The annual Hays City Music Festival is scheduled for 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday. Students from throughout the region will take part in the daylong contest, including groups from Dodge City, Abilene, Beloit and Garden City.
Approximately 600 students are expected to take part, said Jalynn Nolte, vocal director at Hays Middle School.
“It’s a longstanding tradition,” she said, noting vocal, band and orchestra students will take part in everything from solos to large groups .
The festival has been a tradition since at least the 1970s.
11: a.m. UPDATE from Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office
On Thursday March 6th, 2014 the Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office was notified of the following incident; An 11 year old girl reported that she was walking in the city of St.Mary’s at approximately 3:30 p.m. March 6th. She had been walking in an alley when she saw a white van turn down the same alley she was walking in, driving towards her. She cut through a yard because the van was coming towards her. The girl who was now walking on Palmer Street watched the van emerge from the alley and come back on Palmer Street driving towards her again. She said the van stopped near her and the driver yelled “hey come here”.
She said she ran from the van and was able run to her home. The girl described the van as a white Chevrolet van with three windows on each side. She believed the rear windows were tinted dark. She said the van had dents and scratches on the passenger side door. She believed the van had a blue colored license plate that said Nebraska. The driver was described as a male in his late twenties with a short brown goatee. He was wearing black sunglasses and a black baseball cap with no logo on it.
The Sheriff’s Office would like an opportunity speak with the individual who was driving the van involved in this incident. This incident occurred in the vicinity of Palmer and Lasley Streets, and 3 and 4th street. If you have information about the van, driver, or if you believe you may have witnessed this please contact the Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office at 785-457-3353 or the St.Mary’s Police Department at 785-437-2311.
7:20 a.m. ST MARYS — The Pottawatomie Sheriff’s Department is investigating a report of an attempted abduction early Thursday morning.
Preliminary reports are that a man driving a white van with out-of-state plates attempted to lure a girl into his vehicle.
At Thursday’s work session, Hays city commissioners discussed adding a first responder/military memorial to Municipal Park, while also changing the name of the park itself.
An artist’s rendering of proposed memorial.
According to the proposal, the memorial would consist of two aluminum plaques that would be engraved on each side, a lit American flag, a park identification plaque, and provisions to place additional flags. Plaque would be dedicated to the U.S. Armed Forces and first responders such as police, EMS and firefighters.
The Wild West Festival committee approached the city to be among the sponsors, asking for a $5,000 contribution.
The proposal said plaques would include sponsorship engravings for the city and local business sponsors. The Wild West Committee also called for the renaming to Wild West Festival Park.
Hays Mayor Kent Steward noted that during his discussions with residents, most objected to the idea of renaming the park.
“My immediate reaction to the name change was very negative and, when I presented it to a number of people, I could barely get the words out of my mouth before they objected to it,” he said. “Municipal Park is very generic and Wild West Fest Park is too generic because the park is used for a variety of other things. How about Wild West Park? It still reflects on all of you and what you do, but it’s broader than that because Wild West is Hays. That’s our heritage.”
Another topic of the discussion was the sponsorship situation. Several commissioners objected to the idea of adding sponsorship spots to a memorial.
“It is inappropriate to have a sponsorship for a memorial that is so public,” said Commissioner Henry Schwaller IV. “Coca-Cola didn’t bring us Arlington National Cemetery and Mount Hood, and we don’t have a sponsor for Mount Allen. That part of it really digs under my skin. If they want to do it out of the goodness of their hearts and not have their logo engraved, than I’m OK with that.”
Mary Karst, co-president of the Wild west Festival committee, offered an alternate solution that didn’t place them directly on the monument.
“We came up with the idea of placing a granite slab somewhere in the sidewalk,” she said. “That way, it isn’t so attached to the memorial itself as it is to the park, and it would say something along the lines of ‘park improvements made possible by the generosity of these sponsors.’ ”
The commission and the committee agreed to wait one more work session cycle to discuss to the plan for a possible decision at its March 27 meeting.
At Thursday night’s work session, the Hays City Commission discussed the idea of implementing portions of the International Association of Plumbers and Mechanical Operators Green Plumbing and Mechanical Code.
The move is designed to curtail future water use in remodels and new construction.
The proposal would require all water using fixtures in new construction and remodels must be at least 20 percent more efficient than federal standards. It also places restrictions where there are no local rules or regulations on water uses, such as car washes and industrial cooling systems. The idea of using these regulations stems from the fact that six of the top 26 water using properties were built within the past 10 to 15 years.
The topic is expected to be addressed at the commission’s next regular meeting.
A Great Bend man is facing involuntary manslaughter charges stemming from an head-on accident that claimed the life of a Hays man in September.
The complaint against Cameron Wade Williams was filed Feb. 28 in Ellis County District Court.
According to Kansas Highway Patrol reports, Williams was driving eastbound in the westbound lane on Interstate 70 on Sept. 13 when his pickup struck a 2010 Kia Soul driven by Douglas R. Feldt, 37, Hays.
