The Chamber Coffee on December 1st was held at Ruddicks at 117 S. National. Ruddicks was started in 1934. The current owner is Terry Davenport. He has been at Ruddicks for 40 years–first as an employee and now as owner.
In addition to furniture, Ruddicks also offers sound equipment and floor materials and installation. Mr. Davenport said that they can order nearly anything and encouraged people to ask if they need something that they don’t have in stock.
Community Christian Church will be holding an open house from 10 to 1 on Monday December 5th with soup being served from 11 to 1.
Everything Pets had a ribbon cutting Saturday morning at 9:30. The store is owned by Dawn Bryant and is located at 605 S. National. They have large selection of pets and supplies with everything from snakes to flying squirrels to puppies.
Please stop by and welcome this new business to Fort Scott.
Mr. Meara came through with a cart with all the tax foreclosure cases. He was taking them up to file in court. He wanted to show he commissioners what 193 foreclosure cases looked like.
Jennifer Miller-Connet works for Fort Scott broadcasting and lives in Vernon County. She says she was headed into Bourbon County at 4 am to open Radio Shack up for Black Friday. She hit potholes that caused $803 worth of damage near the state line. She feels like as a tax payer the road should have been taking care off. She said there was no way to drive around the holes.
Chairman Endicott asked how many miles were on her car. She said 125,000 miles and that the car is a low riding Mazda Protege. She felt that there should be some type of compensation from the county. The commissioners said that she should file an insurance claim and the insurance company would make a determination.
The commissioners decided to buy 50 culverts from Judy’s Iron and Metal. The rock crusher came in Monday. They are looking at getting a couple Ricoh G700 SE GPS cameras to give to the road crews to take photos of things that can be placed on the GPS maps. The cost of the two cameras will come to $2,901. The county has sold some data to a mapping company so the funds are available for the purchase.
They are also planning on buying a label gun to put labels on signs so if one is found in the ditch, the county will know where it came from.
The date for the lawsuit related to the sewer district has been bumped back. The County Attorney pointed out that this is an existing case–not a new lawsuit. They date has been bumped back as further discovery is done and it is expected that it won’t actually go to court until next year.
Mr. Meara came back at 10:30. Defendants of foreclosure lawsuits that live in KS will be notified by the sheriff. Defendants out of state will be notified by certified letter. Everything has been filed that Mr. Meara was given that was possible to file. He is going to give the commissioners a list of the properties that have not yet been published and that he was unable to file. Those will need to be published. There may be some from 2008 and 2009 that need to be published as well.
Mr. Meara said there were 17 to 25 properties that were not published in 2007. He said that it was probably just an oversight on the part of the Treasure’s office and that there didn’t appear to be any pattern. They did not appear to all be payment plan properties.
Terri Johnson (County Attorney) said it appears that the redemption period starts at the date of publication and that the publication must occur for the property to be property “bid off.” So properties that were not published for 2007 taxes will need to be published before the three year redemption period can begin. Commissioner Endicott said that it didn’t seem right that someone could have not paid their taxes for three years and then they get another three years if they were left out of the publication. The law does allow for there to be errors and omissions in the publication. However, this allowance seems to be more aimed at preventing people from saying their property was improperly foreclosed on due to a printing smudge or mistake and may offer less protection for the county if proper procedure wasn’t followed.
Partial redemption cannot be invoked once the county files the foreclosure. So once the county files the foreclosure paperwork, those properties must have their taxes, fees, and interest paid in full in order to avoid a tax sale.
There was some discussion as to whether or not a non-homestead property could be partially redeemed before the county files for foreclosure. The scenario would be a business that had unpaid taxes since 2007 that paid their 2007 taxes in order to remove it from foreclosure lawsuits that Mr. Meara filed this morning. The statutes appear to only mention partial redemption under the section that applies to homestead properties. The other sections seem to indicate that once a property is bid off to the county, the entire amounted owed on that property must be paid in order to avoid foreclosure. It appears that non-homestead properties have been allowed to partial redemption in the past and the attorneys were not clear if the statues indeed prohibit partial redemptions for non-homestead properties. They are going to look into it to see.
