All posts by Mark Shead

Circles Meeting

Over 30 people attended a meeting at Papa Don’s on Wednesday, for Circles USA–a program that is designed to help people get out of poverty by providing them with social support. The Circles program is being used by more than 75 communities. People join the program as “Circle Leaders” to learn how to better manage their resources to get out of poverty. These Circle Leaders come to weekly classes over an 18 month period where they receive training and a meal. The classes include training in managing personal finances as well as special sessions taught by members of the community. For example, a banker might come in and explain how to go about opening and maintaining a bank account. After the 10th week, Circle Leaders are paired with two Allies to help them. The Allies are there to help provide, support, advice, and accountability that will help the Circle Leader follow their plan for getting out of poverty.

The project plans to post information about the program to their Facebook Page. People looking for more information can contact FortScottCircles@gmail.com. Below is a video that tells a bit about how the program is helping a single mother in another community.


https://www.youtube.com/embed/6vMKWFf8uhw

Presbyterian Church Sunday Serve

The First Presbyterian Church organized their 5th “Sunday Serve” this weekend.  Members of the congregation take a  few Sunday mornings each year to help serve others.  The church worked with the Good Neighbor Action Team, the city of Fort Scott, and the Chamber to identified some projects that would make a difference in the community.  After meeting for prayer at 7:45 they divided into teams and went to work. This Sunday’s projects included repairing a shed and playground near the church, doing yard work at the St. Andrew’s Chapel downtown, cleaning windows on Main street, painting some areas downtown, planting flowers, and putting curtains in some of the second stories of downtown buildings.

Pastor Jared Witt said he sees their efforts as a way for faith communities to “play their own small role in wider community development.”  He says that the volunteers have a lot of fun getting together to do these types of projects and it gives people an opportunity to take on leadership roles that might not be as active participating in traditional church activities.  The congregation has been enthusiastic about the projects and Witt says it is been inspiring to see how much can get done in a single Sunday morning with 100 people working together.

 

New Jail For Bourbon County Discussed

At 7pm on Thursday, there was a meeting about the need for a new jail in Bourbon County.

Sheriff Bill Martin gave some background on the jail. He said the jail was built in 1977. It was made to house 27 inmates, 4 of them females. Average of 35 housed in jail now. The jail is so small the they can’t segregate prisoners as needed, so they have to send them somewhere else. In 1977 the goal was to rehabilitate prisoners. Courts would do things like order them to get their GED if they had not high school diploma.

Bill Martin would like to put in a 110 bed facility in order to try to make money by having other counties house prisoners in Bourbon County. He says the jail is the biggest liability to the county due to attempted suicides.

Someone from the audience asked why there were successful suicides now when there had not been in the past. The Sheriff said it was because “the climate of the inmate had changed.” He said that in 1977 you’d never think of people committing suicide in the jail.

He said that half of the people who are in the jail are not guilty.

Sheriff Martin listed the following problems:

  • Showers are rusting
  • Plumbing is leaking
  • Bathrooms are small
  • Heating is inefficient
  • Cameras are in the right place
  • Some windows are cracked
  • It is possible for males and females to communicate through the walls
  • Intercom system is old
  • No sprinklers

Artie Lucas of Goldberg Group Architects said a study done by his company projects 90 inmates in 10 years. They passed out schematic diagrams of various jail designs.  He said their design that would house 110 inmates would only require 15 full time employees which is the same number of people who are running the current jail. A question was asked why it takes 15 people to staff the current 27 bed jail. Mr. Lucas didn’t know.

The Sheriff from Cherokee County (population 21,000) said that Bourbon County paid  them $130,000 to house prisoners. He said he wasn’t worried about losing income from Bourbon County because there would be other people needing them to house inmates.

There was concern that housing inmates would cause their families to move to town. The Sheriff from Cherokee County said this isn’t the case because the jail would just be a temporarily holding facility and Bourbon County would be able to reject anyone they didn’t want to house from another institution.

The current cost per meal at the jail is $3 per day. Other jails said their cost is closer to $1 per meal.

People asked a Commissioner from Cherokee County if the income from housing inmates covered the debt of building their new jail. He said it wasn’t, it is being paid for with a .5 cent sales tax.

The numbers in the handouts seemed to indicate that the jail could pay for itself by housing inmates from other counties. Former Sheriff Grey said he has never seen a jail pay for itself by housing out of county inmates. The Commissioner from Cherokee County agreed.

The loan amortization schedule in the proposed plans show yearly payments for $421,579 per year on a $6 million loan for a 110 bed facility.

 

Downtown Busy Thursday Night

June 6th at 8pm
June 6th at 8pm Downtown Fort Scott. Click for a larger image.

