LAWRENCE (AP) — Security has been increased at Lawrence City Hall after some city commission members received threatening emails.
Commissioner Bob Schumm says the emails arrived about three weeks ago from a resident upset with a proposed rental licensing and inspection program. He says the threats included going to commission members’ homes with a gun.
The Lawrence Journal-World reported two uniformed police officers now attend commission meetings, which used to have only one officer attending. It’s unclear if the changes are permanent but Mayor Mike Dever says he expects the changes to be temporary.
The commission is scheduled to take a key vote on the rental licensing and inspection program at its Feb. 4 meeting.
Police have contacted the person who sent the email. No charges have been filed.
TOPEKA (AP) — Progressive and labor union activists are promising sustained protests against Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and multiple policies pursued by him and other Republicans.
Nearly 200 people participated Thursday in a Statehouse rally staged by the Wichita-based group Kansas People’s Action. Speakers included labor, environmental and community activists.
They later converged on Brownback’s office, giving a staff member a poster-sized yellow card demanding a state government that, in their words, “works for all of us.”
Their causes include additional funding for public schools and an expansion of the state’s Medicaid program under the federal health overhaul. They were also critical of income tax cuts championed by Brownback.
Brownback spokeswoman Eileen Hawley said a government that creates jobs and allows Kansans to keep more of their money works for everyone.
ROELAND PARK (AP) — Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback took a field trip to a suburban school district as he kicked off a campaign to build support for his plan to increase state funding of all-day kindergarten.
The Republican governor dined Thursday with students at Roesland Elementary School in the Shawnee Mission school district before chatting with teachers, students and parents.
Currently, district parents pay $300 per month for the all-day program. The half-day program is free.
Brownback wants to increase state funding for all-day kindergarten starting in the next budget year, providing an extra $16 million each year over five years for the state’s 286 school districts. The governor says Kansas can afford to spend the money and should to improve early learning.
Critics are wary that Kansas can sustain the investment financially.
WICHITA (AP) — Sedgwick County commissioners have agreed to let administrators award thousands of dollars in bonuses to key staff members at a juvenile facility for young offenders.
The future of the Judge Riddel Boys Ranch near Lake Afton has been up in the air for years because of a funding crunch. An exodus of employees last year quickened after Sedgwick County Manager William Buchanan said in December he would recommend closing the facility if the state doesn’t provide more money.
The Wichita Eagle reported county commissioners on Wednesday approved a policy that provides up to $190,000 in bonuses to critical employees at the ranch, along with some information technology workers.
The ranch serves about 40 boys considered at medium to high risk of committing additional crimes.
MANHATTAN (AP) — Volunteers are planning to resume searching this weekend for a Kansas State employee who hasn’t been seen since Sunday.
Jane Peterson
KMAN reported the search for 56-year-old Jane Peterson will begin at 10:15 a.m. Saturday at the Tuttle Cove on Tuttle Creek Lake, north of Manhattan.
Peterson, of St. George, was reported missing Sunday by her family. Her pickup truck was found Monday evening near the Tuttle Cove area.
Dozens of soldiers from Fort Riley and law enforcement officers conducted an unsuccessful search Tuesday for Peterson, who works in the physics department at Kansas State.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell presented the 2013 Partners in Conservation awards at a ceremony in Washington on Jan. 16. The secretary honored 20 partnership projects that have demonstrated exemplary natural resource conservation efforts through public-private cooperation.
Four partnerships nominated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, including Great Plains Nature Center in Wichita, received awards.
Great Plains Nature Center is a wild oasis in an urban setting. Each year, the center provides outdoor recreation and educational opportunities to hundreds of thousands of visitors. The facility is a one-of-a-kind partnership that began in 1988.
TOPEKA — AARP Kansas officials and volunteers spent much of Wednesday morning reminding legislators of the organization’s support for expanding the state’s Medicaid program.
AARP Kansas officials and volunteers are pictured Wednesday at the Statehouse. Photo by Dave Ranney, KHI
“We are pro-Medicaid expansion,” said Andrea Bozarth, director of community outreach for AARP Kansas. “Twenty percent of the people would be affected by Medicaid expansion are between the ages of 50 and 64. That’s who we represent.”
Kansas is one of 23 states that have chosen not to expand their Medicaid programs to include adults whose incomes are below 138 percent of the federal poverty line.
Currently, low-income children, pregnant women and the elderly are eligible for Medicaid. Childless adults are not.
Expanding Medicaid, Bozarth said, would benefit seniors who are not yet eligible for Medicare.
“A lot of times, these are people who’ve either been laid off through no fault of their own or who’ve had to take time off work to care for a relative or a partner who has a chronic illness and they’re trying to get back in the workforce,” Bozarth said. “They find themselves without any medical coverage at all.”
Bozarth was one of about a dozen AARP members who delivered packets of fresh-baked cookies to legislators’ offices. Attached to the packets were cards that outlined the group’s legislative priorities for this year:
• Expanding Medicaid;
• Aligning the state’s durable-power-of- attorney laws with those in other states;
• Preventing employers from basing hiring decisions on applicants’ credit scores; and
• Requiring nursing homes to provide more hands-on care.
“Kansas has one of the lowest rates of required hours of nursing care in the country,” Bozarth said. “We’re at two hours a day now – average. We’d like to get that raised to 4.2 hours a day because research shows there would be positive outcomes for the residents.”