The lawsuit summons from last week was not a new lawsuit.
Larkin Witt Financial Group held an open house December 1st from 10 to 2 at their office at 207 E. 1st Street. The event drew quite a number of people with over 60 individuals visiting before noon.
Bob Larkin has been involved in financial services for over 40 years. His first office was in Security State Bank in 1974. He grew up on a farm in Fulton, still farms today and was even the co-owner of a local John Deere dealership.
Jordan Witt graduated from PSU (finance) and KU (MBA) and is heavily involved in the Fort Scott community. In the last election he successfully ran for the U234 school board and has been serving there.
The office recently launched their new website at www.larkinwitt.com. The site has a number of financial calculators, articles, research and forms for requesting quotes on insurance and other services.
Jim Brown has quite a Christmas lights display at his house on 13 S. Margrave. His home is located just South of Wall Street behind An Octave Above. You can tune your radio to 100.5 FM and see nearly 8,000 lights running a custom made light show synced to the music. The music is on a 16 minute loop and he plans to run it from 6:30 to 9:30 every evening through Christmas.
Below is a video of the house. If you are reading this in an email, you may have to visit FortScott.Biz to watch it.
Christmas Lights 2011 from Jim Brown on Vimeo.
Two years ago at Thanksgiving Mr. Brown found DoItYourselfChristmas.com where people talk about how to do animated lighting synced to music. He bought the printed circuits and components and made all the controllers himself by soldering the components together.
Mr. Brown said the actual setup of the lights took about two days, but he has spent all of his spare time from the last two years creating the circuit boards and programming all the songs. There are 72 channels that can be independently turned on and off and dimmed from 100% to 0%. Mr. Brown said that programming a single song took about 20 hours. His personal computer controls the circuit boards that control the lights. He programmed the songs using a free piece of software called Vixen.
He runs this off of a temporary electric service on a separate meter. After measuring it the first night, he calculates it will cost $0.60 per night. Mr. Brown said a static display would probably cost three times that because the animated display has many light off or dimmed at any given time.
Mr. Brown said to make sure not to forget to tune the radio to 100.5 because it just looks like a bunch of flashing lights with out the music.
If you live in Fort Scott, you definitely need to take some time to go by and see the light show.
With regard to whether KPERS staff or investment managers may be present in an executive session called pursuant to K.S.A. 75 – 4319(b)(2), K.S.A. 60-426 addresses the attorney client privilege and subsection (c) of that statute recognizes that this privilege may extend to staff or officials of a corporate client. K.S.A. 74-4903 creates the KPERS as “a body corporate. . . .” Thus, KPERS staff meet the definition of client. Such staff may therefore be permissibly present during an executive session without destroying the attorney-client privilege.
So the executive session was legal from the standpoint of falling within attorney/client privilege and our suggestion that the County Treasurer wasn’t allowed in the meeting was based on a misunderstanding of whether Attorney Dan Meara was representing the Commissioners or the County. Since he is representing the County, any County employee or official can be present.
Special thanks to County Attorney Terri Johnson for taking the time to explain this and point out the section of the Attorney General’s Opinion.
On November 15th, we looked at some of the other forms of unpaid taxes in the county. I had a few people point out that some of the businesses listed with unpaid taxes have been sold and are owned by different owners now. So don’t stop supporting someone just because the business name is on the list. It might be the previous owners who didn’t remit their sales tax to the state.
Volunteers in Manila, Philippines are currently trying to break Fort Scott’s record for the longest line of coins. The stunt is part of governmental effort to get more coins back into circulation.
Everything Pets at 605 S. National will be having a ribbon cutting ceremony at 9:30 Saturday morning December 3rd. Stop by to welcome a new business to Fort Scott.