The South end of downtown had only a few parking spaces left Thursday evening. The Tumbling Tigers Gymnastics, Common Ground Coffee Shop and Crooner’s Lounge all helped  draw visitors at a time when the area is traditionally empty.

Good Old Days 2013

This weekend was the 32nd annual Good Old Days festival in downtown Fort Scott.

This composite photo shows one of the dogs jumping into the pool.
This composite photo shows one of the dogs jumping into the pool. Click for a larger version.

MO*KAN Dock Dogs were at the event with many animals competing to jump the farthest into a large swimming pool. There were also pony rides, a carnival, musical performances and more. Below are a number of pictures from some of the events on Saturday morning.

Legislative Update at Common Ground Coffee Shop

Saturday at 9 am there was a legislative update at the Common Ground Coffee shop on Main street. Legislature members who were present were, Bob Grant, Marty Read, Caryn Tyson, and Jake LaTurner.

a_leg-up Marty Read talked about working on bills that would protect the rights of gun votes and mentioned that he was disappointed with recent legislation that will allow sexually oriented businesses within 1000 feet of a school.

Bob Grant represents the second district which includes a small piece of Bourbon County. He is on the appropriation and transportation committees. He mentioned that he is disappointed with the way that KDOT and KTA were being combined in a way that seems to be designed to allow the state to take money from KTA through KDOT.

a_leg-update

Grant also mentioned that he doesn’t feel Kansas should model itself after Texas and Florida who have done away with their income tax.

Jake LaTurner said that he pledged not to raise taxes. He feels that the current legislative session is on of responsibility and of trying to fix problems that have been building up over the years. He also has been supporting drug testing for people receiving unemployment benefits. He has introduced a bill to reform Kansas Open Meetings Act to require people to take minutes of meetings and cap prices on requests.

Caryn Tyson said this has been an interesting session because the dynamics of both chambers are different because there are so many new members and it is hard to anticipate what is going to happen with new bills. She said lobbyists and special interests are trying to push through bills that wouldn’t have passed before.

She talked about the bill drug testing for welfare recipients. It will require testing if there is suspicion of drug use. She is fighting to keep from losing the mortgage tax deduction. She is also excited about a bill that will allow veterans to note this on their drivers licence.

Susan Brown from USD 234 asked about the bills that will effect education. In particular she asked about cuts to at risk funding. Caryn Tyson said that the current At Risk Funding is based on the free lunches in a district. She said they are concerned that the free lunch program isn’t being audited very well and may be keeping money from going to the schools that need it. That is why they are looking at changing the formulas  that determine this.

Jake LaTurner said he doesn’t support the bill in its current form because he wants more money for education in the districts he supports.  He went on to talk about how there have been many schools suing the state for not properly funding education. He talked about a recent case that said the funding was unconstitutional. He feels this is a legislative issue and the courts shouldn’t be legislating from the bench. He pointed out that if people don’t like the funding they should “fire” their representatives and elect someone else.

Bob Grant said that the legislature “in it’s wisdom” gave the courts some oversite to how much money is spent on education.

Marty Read talked about how there is a big difference between the way that money is getting distributed between wealthy and poor school districts. He said he would like to see the money going right into the classroom. He would like to see good teachers getting paid more money.

Mayor Adams said that he felt the bill that would require partisanship in local elections was a bad idea. Grant said he opposed the measure. Read said he wasn’t excited about it, but he did feel that moving the election to November would be better. Tyson said she would like to move it to the odd year November for local government.

Alan Warren asked to hear some updates about changes to the way taxes are being applied to fixtures. Tyson talked about a business in Montgomery county that had a $400,000 tax bill that suddenly jumped to $10 million dollars, sued the county and won. She said there is a bill to try to balance this to fix problems in two counties without messing up businesses in a bunch of other counties that aren’t having a problem. She said that the bill the passed in the house had some language that could hurt small counties. She said that the confusion has to do with whether property is real or trade and gave the example of whether a washer and dryer should be considered property or personal because it is attached to the building.

Bob Grant said this is kind of a hot issue but not really because it only impacts to counties at this point.  He said they need to balance in order to keep these businesses from moving without hurting all the other counties.

There was some discussion about a bill that would either people at colleges to carry guns or require schools to have metal detectors in order to make sure that no one has guns on campus. Bob Grant said he would like to see campuses have the flexibility to vote and make their own decisions regarding guns.

Caryn Tyson talked about how they feel like they are working on a lot of issues just to counter the federal government. She pointed out that the federal government wanted to prevent anyone under 16 from working on a farm and through the efforts of the state legislature the federal government backed off on what they were trying to do.