by Randy Picking ~ Salina Post

A 16-year-old Salina boy is in the Saline County Juvenile Detention Center on several charges including kidnapping, aggravated sodomy, indecent liberties with a child, sexual battery, and indecent solicitation.

Police say Bradley Lepping is alleged to have had sexual contact or made sexual solicitations to 6 teenage girls under the age of 16 from this past June to this month.

Allegations include on girl being forced into a restroom in Kenwood Park and forced to perform a sexual act. Other incidents including solicitation via texting.

Police became aware of the case after one of the girls who are all Salina Central students contacted the School Resource Officer.

Lepping was arrested Tuesday .

Representatives from the Ogallala Aquifer Advisory Committee met in Garden City to discuss proposed water policy legislation with local officials and residents.

The proposal includes amending the appropriation act of “use it or lose it” for groundwater rights in some areas. It also includes developing additional groundwater water banks for a market-based program to reallocate water use and provide conservation in water-short areas.

The Ogallala Aquifer, a vast underground resource for several states, has been declining for years.

The advisory committee’s chairman, Gary Harshberger, said at the meeting Tuesday that the proposal allows producers and communities to decide their own future while monitoring water conservation and working to improve the economy in southwest Kansas.

Gov. Sam Brownback released the proposed legislation Nov. 30.

Gov. Sam Brownback says he wants to give local school boards in Kansas greater flexibility in how they spend their dollars as well as unfettered power to raise property taxes.

The school finance plan outlined Wednesday would take effect in July 2013. It would junk a two-decades-old practice of linking some of districts’ spending authority to the number of students at risk of failing or the number who don’t speak English well.

Brownback’s promises that none of the state’s 283 school districts will see its overall state aid decline.

Brownback dropped a proposal his administration had outlined earlier to allow counties to increase their sales taxes to help support schools because of what one top aide says was a poor reception.

Kansas anglers say new rules designed to protect the state’s waterways from invasive Asian carp and zebra mussels will have a big impact on how they go after catfish.

Topeka fishing guide R.R. Shumway notes that Kansas is home to the current world-record flathead, a 123-pounder.

Shumway says rules restricting movement of live-caught bait from one body of water to another starting Jan. 1 will hurt those who use the bait to catch the giant flatheads.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports members of the Kansas Wildlife, Parks and Tourism Commission realize the rules have stirred up emotions. But they say something had to be done to protect state waters.

Asian carp and zebra mussels are not native to Kansas and multiple quickly. They’re also nearly impossible to eliminate once they’re established.

A 23-year-old woman found shot to death over the weekend in Kansas City, Kan., has been identified as Ebony Turner, a recent graduate of a nursing assistant program.

Now, friends tell KSHB-TV that Turner had been dating 22-year-old Claude Hudson when he was shot and killed four months earlier outside a nightclub in the city. Turner’s friend Tamika Pledger says the young woman had been struggling to cope with her boyfriend’s death.

Turner’s body was discovered Sunday in car that police say had been involved in an accident. Assistant Police Chief Terence Hall says investigators don’t believe Turner had been doing anything that might have caused someone to shoot her.

Hudson’s death on Aug. 11 remains unsolved. The killing of Turner was the year’s 25th homicide in Kansas City, Kan.

A former Holton High School teacher who had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl has lost his teaching license.

The Kansas State Board of Education on Tuesday revoked the license of 37-year-old Tad A. Hernandez, a former business instructor at Holton.

Hernandez pleaded no contest in August to charges of lewd and lascivious behavior and indecent solicitation of a child. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail and 66 months of probation. He had already agreed to surrender his license.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that during the September sentencing, the victim’s mother said Hernandez had exchanged more than 3,000 text messages with her daughter in a 30-day period.

Downtown Wichita gets its first charging station for electric vehicles this week.

Westar Energy, the biggest electricity provider in Kansas, says the station will be dedicated Thursday morning outside its general office on North Broadway. Westar says it’s providing the 240-volt charging station is a courtesy to drivers of electric vehicles.

The company installed its first electric vehicle station in October in its home city of Topeka and plans two more, in Emporia and Lawrence.

Westar says it has eight electric vehicles in its own fleet so far.

A California man has been sentenced to life for his part in a drug trafficking conspiracy in Kansas, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said today.

Samuel Barajas, 27, San Diego, Calif., was convicted in a jury trial in September on one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine, one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, and one count of using a cellular phone in furtherance of drug trafficking.

During trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Barajas was targeted as part of an investigation into a trafficking operation in San Diego, California, that was importing 30 to 40 pounds of methamphetamine and 20 kilograms of cocaine weekly into the United States.

Investigators intercepted cellular phone calls in February 2010 in which Barajas directed the delivery of methamphetamine to an address in Prairie Village, Kansas. Investigators seized $69,700 in cash from a hidden compartment in a vehicle and 1.35 kilograms of methamphetamine concealed under attic insulation in a house at 5007 W. 71st Street Terrace in Prairie Village.

A new study shows that two federal reservoirs in Kansas are losing significant amounts of water storage capacity to sediment.

The U.S. Geological Survey says Kanopolis and Tuttle Creek reservoirs are retaining at least 95% of the sediment that flows into them. Water storage at Kanopolis, located outside Salina, was down 34% as of 2010. Tuttle Creek storage has dropped 43%.

The study, conducted by USGS and the Kansas Water Office, looked at sediment data from 2008 to 2010 and found that much of the sediment came from the banks of upstream waterways.

Kanopolis and Tuttle Creek reservoirs were built more than 50 years ago for water storage, flood control and recreation.

The USGS says the study demonstrates that the man-made reservoirs are meant to last “mere decades.”

Hawker Beechcraft is selling off surplus assets from its Salina division, which the airplane maker is closing.

The Wichita-based company announced in 2009 that it would close the Salina operation. The company, 1 of the nation’s leading business jet manufacturers, said it was moving the jobs to Wichita, where Hawker Beechcraft is headquartered.

The company’s lease of 484,000 square feet in Salina expires February 2012. Employees at the Salina facility build wings and other parts.

The Salina Journal reports that the asset sale is planned for Dec. 20 and will include machine tools, pickup trucks.

A Barton County judge has set a February date to hear any pending motions in the case against a Great Bend man accused of killing a 14-year-old girl and burning her body.

Judge Hannelore Kitts is expected to hear arguments in the case of Adam Joseph Longoria beginning at 9 a.m. on Feb. 10 in Great Bend.

Longoria is charged with capital murder and other crimes in the death of Alicia DeBolt, whose charred body was found in August 2010 at the asphalt plant where Longoria worked.

Still to be decided is whether jurors will hear certain evidence and statements Longoria made to investigators. Kitts also must still decide on the admissibility of hearsay statements.

Longoria is scheduled for trial on March 26.

Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration will release the details of his plan for overhauling how Kansas finances its public schools this week.

The governor’s office says the details will be made public Wednesday, during a presentation by Policy Director Landon Fulmer to the State Board of Education.

The administration promises none of the state’s 283 school districts will see their aid from the state decrease during the next school year.

But Kansas Association of School Boards lobbyist Mark Tallman says officials remain skeptical because they haven’t seen enough details to know how the plan will affect their individual school districts.

Fulmer has already said the plan will eliminate state limits on local property taxes.