The annual Knights of Columbus fish fry wrapped up at the end of last month. The event was held in Kennedy Auditorium at St. Mary’s Catholic School and drew large crowds on each Friday.
Below are some photos from this years event.
The rain didn’t dampen the spirits of over 100 people who attended the grand opening ceremony for the James B. Tedesco Skatepark. City Manager Dave Martin, Mayor Jim Adams and Nate Lyons from the Fort Scott Skate Park Committee spoke.
Mr. Martin said that last year the city had some money left in the parks budget and asked the commissioners if they could use that toward the skate park. The commissioners agreed and around Christmas, Mr. Adams called to say that someone was willing to donate $25,000 to the project to help get it built.
The donor was Steve Tedesco who owns Running Fox Petroleum which has a number of wells in the Fort Scott area. The Skatepark is named after his late brother James.
Mr. Martin encouraged the city’s youth to take care of the facilities.
After the ribbon cutting, Evan Dohtery did a skateboarding demonstration. Evan is a very talented skater from the Kansas City area. You can see some videos of him skating in other places here.
A box of helmets was donated by the Tony Hawk Foundation and they were being handed out to youngsters who didn’t have any head protection.
There are over 100 pictures from the event shown below. If you click on one of the thumbnails you can view the full image. Clicking on the full size image will take you to the next image in the slide show.
According to Jamie Armstrong (President of YPL), the annual Soupline raised over $3,000 for the Beacon. The Young Professional’s League helped coordinate the event that involved volunteers from YPL, local churches and the community.
Below are some photos from this years event.
The Skate Park will be dedicated on April 7th at 1:00 pm. Please make plans to join the community for this event.
Fort Scott Christian Heights is holding a Family Fun Night and Open House on Friday, March 30th from 5 to 7 pm. (We originally said the open house would be on March 20th. The correct date is the 30th as shown now.)
The public is welcome and there will be activities for the kids as well as an opportunities for parents to find out more about the educational opportunities offered at Christian Heights.
Below are some photographs of school activities from this last year.
Some readers have asked if KSA 19-548 would make the County Treasurer liable for fines for leaving names and addresses off the newspaper publications.
Should any county treasurer neglect or refuse to make and publish the statement provided for in this act, he shall be liable to a fine of twenty-five dollars ($25) for each and every day he shall refuse or neglect to make such publication, to be recovered by an action at law against said treasurer, said action to be brought in the name of the board of county commissioners of the proper county. (KSA 19-548)
The language of this statute appears to refer to the neglect or refusal to make the publication at all. Other statutes appear to address situations where properties were left off of the publication.
Since delinquent properties were published in the paper–even though they were incomplete–this statute probably doesn’t apply.
The only way it could apply would be look at KSA 19-547:
In addition to the duties required by K.S.A. 79-2101, and amendments thereto, each county treasurer, within 10 days after October 1 of each year, shall cause a statement to be published with respect to unpaid or partially unpaid delinquent personal property tax returns made by the sheriff as of October 1. Such statement shall be published once each week for three consecutive weeks in the official county newspaper or in a newspaper of general circulation in the county in accordance with the provisions of K.S.A. 64-101, and amendments thereto. The statement shall show the name of each delinquent or partially delinquent taxpayer, listed alphabetically, appearing on such returns, followed by the taxpayer’s last known address and by the total amount of unpaid taxes, penalties and costs. The cost of such publication shall be paid from the general fund of such county, and $15 shall be added to the tax due as part of the costs of collection, to be collected in the same manner as provided by law for the collection of the delinquent tax. (KSA 19-547)
One might be able to argue that if the publication wasn’t made according to KSA 19-547, it doesn’t count. However, that would probably be a bit of a stretch. Other statute talk about how the even leaving a property off of the publication doesn’t invalidate it.
According to the eMissourian, Paul House of Harvest Ministries and his wife were both sentenced to three years probation and ordered to pay over $80,000 in restitution for Social Security fraud.
The sentence means the House’s avoided the expected jail term.
Harvest Ministries owns the old Western buildings down town where the planned to put in a television studio and medical testing facility.
You can read more details in our previous story about Harvest Ministries and the building.
The buildings have enough unpaid taxes that they should be listed on the upcoming tax sale. However, since they were not published in the past, they will have to wait to be sold until they have been published for three years.
The pool is coming along. Here are some photos of the progress. The foreman said that the rain last week hadn’t helped them, but things were still coming along as planned. Don’t forget you can buy a historic brick and have it engraved with your name to be used as part of the walk way. The form can be downloaded from this link.
Each year the community raises money for the Beacon by putting on a soup line. This year it will be held on Thursday March 29th from 11am until 7pm at the Scottish right temple. Please make an effort to be there to help support this important organization. You can join the event page on Facebook and then share it with your friends to help spread the word. It may not seem like a big deal, but if everyone took a few minutes to invite a handful of their friends, it could make a very big difference for the Beacon this year.
The event is being coordinated by the Young Professional’s League and tickets can be purchased from members, from Country Cupboard or at the door.
Below are some photographs of last years event taken by Kenny Felt.
There is a scholarship available from the Kansas County Clerk’s and Election Officials’ association. Details from the press release follow:
February 15, 2012
NEWS RELEASE: SCHOLARSHIP INFORMATION
The Kansas County Cler’s and Election Officials’ Association is taking scholarship applications from those students that are majoring in Journalism, Political Science or Communications. The scholarships are available to High School Seniors or College Freshmen or Sophomores.
The monies from these scholarships are made available by the effort put forth by local Election Officials and Supervising judges of the State of Kansas. Each is asked to call a toll free number and report to the Voter News Service, specified races in the General Election.
The Voters News Service collects and tabulates a single, accurate set of election returns for broadcast and publication throughout the nation and abroad for the Associated Press, CBS News, ABC News, NBC News and United Press International.
Due to joint efforts of the County Clerks, Secretary of State’s Office and the Voters News Service, the Scholarship Committee will be awarding 10 scholarships in the amount of $500.00 each.
Applications may be picked up at your school or at the County Clerk’s Office and all applications must be returned to your local county clerk or mailed to Inge Luntsford, 130 N. Spruce, Kingman, KS 67068, on or before April 3, 2012.
The scholarship winners will be announced at the County Clerk’s and Election Officials’ Association Seminar in May. The County Clerk from the recipient’s county will award them a their local school awards assembly.
Scott Musgrove and several other workers from Who Skates of Maine were busy finishing concrete on the new skate park on Friday. Mr. Musgrove said that the concrete work should be finished in the next week and said he expected the grand opening to take place in April.
The skate park will be called the James B. Tedesco Memorial Skate Park in memory of a relative of a large donor.
The BOCO Review is a new weekly newspaper that will start publishing next month. They have launched their website at www.thebocoreview.com. You can subscribe to the paper from their website. Local residents pay $38.50 for 52 issues of the paper with slightly higher rates for non-local subscriptions. Subscriptions to the online paper can be had for as little as $25 per year.