Construction crews are making good progress on the pool. The first concrete was poured early this week. The black sheets in the photographs are a type of protective membrane that goes below the concrete and helps protect the pool from cracking.
City workers said that everything looks to be on schedule for opening the pool and Buck Run addition in Spring of 2012. Weather could delay the pouring of additional concrete, but once it is poured the rest of the construction should be able to go forward with little impact from the winter weather.
There was a good turn out for the Christmas Parade Tuesday night. The event featured a number of floats followed by the lighting of the downtown Christmas tree and a living Nativity presentation by Bethel Church.
A number of organizations were setup offering hot chocolate and downtown stores stayed open late to provide shopping opportunities for the crowd.
The Free Holiday Supper will be served at 5:00 PM, Saturday, December 10 in Arcadia Community Center. Open Door Mission and Christian Church are the Hosts. Please take a non-perishable food item to fill Christmas Baskets for Holiday Giving. There will be door prizes and music by Janelle Bunny.
The Bearcat Cafe in Arcadia is open Tuesday thru Saturday 7AM-5PM.
Lynetta Fisher was pleased to hear the birthday song dedicated to her Sunday morning as she gave her offering. Among those present were her brothers Zack & Nick Younge in Arcadia Christian Church.
Walter & Donnette Parrish came from Houston, Texas to visit his parents, John & Vera Parrish in Pittsburg and other family relatives for Thanksgiving Holiday.
Bill, Delton Jr, Tom and Allen Watt sons and two grandsons, Douglas & Joseph Watt visited Mae Watt for Thanksgiving Day . Bill’s Great Grandson, Michael was recently married in St. Louis.
Cause for a great Thanksgiving Holiday when Landen Walrod shot a 10 point Buck. Sunday November 27, Charles & Willa Cable celebrated Thanksgiving with Bob & Lori Cable,Sam and Nate in Lamar, Mo. Guests were Seth Cable & friend Paige from Pittsburg.Then Thanksgiving Day, Charles & Willa celebrated with Cherri & Paul Walrod family from Eudora and Mable Tacilet from Ft. Scott.
Arcadia residents want to send a thank-you to Senator Jerry Moran, Republican from Kansas who is working to help save Arcadia Post Office and other small towns’ mail service.
The day Class # 10 met in Arcadia Christian Church bungalow, November 16, 2011, Arcadia welcomed the first snow of the season.By the time to return home, it had all disappeared. Members are asking folks to please save the UPC’s from Best Choice groceries. It is to raise funds in order to help the JOY and Class #10 do for others especially during this season and throughout the year.
Bill Dobbins, Frontenac, fell in his home on Saturday, Nov 26. He is now in Via Christi Hospital, Pittsburg facing surgery for a broken hip. His friend, Charles Corporon, went to see about him when Bill did not answer his phone. EMS and Police soon had the patient in the hospital.
Ora Lee Phoebe Foster Morey, 80, died Wednesday, Nov 23, 2011 in Via Christi Hospital in Pittsburg. She was born in Arcadia to Richard & Anna Mae (Bennett) Foster and was married to Jerome Morey in 1956. She attended Arcadia Grade School and a graduate of Pittsburh High School. Many of us old timers remember her well as a little girl in Arcadia.
Ron Wolf of rural Garland suffered a heart attack last week and was rushed to a KC Hospital.
During Thanksgiving week, Shirley Applegarth of Tulsa and her sister, Mildred Beitzel and daughter Linda & Mike Chase were house guests of Mary V. Shead. They flew back to their homes in Washington State the weekend after attending a large family reunion dinner held in the Farm home of Vickie & Larry Shead. Those signing the register on Thanksgiving Day numbered seventy-three. Many of the cousins and little ones stayed until after church the following Sunday.
On a recent week, Ralph & Cindy Shead, Phil & Susan Casey and Emily, and Doug Reed went to Atlanta, Georgia to attend the National Missionary Convention as delegates on behalf of LATM, Joplin.