City leaders discuss lesson learned from Chapin Park cleanup
Wichita city officials say they did not follow an internal policy for handling homeless encampments when clearing Chapin Park earlier this month.
The city paid a consultant $17,000 last year to draft an encampment policy and train staff on how to best move people into housing.
City council members said the policy suggests closing down an encampment of Chapin Park's size bit by bit, over 13 months.
Assistant Housing Director Steven Burt said city leaders made the call to speed things up.
"Did we feel we were ready for something this large? I don't think we did, but at some point it became necessary in our leadership opinions to tackle that, so we did," Burt said. "It is now what it is and we've got lessons to learn to take forward."
Housing staff said they housed 26 of the 91 people living at the park over six months.
In-person voting at more than a dozen Sedgwick County locations
In-person voting for the November election will begin at more than a dozen satellite locations across Sedgwick County on Tuesday.
Early voting is already underway at three locations — the new Sedgwick County Election Office in northeast Wichita, the Advanced Learning Library downtown, and the Sedgwick County Extension Office at 21st and Ridge Road.
Starting Tuesday, 17 more voting locations will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m..
A list of those locations is at sedgwickcounty.org/elections.
Sedgwick County DA urges patience with Stryker crash investigation
The Sedgwick County District Attorney's Office issued a statement updating progress of the investigation into a deadly crash at the Stryker Sports Complex.
The office says prosecutors are reviewing the facts of the case and waiting on forensic testing.
It urged patience from the public, adding that fatal crashes often take more than 11 weeks to investigate.
Officials say they don't expect the Stryker investigation to take weeks, but they offered no timeline for a decision on potential charges.
Nonstop flight to Nashville will launch two months early
A new nonstop flight from Wichita to Nashville will start earlier than expected.
The Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport announced that Southwest Airlines plans to move up the launch of its nonstop service to Nashville.
The service initially was set to begin in March. The airport says flights will now start on January 6.
Nashville flights listed on the Southwest Airlines site start at about $150.
The Wichita airport offers nonstop flights to 15 destinations, including Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas, Orlando and Washington, D.C.
More information is at flywichita.com.
Medical Loan Closet looking to ID thieves who stole beds
The Wichita Medical Loan Closet wants help identifying people who stole 14 hospital beds from the nonprofit on Monday night.
Surveillance footage shows three people taking the beds in two separate trips. The suspects were driving a blue Chevy Silverado pickup.
The recently donated beds were being stored outside. The organization offers medical equipment to those in need.
Anyone with information about the theft is asked to call the police department.
The loan closet has been offered a locking gate for its property, and is looking for volunteers to help transport it.
Kansas firearms dealer sentenced to prison on gun charges
A Kansas firearms dealer has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for having dozens of unregistered firearms.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Kansas says 37-year-old Travis Lee Ray of Smith Center pleaded guilty to one count of illegal possession of a machine gun.
Two years ago, law enforcement officers responded to a domestic dispute call from a property that served both as Ray's home and a business called "Ray's Armageddon Arsenal."
Federal agents found 38 unregistered Glock conversion devices, which convert pistols into fully automatic machine guns.
As part of his sentence, Ray will be required to relinquish his federal firearms license.
Deep Fission says it will sell power to Great Plains Industrial Park
The company building a one-mile underground nuclear reactor in Parsons says it has a contract to sell electricity from the project.
Deep Fission said it has a 25-year agreement to sell power to Great Plains Industrial Park. During a business call, the company’s CEO Liz Muller said the agreement supports planned development at the park.
"At the Great Plains Industrial Park, we do expect that there's going to be a significant load and significant load growth over the coming years," she said. "And we are also looking to deepen our relationship with Evergy, the utility in Kansas."
The company says initial power generation would start next year and ramp up with a target of 150 megawatts in late 2028. The announcement comes after the company’s stock plummeted following a report questioning whether the project is viable.
Some Wichita bond opponents say they don't want schools to close
Ahead of the Wichita bond vote November 3, school closures remain a sore spot for some neighborhoods.
The district plans to close four elementary schools: L'Ouverture, OK, Pleasant Valley, and Woodland.
If the bond passes, the district would convert OK Elementary into an early childhood center.
But some parents at OK said they can’t support that plan.
Zac Everheart said the school building is in better shape than the district says.
“There may be one or two bricks here that go back to the 90s, but this school has been pretty much razed and rebuilt on this piece of property since 2008," he said.
OK is set to close next year without the bond.
But some parents hope a “no” vote would send a message and make the board reconsider the closures.
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