Two Wichita festivals fighting over a block of St. Francis
Two festivals scheduled for September 26 are fighting over which event will use a section of St. Francis Street in downtown Wichita.
The Wichita Chinese Association wants to use the street to host a one-day Mid-Autumn Festival. The Chase Koch-backed Somewhere Fest plans to close parts of Emporia and St. Francis for its two-day music and culture event.
Ipei Chung owns Fun Venue, where the Mid-Autumn Festival would be held. She said her group filed a permit for the Mid-Autumn Festival first, but then noticed that Somewhere Fest has been added to the city's calendar.
"Our proposed solution is simple: move Somewhere Fest's barricade one block west to a location that will not cause severe damage to a small business," she said.
Rafaelle Fazio with Somewhere Fest said he offered to pay to relocate the Mid-Autumn Festival to Botanica. He said St. Francis is vital to Somewhere Fest's "social change" block party.
"St. Francis is exactly where our block party occurs and the inability to shut that down not only creates a safety issue for our festival as a whole, but would essentially eliminate our block party," Fazio said.
The City Council plans to meet in executive session Tuesday to discuss Chung's permit appeal and settle the dispute.
Library's Memory Lab helps protect family stories
Wichita's Advanced Learning Library’s Memory Lab is helping protect family memories by putting them into a different format.
The lab is a recent partnership between the library and the Wichita Genealogical Society. It provides equipment to transfer physical media to digital.
There are scanners to digitize those photos from family gatherings. People can also transfer video tapes and cassettes to the cloud.
These converted items can back up the originals and guard against decay. The lab is a free service and can be used for up to three hours.
Library spokesman David Garcia said it has been fun seeing what memories visitors bring in.
"We all had that craze where every single family event was recorded. And so it's nice to see people kind of reconnect with those memories and rediscover kind of a lost story, perhaps, and just have it on hand in a different way," he said.
“We want some backups just in case because nobody wants to lose out on those precious memories."
For more information or to reserve the lab, visit WichitaLibrary.org/services.
Orange flags honor children who died in Indian boarding schools
The grounds of the Mid-American All-Indian Museum are covered in thousands of orange flags this week.
They're part of the museum's participation in the "Every Child Matters" movement, which remembers the thousands of Native American children who died in the United States and Canada in Indian boarding schools.
From the early 1800s through the 1970s, more than 3,000 students died at boarding schools in the United States that practiced forced assimilation.
A Washington Post investigation estimated that nearly 150 died at the Haskell Indian Industrial Training School in Lawrence.
Wichita names new assistant city manager
Wichita City Manager Dennis Marstall has announced that Jennifer McCausland will be the next assistant city manager of development services and quality of life.
McCausland is the city administrator of Andover. For seven years she has handled day-to-day operations for Wichita's neighbor, including managing a staff of 121 employees.
In Wichita, McCausland will handle zoning enforcement, real estate and property management, and drafting agreements with local developers. She will join Marstall and assistant city manager Donte Martin on Wichita's top leadership team.
McCausland's first day will be October 26.
Kansas ag leaders oppose Trump's plan to import beef
Kansas agriculture leaders are trying to stop President Trump’s plan to import beef in an attempt to curb high prices. They are encouraging farmers to contact members of congress to intervene.
Trump signed a proclamation allowing 300,000 metric tons of imported meat intended to make ground beef over the next 90 days.
That drew a lot of pushback in Kansas.
Greg Doering, media manager for the Kansas Farm Bureau, says it blindsided Kansas ranchers.
“That's the most disappointing aspect of this, is that this really came out of nowhere, and we ... would have liked to have had a conversation with the President, with the administration.”
The group says free markets are the best way to curtail beef prices without harming ranchers.
A similar plan to import beef was drafted in May, but was ultimately abandoned.
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