Feldt died at the scene, which was just east of the Commerce Parkway exit.
According to the complaint, Williams, 19, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter while driving under the influence of alcohol and possession of marijuana. He is held on a $75,000 bond.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s veto last week of SB 1062 — a controversial “religious freedom” bill few Americans read and even fewer understood — may well have been a defining moment in the history of gay rights in America.
Charles C. Haynes is director of the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute.
Post SB 1062, it will be politically difficult, if not impossible, to pass laws that are perceived to allow discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation — even to protect religion, even in red states with Tea Party favored governors.
Brewer’s veto — urged by business leaders, both of the state’s Republican Senators, and even several legislators who voted for the bill in the first place — is symbolic of the new zeitgeist in America: Like it or not, it’s no longer economically, socially or politically feasible to be seen as a state hostile to lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender people.
This is huge.
It now appears that discrimination against LGBT people is fast approaching the same level of unacceptability as racial discrimination for a growing majority of Americans.
What SB 1062 supporters called “religious freedom,” opponents successfully reframed as “discrimination” — drawing heavily on the language and imagery of the struggle for racial equality.
Would Arizonians, for example, allow businesses to refuse service to inter-racial couples on religious grounds? If not, what is the rationale for treating discrimination against LGBT people differently in places of public accommodation?
A much-re-tweeted tweet from radio producer Chris Lavoie captured the winning message linking past civil rights struggles to the present battle: “Dear Arizona, In case you missed it, we’ve already had this conversation. You don’t get to decide who sits at the lunch counter. Love, America”
Game over.
What was lost in the din of charge and counter-charge was the actual content of SB 1062. Contrary to most media coverage, this was not a “turn-away-the-gays” bill that would have allowed business owners to refuse service to LGBT people. Instead, the law would have amended the existing Arizona Religious Freedom Restoration Act to cover religious freedom claims by business owners.
As nine legal scholars explained in a public letter to Gov. Brewer, nothing in the amendment would say who wins in cases when a business owner asserts a religious freedom claim:
“The person invoking RFRA would still have to prove that he had a sincere religious belief and that state or local government was imposing a substantial burden on his exercise of that religious belief. And the government, or the person on the other side of the lawsuit, could still show that compliance with the law was necessary to serve a compelling government interest.”
In other words, such “free exercise” claims would likely be rare (“substantial burden” is a high bar) and would often fail in the face of a compelling state interest.
If the media and public failed to grasp the nuances of the proposed law, proponents of SB 1062 have only themselves to blame. Recall that the law was proposed in the first place as a response to cases (in other states) where business owners providing wedding services turned away same-sex couples on religious grounds. But rhetoric from many of the bill’s supporters about the dangers of the “homosexual agenda” drowned out legitimate arguments about protecting religious conscience in limited circumstances.
Ironically, discrimination against LGBT people is already possible in much of Arizona since only a few cities in the state have anti-discrimination laws that include sexual orientation.
If Arizona legislators want to garner public support for expanding protections for religious conscience, they would be wise to start by passing legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Then they might gain the credibility and trust needed for a narrowly tailored law exempting religious small business owners from serving same-sex weddings when it violates their conscience.
That’s unlikely to happen now. The bitter SB 1062 debate has poisoned the well for any effort to seek common ground that could protect LGBT people from discrimination while accommodating religious convictions in limited circumstances.
In her veto message, Gov. Brewer said: “Religious liberty is a core American and Arizona value; so is non-discrimination.”
The sad lesson of the battle over SB 1062 is that in the current climate of name-calling and fear mongering, few people on either side are willing to work together to uphold both.
Charles C. Haynes is director of the Religious Freedom Center of the Washington-based Newseum Institute. [email protected]
An open house discussion for stakeholders, property owners and other community members was held Tuesday night at City Hall to discuss the upcoming renovation of 13th street from Main Street to Milner in Hays. John Braun, assistant director of public works, and Buck Driggs, project manager from the Driggs Design Group, explain the proposed project and answered questions about the project.
The 13th street corridor was considered as a priority improvement project in 2011 when the city conducted a pavement condition survey throughout the city of Hays.
“Out of all of the hundreds of miles of streets that we have in the city, it was ranked No. 6 as a priority to get improved,” Braun said. “The pavement is bad and then (compounded by) the amount of traffic and because it’s an arterial road, it was ranked high.”
Braun also mentioned it was one of the bike routes identified in the 2011 comprehensive plan.
Because of these factors, the city considered 13th Street as the “next big” street reconstruction project. The city allocated $1.5 million for the project and hired Driggs Design Group to come up with concepts and explore options for the corridor.
After various studies, Driggs Design Group offered its proposal at Tuesday’s open house, a plan that would repave the street and rebuild curbs and sidewalks, minus the brick intersection at Main Street. It also includes a 5-foot bike lane adjacent to the street. Another concept would extend the sidewalk to accompany the bike lane. Water lines and meters also would be included in the project, although those improvements would come from a separate fund.