The credit-score issue, Bozarth said, is driven by concerns that when people in their 50s and 60s give up their jobs to care for an elderly parent, their credit scores often suffer, making it difficult for them to return to the workforce.
AARP, she said, supports streamlining durable-power-of-attorney laws in ways that would promote uniformity among states.
“The way it is now, you can be in Kansas and be durable power of attorney for someone in another state and not know what the law is because they’re different,” Bozarth said.
Ten states, she said, have begun coordinating their durable-power-of-attorney laws.
“We’d like Kansas to be part of that, too,” she said,
The AARP members left cookies in each of the 165 legislators’ offices.
“There was a lot of interest in the issues,” said Mary Tritsch, AARP Kansas’ director of communications. “We were well-received. We had a lot of people tell us they’re AARP members.”
AARP Kansas has nearly 335,000 members, all of whom are at least 50 years old.
Rep. Julie Menghini, a Pittsburg Democrat, met with Borzarth’s group for several minutes.
“For me and for the people in my district, Medicaid expansion is a huge issue,” she said. “It’s an issue that I hope will be able to work its way up to the front of whatever we’re able to accomplish this session. But I have to say I’m surprised by how little support there is for it.”
Gov. Sam Brownback and the Legislature’s Republican leaders have said they are worried that federal funding for the expansion would significantly decline or disappear over time, leaving the state to bear the full cost.
WICHITA (AP) — The city of Wichita has denied a claim of more than $400,000 from the insurer of an apartment complex that was damaged during a long standoff last summer.
Auto-Owners Insurance Co., is seeking $411,411 for damages to the Southlake Village complex and lost rental profits. Several apartments were damaged during a 32-hour standoff with 34-year-old Jared Woosypiti. The standoff ended when police shot and killed Woosypiti.
The Wichita Eagle reported the city is asserting immunity from the damages under a state law that specifies which government acts carry liability. So far, the city has paid 10 claims from the standoff totaling $60,533.
Meanwhile, the apartments damaged during the standoff are scheduled to reopen in 10 to 14 days.
Sperm donor William Marotta has been ordered to pay child support.
TOPEKA (AP) —A Kansas judge has ruled that a man who donated sperm to a lesbian couple after responding to their online ad is the father of a child born to the women and must pay child support.
Shawnee County District Court Judge Mary Mattivi wrote Wednesday that because a licensed physician was not involved in the artificial insemination process, William Marotta is more than a sperm donor and thus responsible for the child.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports the Kansas Department for Children and Families filed the case in October 2012 seeking to have the Topeka man declared the father of a girl born to Jennifer Schreiner in 2009.
Marotta argued that he didn’t intend to be the child’s father and signed a contract waiving his parental rights.
TOPEKA (AP) — Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach says reviewing the state’s birth records will allow election officials to remove 7,700 people from the list of voters whose registrations are on hold for failing to meet a proof-of-citizenship requirement.
Kobach told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he expects registrations for the new voters to be validated by local election officials within a week. He disclosed the development before formally announcing it during a Kansas House Elections Committee meeting.
About 20,200 voters had their registrations on hold as of Tuesday for failing to provide a birth certificate, passport or other proof of their U.S. citizenship to election officials as required by law.
Kobach said the state found birth certificates for 7,716 of them, or 38 percent, after beginning checks this month.
TOPEKA (AP) — Kansas Chief Justice Lawton Nuss is thanking legislators for passage of a pay increase for certain non-judicial employees, hoping that the deal leads to resolution of other funding needs.
Nuss says Wednesday during his annual State of the Judiciary address that a measure passed earlier in the day by the House would provide some salary increase for certain employees. But he cautions that the measure doesn’t address a projected $8.25 million shortfall in the judicial branch budget in the next fiscal year.
Nuss reiterated that without an additional appropriation, some court employees could be sent home without pay, forcing the court offices to close statewide.
Employee costs account for 96 percent of the judicial budget, including judges and clerical staff. The courts were closed temporarily in 2010 and 2012.
TOPEKA – The Kansas No-Call Act should be expanded to cover consumers’ cellular telephone numbers, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said in a news release Wednesday.
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt
Schmidt announced at a news conference he is proposing a bill to update the Kansas No-Call Act to allow his office to enforce violations against telemarketers who target consumer’s cellphone numbers registered on the federal Do-Not-Call list.
Sen. Pat Apple, R-Louisburg, chairman of the Senate Utilities Committee, and representatives of Kansas AARP, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon joined Schmidt and announced their support for the bill.
“Kansans who register their personal phone numbers on the Do-Not-Call list have an expectation of privacy, whether that number is tied to a landline or wireless phone,” Schmidt said. “The Kansas No-Call Act needs to be updated to reflect the reality that many Kansans use wireless phones as their primary – and often only – phone number.”
While the federal Do-Not-Call database allows consumers to register any phone number, the Kansas law is unclear whether the Attorney General can pursue violations of the Act when a call is made to a cell phone number registered on the list. Schmidt’s proposal would clarify that the law does apply to mobile phone numbers and update other parts of the statute to mirror federal Do-Not-Call regulations.
Kansans who wish to register a phone number on the Do-Not-Call list may do so by visiting www.InYourCornerKansas.org and clicking on the “Register for the Do-Not-Call List” button.
