyone with information on the case is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 267-2111.

By CELIA LLOPIS-JEPSEN

Residents of the Flint Hills this week took a fight against an oil company to Kansas energy regulators as part of their broader battle to stem wastewater disposal in the area.

They fear that a request from Quail Oil and Gas to jettison up to 5,000 barrels a day of brine near Strong City and the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve brings a risk for earthquakes or contamination of local groundwater — claims that the company disputes.

An hours-long hearing in Topeka saw the two sides pit their lawyers and geologists against each other in hopes of winning over the three members of the Kansas Corporation Commission.

The commissioners will likely issue their decision within a couple months.

Fossil fuel companies churn up saltwater in the course of oil and gas production and dispose of it in wells by pouring or pumping it downward with pressure.

The vast majority of saltwater disposal wells are not linked to earthquakes, but Oklahoma and south-central Kansas have suffered temblors for years that stem from the high volume of saltwater injection in that area, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Since 2009, that area has seen thousands of earthquakes strong enough for people to feel, and some have caused damage.

Part of the controversy over Quail Oil’s request in Morris County is whether the central Kansas Flint Hills are susceptible to quakes, too. Flint Hills residents who oppose Quail Oil’s application fear companies could turn increasingly to their region, opting to dig wells there since the KCC has placed caps on daily injection rates in counties farther south and west in an effort to curb the temblors.

Researchers say it’s impossible to know for certain whether a given well could cause quakes but that a wide range of factors — such as disposal volumes, pressurization and proximity to faults in the earth — come into play. Higher disposal volumes appear more closely linked to earthquakes.

Quail Oil argued Wednesday that the daily disposal volume it seeks is significantly lower than the injection rates allowed in the quake-prone south-central Kansas counties where the KCC has imposed restrictions. Additionally, the company argued that Morris County doesn’t have a history of seismic activity.

“In the area that we are, there’s been no earthquakes, and there’s been injection for a very long period of time,” Quail Oil manager Wray Valentine testified.

Valentine’s company has finished building the 2,700-foot-deep well where it plans to inject wastewater, but it needs permission from the commissioners to begin its dumping.

An unexpected moment came late in Wednesday’s hearing when KCC staff, who previously had recommended that commissioners approve the application, walked back from that position, calling instead for lower disposal volumes and pressurization than Quail Oil requested.

The new recommendation would halve the permissible pressure to 250 pounds per square inch and cut daily wastewater dumping to 2,000 barrels.

Bob Eye, an attorney representing the Flint Hills residents who oppose the project, asked the commissioners to reject the application or consider barring the company from using any pressure in wastewater disposal.

Relying on testimony from Emporia State geology professor emeritus James Aber, Eye warned that the area around Quail Oil’s newly built disposal well is “riddled with faults.”

Quail Oil’s attorney, Robert Vincze, put on the stand geologist Lee Shobe, an industry consultant who helped the company prepare its original application. Shobe testified that the geological characteristics in the Morris County area are well-suited for safe saltwater injection.

Most of the saltwater disposal wells in Morris County and its surrounding counties are not pressurized, according to data from the KCC. There are about 120 saltwater disposal wells in that region.

Cindy Hoedel, a resident of Matfield Green in neighboring Chase County, was among the Flint Hills residents asking the commissioners to reject Quail Oil’s request.

Hoedel recalled feeling her bed shaking and lifting from the floor during an Oklahoma quake that struck early one morning in September 2016 and shook the earth hundreds of miles away.

“My husband and I both moved toward the center of the bed,” she said. “It was really frightening.”

Hoedel said she worries about much stronger effects if saltwater injection operations eventually begin triggering epicenters closer to her home.

Celia Llopis-Jepsen is a reporter for the Kansas News Service, a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio and KMUW covering health, education and politics. You can reach her on Twitter @Celia_LJ.

SALINE COUINTY—  Law enforcement authorities are investigating a suspect on alleged child sex charges.

On August 16, a Salina woman told police of an alleged inappropriate sexual relationship between a 20-year-old and her 12-year-old son, according to Police Captain Paul Forrester.

The suspect sent photos on Facebook to entice the boy, according to Forrester. Their encounter allegedly occurred at the suspect’s apartment in the 2300 Block of Chapel Ridge in Salina.

An investigating led police to 18-year-old Lenora Dyke. Police arrested her Thursday. She is jailed on requested charges of electronic solicitation, promoting obscenity to a minor and rape.

RENO COUNTY — Siemens announced Friday layoffs of 140 employees at its assembly plant 1000 Commerce Street, Hutchinson.

In a media release, the company reported business volume in Hutchinson through the 2018 fiscal year does not support the existing workforce level.

“While we remain strongly committed to the long-term viability of the U.S. wind market, a difficult decision has been made to adjust the workforce by about 140 employees, to be carried out in the fall.

“As a reflection of the importance of Hutchinson to our business strategy moving forward, we announced our intention to pursue a capital investment at the plant that involves retooling an existing production line.”

Workers at Siemens’ 300,000-square-foot plant in Hutchinson assemble nacelles, which sit atop the wind tower, supporting the rotor and housing components for electric power generation, including the gearbox, the drive train and the control electronics. The plant opened in 2010.

OSAWATOMIE, Kan. (AP) — The head of the agency that oversees a troubled state mental hospital is making the case for a new facility.

The Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services announced in a news release Thursday that Secretary Tim Keck will make presentations in coming weeks in Wichita, Independence, Topeka and Kansas City.

The announcement came after the agency rolled out a proposal Tuesday from Correct Care Recovery Solutions to build a new hospital at the current location of Osawatomie State Hospital and take over operations. Legislative approval would be required.

Federal officials decertified the hospital in 2015 after a series of inspections uncovered problems. The decertification has cost the hospital about $1 million monthly in federal funding, although a recent successful inspection has moved the facility closer to regaining certification.