“We have several other concepts that we’ve put together, and we’re still working through all the details. We’re really focused on getting the project to the $1.5 million number,” Driggs said. “We’re realizing through the analysis that we’ve done that $1.5 million is only really going to replace the pavement, so we’re pretty much focusing on options that do that.”
The city plans on looking at other options at its March 20 Hays City Commission meeting and hopes to begin construction in 2015.
Phillipsburg resident Todd Lenker passed away Tuesday, March 4, 2014, at his home in Phillipsburg at the age of 55.
He was born in Spaulding, Neb., on August 19, 1958, the son of Alvin & Ruth (McCain) Lenker. Todd was the Environmental Safety Supervisor at the Phillipsburg refinery.
Survivors include his wife, Joyce, of the home; stepsons, Kane Christy of Phillipsburg and Keath Christy of Glade; 2 grandchildren; brothers, Bruce and Craig Lenker, both of Phillipsburg, Brad Lenker of Ottawa, KS and Mark Lenker of Grand Prairie, TX; sister, Deb Perkins of Broken Arrow, OK; and mother-in-law, Dorothy Detwiler of Kensington, KS.
Funeral services will be Friday, March 7, at 10:30 a.m. in the Olliff-Boeve Memorial Chapel, Phillipsburg, with Pastor Joel Hiesterman officiating. Burial will follow in the Fairview Cemetery, Phillipsburg.
Visitation will be Wednesday from 5-9 p.m. and Thursday from 9 a.m. – 9 p.m. at the chapel, with the family receiving friends Thursday evening from 7:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Memorial contributions may be given to the Phillips County E.M.S. Online condolences to: www.olliffboeve.com.
Olliff-Boeve Memorial Chapel, Phillipsburg, is in charge of arrangements.
Green plumbing is up for discussion at Thursday’s Hays City Commission work session.
According to Assistant City Manager Paul Briseno, city staff is recommending the adoption of new plumbing standards designed to conserve water, requiring all fixtures in new construction and remodels to be at least 20 percent more efficient than federal standards:
“In reviewing usage records, it was found that newer properties have much higher water usage than existing properties. Staff believes this is primarily driven by larger and more water-needy landscaping than the average property in town,” according to a memo to commissioners by city staff. “At the same time, there is no code to ensure that inside uses of water are as efficient as they can be.”
The city brought the proposed changes to three meetings of the Building and Trade Board for discussion, which offered revisions from a contractor standpoint.
In the midst of a water shortage, the staff said “this is one of the most important, cheapest and easiest changes the city can make for long-term water security for the city of Hays.”
The city recently declared a Stage 2 water warning, which will tighten restrictions on outside watering and block new connections to the potable water system for irrigation purposes.
Most of the water-conserving measures are considered “cost-neutral” for builders, although improvements for irrigations systems — including sensors, controller and spray head requirements — would cost approximately $500 more per system.
City commissioners will discuss the regulation changes for placement on a future regular session agenda.
As statewide efforts continue this week to encourage teen seat belt compliance, Sgt. Mitch Berens of the Hays Police Department wants teens to know if they are caught driving without a seat belt, they can expect a citation — not a warning.
“Kids are a precious resource, so we are trying to get (teens) more motivated to buckle up,” Berens said. “We hate to lose kids to fatality accidents.”
Berens said teen seat belt usage across the state is increasing, but statistically, “We still have 19 percent of kids who are not buckling up.”
In 2012, 43 teens ages 13 to 19 lost their lives in vehicle accidents and, in 74 percent of those fatalities, the occupants were not properly restrained. Berens said 2013 state statistics are not yet available.
Additionally, according to the campaign’s sponsor the Kansas Traffic Safety Resource Office, “Rural counties tend to produce a lower belt use rate than urban counties.”
A fact Berens agrees with: “It is typical for rural communities to have a lower seat-belt compliance rate than in metropolitan areas.”
“You know (rural teens) aren’t going a long distance,” he said, “and may not think a seat belt is important for that short of a trip — so they may decide to not to put it on.”
Peer pressure also is a factor.
“They are young and have that invincible feeling about them, so sometimes they just need that extra motivation and extra enforcement to get them buckled up, ” said Berens.
Some of that “extra motivation” comes in the size of fines.
According to Berens, if a 14- to 17-year-old is caught without a seatbelt, the fine is $60 compared to the $10 fine for an adult.
The teen seat belt enforcement campaign runs through Friday.
Berens said teens and parents can expect to see more law enforcement presence at high schools during the morning when school starts and when school ends in the afternoon.
While this week’s special enforcement focuses on teen compliance, adults who are not wearing a seat belt also will be ticketed, he added.
The Hays Police Department conducted 35 traffic stops on Friday, 23 on Saturday and seven on Sunday, according to the HPD activity log. The HPD also received seven animal calls in the three days.
