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Tweet It wasn’t all just taxes and budgets at the Kansas Legislature this year. Other issues affected us in northeast Johnson County as well. In a final look at what happened in Topeka, we round up odds and ends from our legislators. For Rep. Barbara Bollier, one of the positive notes of the session was [...]
Tweet The summer construction season continues in downtown Mission where work started this week on Johnson Drive in preparation for the 2014 rebuild. All of the work along Johnson Drive from now to the end of the year will be by utility companies getting ready for the main event next year when the street is [...]
Tweet It’s not just Florida that has the giant sink holes that can swallow a semi in one gulp. Well, maybe it wasn’t giant and didn’t entirely take down the entire semi, but a sink hole that appeared in a Mission parking lot Saturday night is big and it did have the tractor end of [...]
Tweet It’s Monday, but that doesn’t mean you have to water the grass today. And that has nothing to do with the weekend rain or the forecast. WaterOne can prove that we like to water on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. They would like to see that spread out a little bit. WaterOne’s suggestion is to [...]
Tweet A Prairie Village police officer on routine patrol Monday morning saved the day when he noticed smoke coming from a Mission Hills home. Officer Josh Fahlgren said he could see and smell the smoke as he drove by the house in the 5800 block of Mission Drive shortly before 8 a.m. today. In less [...]
Tweet Kansas Governor Sam Brownback came to Overland Park Thursday to sign a tax bill that continues the march toward lowering income taxes in the state, but which also keeps sales taxes higher. It also starts to remove some itemized deductions and lowers certain standard deductions. That tax bill had no support from northeast Johnson [...]
Tweet We like our libraries in northeast Johnson County and the Cedar Roe branch is an important part of the community. That message came through in comments and questions from the crowd Thursday at a town hall meeting on library plans. How to approach the future of the library system – and some of its [...]
Tweet The Mission ArtWalk kicks off its third year tonight at the corner of Johnson Drive and Dearborn starting at 5 p.m. and running until 9 p.m. Booths will be set up running south on Dearborn and organizers say 20 regional artists will be setting up to display and sell their art at tonight’s event. [...]
Tweet The Mission pool replacement project is well on its way to approval and a bond sale. The city council’s finance and administration committee agreed to a maximum build cost of slightly more than $4.6 million this week and a bond sale is scheduled to provide the funding. The design/build team has held several public [...]
Tweet The Kansas Legislature managed to pass a budget and tax plan this year, but did them both with no support from northeast Johnson County legislators. Both of the final plans drew “no” votes from Sen. Kay Wolf and State Reps. Barbara Bollier, Melissa Rooker, Stephanie Clayton and Emily Perry. It could be branded the [...]
Tweet Roeland Park is facing some revenue shortfalls in its 2014 budget and it asked residents to help decide how they want to face the problem: by cutting services, raising revenues or both. Between 30 and 40 Roeland Park residents answered the city’s invitation to sit down and think through solutions to confront the financial [...]
Tweet Remember those coyote pups that were born in a Mission backyard under a patio slab? Well, how quickly the young ones grow up and move on these days. The pups have left the den and it looks like mom and dad may have moved with them. The neighbors say they have not seen the [...]
Tweet Cedar Roe Library is back in operation this morning after being closed more than a week from flooding that damaged an electrical panel. The library branch at 5120 Cedar St. in Roeland Park serves northeast Johnson County. Any holds that library users had on materials will be extended another week and library staff said [...]
Tweet Roeland Park residents can participate in a town hall meeting about the city’s budget this Tuesday and learn about more opportunities to weigh in on different budget topics as it is developed this summer. The forum will start at 6:30 p.m. at the Roeland Park Community Center, 4850 Rosewood Drive. The city describes the [...]
Tweet The Mission Gateway project has missed its earlier predictions for the start of construction by June 1, but the developer says he is still hopeful that work will get under way in the next few weeks. Developer Tom Valenti said the project still needs to sign a junior anchor, which will clear the way [...]
Tweet Shawnee Mission School District is offering free lunches for children ages 1 to 18 at several of the district’s schools this summer. The free hot lunches are provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and are prepared and served by the Shawnee Mission food services department. Roesland Elementary in Roeland Park is one of [...]
Tweet The future of the Cedar Roe Library in Roeland Park will be the topic of a town hall meeting next week at Sylvester Powell Community Center in Mission. The meeting will start at 7 p.m. next Thursday, June 13. The purpose is to discuss the impending capital plans by the Johnson County Library system [...]
Tweet Sometimes what doesn’t happen is as important as what does happen. For K-12 education, that may summarize this year’s Kansas legislative session. Dr. Stuart Little, who lobbies in Topeka for the Shawnee Mission School District, called the session “a holding pattern” for most of the education issues. “Nothing earth-shaking passed,” Little said, and “most [...]
Tweet Shawnee Mission’s new school superintendent Jim Hinson will hold a public “Meet and Greet” in July under the clock tower in downtown Overland Park. Hinson, now superintendent in Independence, was hired earlier this year to replace retiring Shawnee Mission superintendent Gene Johnson. He starts the job July 1. Besides the clock tower event, Hinson [...]
Tweet Stay away from 63rd Street and Mission Road Thursday and Friday. The intersection will be closed both days to allow WaterOne to complete its construction project on 63rd Street. Fairway police issued a warning saying the intersection will be completely impassable during this part of the construction. Traffic has been disrupted periodically along 63rd [...]
Tweet Roeland Park’s City Council ethics investigation — or non investigation, perhaps — became something of a mystery this week after a 90-minute executive session on ethics that produced no statement from the council. At the May 20 council meeting, losing mayoral candidate Linda Mau charged that Councilor Megan England was behind an anonymous campaign flier [...]
Tweet It is budget season everywhere right now with cities facing an August deadline to submit their 2014 budgets. In Fairway, residents can provide input to the budget process in small group meetings organized by wards. On Tuesday, June 18, residents in wards three and four will meet at 6:30 p.m. at city hall. On [...]
Tweet The JO’s new transit center between Johnson Drive and Martway opened this morning along with enhanced transit service along the Metcalf/Shawnee Mission Parkway corridor. The transit center, towards the east end of Johnson Drive, replaces the center adjacent to the county government building on Lamar. New buses also went into service this morning with [...]
Tweet The Martway construction project has moved into its second phase. The intersection of Martway and Woodson, which has been closed for several weeks for a new bridge, is reopened to north and south traffic. Traffic can also move east on Martway, but the street is closed for traffic westbound from Woodson. The construction project [...]
Tweet Money dominated the last of the MainStream Coalition’s legislative series Thursday: how are we going to pay for state government, what gets cut and how much tax are we going to pay. It has been a constant theme in the discussions this year. With the Legislature still in session and still grappling with tax [...]
