The Emporia Gazette

Extension merger: where is the benefit?

dml, thank you for a very well written letter.

As a direct user of some of the local and regional Extension office services, you explained issues that many people probably were not aware of or had not given thought to.

February 1, 2012 at 10:27 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Facts and opinions

Good article, Mr. Walker.

Rhonda Gordon's article could have used a lot more "shortening". I took her rant as being quite sassy and inappropriate for that section of the newspaper. It would have been the professional approach for her to have written a Letter to the Editor to express her personal views, and/or initiated private discussion with Mr. Walker about her concerns, and left the Home Cooking section to cover actual cooking.

Perhaps Ms. Gordon should consider getting out of the kitchen if she can't stand the heat. A lot of us taxpayers do not approve of unlimited taxing authority by the proposed Frontier merger. She better get used to hearing that. If she's still in the kitchen, it will be interesting to see if she'll throw another fuss in her future articles.

January 18, 2012 at 11:25 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Lyon County Commission votes on joining Frontier Extension District

Obviously Walters and Martin have NO understanding of the concept of representing their constituents. All three commissioners were told loud and clear to vote against this, many many times.

Now there will have to be all kinds of time spent with the hassle of drafting a petition correctly and getting signatures, and trying to get this on the ballot for vote, all because of these two idiots. Another petition at the same time to put both Walters and Martin up for recall vote would be equally as appropriate.

It simply is not enough to want to screw the taxpayer as before, is it, Walters and Martin? You just advocated UNLIMITED TAXING AUTHORITY!!! Do you even understand what that means, or care????

If this gets finalized, I'm betting we'll see some big huge new building(s) that will just have to be built ASAP, with a whole plethora of new additional staff, cars, equipment, etc. A new expanding empire will be established, and it will need hefty, annually increasing tax levies to support. No problem, just hose the taxpayer for whatever is needed. Why would any taxpayer trust the Frontier District to operate efficiently, closely scrutinize their spending, etc when all they have to do
is just raise the tax levy however much they want?

Shame on you, Lyon County Commissioner Teresa Walters!

Shame on you, Lyon County Commissioner Rollie Martin!

You will both be remembered for your irresponsible votes today.

January 5, 2012 at 9:17 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Poor Farm

Jan Huston, another very interesting article! Thank you for your interest in researching so many historical facts about this area and writing about them. I'm looking forward to reading your next article.

Emporia Gazette, please keep printing Jan Huston's articles.

December 30, 2011 at 2:37 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Mast addresses three of the top issues of 2012

The Legislature is going to have to take the bull by the horns regarding KPERS. It is totally unsustainable in its current form.

About 30 years ago guaranteed life time pensions in most private industry was being phased out and replaced with the 401(k). KPERS needs to be handled similarly for current workers and not even offered to new workers.

Research by the Legislature into how corporations rolled workers out of pension plans and into a 401(k) would give some good insight. Plain and simple, everyone has to take full responsibility in directing their retirement investments, and not believe it is the continual duty of the taxpayers to provide a perpetual guaranteed retirement, no matter what.

Existing KPERS recipients must continue to receive their pension as per the agreement when they retired. I would like to see some kind of provision made that if a retired KPERS recipient decided to re-enter the workforce full time at a workplace with either 401(k) or KPERS, their KPERS would be rolled out and set up in a 401(k) or IRA, thus helping some to reduce the number on KPERS.

There will be decades of KPERS funding to continue to make by tax money for existing retirees, but the window into KPERS should be closed ASAP. The end of KPERS would be started and with the number of beneficiaries declining, the tax liability could begin lowering and eventually KPERS would be gone. That will be years from now, but the process to end KPERS has to begin.

December 29, 2011 at noon ( permalink | suggest removal )

FEMA appeal for Fanestil relocation denied

http://www.emporiagazette.com/news/20...

from the July 8 article:

"About $1.2 million of the grant has already been spent and must be re-paid if the grant doesn’t go through. Walters expressed concern earlier in the conversation that taxpayers would have to shoulder the responsibility of paying that money back.

Dan Smoots spoke to the county commissioners.

“I want to assure the county that in no way shape or form does Fanestil Meats intend on the county to share in any burden as a result of this process,” he said. “ We fully intend to meet any responsibilities that Fanestil Meats has.

I have no intention of the taxpayers of Lyon county shouldering the responsibility. My bank has assured me that the money that we used to pay down the loan, which is in accordance with all FEMA guidelines, will be returned and I will assure the county that any other monies that will be returned.” "

Hopefully the above statements will still be valid and honored if the next appeal is denied. I'm tired of paying more and more taxes.

December 8, 2011 at 11:22 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

City discusses rental codes

The cause of the fire which killed these students is mentioned in each of the following articles. No mention was made of lack of smoke detector or faulty smoke detector at their residence.

http://www.esubulletin.com/tag/yawei-fan

http://cjonline.com/news/2011-10-24/e...

http://www.emporiagazette.com/news/20...

December 1, 2011 at 10:47 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Teen rethinking apology letter to Brownback

"The Shawnee Mission East senior was taking part in a Kansas Youth in Government program in Topeka when she sent out a tweet from the back of a crowd of students listening to Brownback’s greeting."

Her use of her phone during this program while the Governor was speaking is what I consider rude behavior, whether she was talking or texting. A school function such as this should prohibit the use of phones, and be enforced by all school sponsors present. Does the school allow texting during classes?

How well would this behavior reflect on the school if all students there were texting, as she was? Why would it be okay for her to do this just because she was in the back of the crowd?

This was not just a casual gathering at some informal tour. It was a program geared specifically for youth.

The rudeness level is, and has been, so rapidly increasing with the use of cell phones. I'm not against cell phones. I use mine a lot, but don't use it when listening to a speaker. I focus my attention to him/her.

Yeah, I do some things the old fashion way. But, do you like to speak to someone who is focused on using their phone instead of paying attention to you?

I hope her principal read her the riot act for being so rude to use her phone during the program. The issues of free speech, apology, etc are not the point of my post.

November 29, 2011 at 12:40 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Lyon County to host Symphony in the Flint Hills

I hope a lot of the surrounding smaller towns such as Americus, Council Grove, Admire, etc can also benefit some from this. There's plenty of time between now and then for them to advertise and make plans to draw in some tourists.

I think it would be cool if somehow the Flint Hills Nature Trail that goes through Allen, Admire, Bushong, Council Grove for biking/hiking/etc could be promoted. There might be a lot of people utilize it over the week and weekend, and maybe some stop and spend a few bucks in some of the towns it goes through. Lots of other possibilities too that I hope the smaller communities may think of.

November 18, 2011 at noon ( permalink | suggest removal )

Setting the record straight

From the info above for the 11 year period of '98 to '09 for Lyon County, the average of all jobs had an annual gain in wages of 2.04%, that's nothing to brag about compared to the overall economy of the time. For manufacturing it was 3.26%, nothing to brag about.

Annual job loss rate for manufacturing jobs was 6.67%, nothing to be too proud of. Only 46.77% of the manufacturing jobs were still in Lyon County in '09 compared to '98!! That really sucks.

Where do any of these numbers sound impressive and show that the RDA has been doing a good job for the local economy? Other towns in Kansas get new businesses to move in and expand.

November 9, 2011 at 8:10 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )