MOBERLY (AP) – The city of Moberly is working to repair its credit rating after plans for an artificial sweetener factory collapsed.
The Columbia Daily Tribune reports the city council passed two resolutions designed to convince a financial investment services firm that the city was a safe investment.
Standard & Poors firm downgraded Moberly’s credit rating from “A” to “B” in 2011 after it defaulted on payments on the plant’s construction.
Moberly’s city manager says the new policies takes practices the city has had for years and puts them on the books.
Bruce Cole, CEO of Mamtek U.S. Inc., convinced Moberly officials to issue $39 million in bonds and $17 million in tax credits for the plant he said would employ 600 people. Cole pleaded guilty to two counts of securities fraud and one count of theft.
The plant never materialized as the plan collapsed financially before construction finished. Cole has pleaded guilty to two counts of securities fraud and one count of theft.
For the second straight week and third time this season, the Griffon defense dominated the night on the way to a Missouri Western win. Thursday night, the MWSU D accounted for 14 points and allowed just 31 second-half yards as Missouri Western defeated the Lions, 26-9, in the first ever meeting between the two.
Kirk Resseguie got the scoring going for the defense in the second quarter when he recovered a Lindenwood fumble in the end zone to put the Griffons up 14-0. Resseguie did it again in the fourth quarter when he sacked Graham Lindman for a safety. Sam Brown added the defense’s final points later in the fourth with a 32-yard interception return for a touchdown.
Missouri Western held the Lions to just 23 yards rushing and racked up 223 of their own on 53 carries. The Griffon defense force four turnovers for the second week in a row and held the Lions to 271 total yards.
Resseguie finished with seven total tackles, two of them for loss. Stephen Juergens added another interception and five total tackles to go along with an assisted sack. Mackenzie Wischmann had two sacks. Arbanas Elliot added one and a half sacks. Joey Capul chipped in another sack. Offensively, Raphael Spencer picked up 117 yards for his third 100-yard performance of the season. The Griffons are now 3-0 this season when Spencer eclipses the century mark.
The Griffons are now 3-1 on the year and return to Spratt Stadium next week to take on No. 8 Pittsburg State in the MWSU Hall of Fame game on Oct. 4 at 6 p.m.
CHICAGO (AP) — Whether it’s through a wild card or the AL Central title, Lorenzo Cain doesn’t care how the Kansas City Royals reach the playoffs.
He just wants to get there.
Eric Hosmer homered and drove in two runs, Cain had four hits and scored twice, and the Royals put themselves on the verge of a playoff spot with a 6-3 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Thursday night.
One more win for Kansas City, or a loss by Seattle, will send the Royals to the postseason for the first time since George Brett led them to a World Series championship in 1985.
Kansas City remained two games behind Detroit in the Central and moved one up on Oakland in the wild-card standings.
“We definitely want to win the division, but any way we can get in (the playoffs), we’ll take it,” Cain said.
The Royals aren’t about to be picky considering how long it’s been and all the losing for the franchise along the way. They were September contenders last season for the first time in a decade on the way to 86 wins.
Now they are right on the postseason doorstep, poised to barge in.
“I think this team’s learned a lot,” starter James Shields said. “I think we’ve got a mix of good veterans in here to keep this team loose. We’re really loose and having fun right now and that’s what it’s all about.”
Hosmer had three hits, including an RBI single in the first and a tying solo homer off Jose Quintana in the sixth.
The White Sox held retiring captain Paul Konerko out of the lineup, but he expects to start the final three games. He has been playing through a broken bone in his left hand and was a little sore after playing two of the previous three games in Detroit.
The Royals went ahead after back-to-back singles by Cain and Hosmer put runners on first and third in the eighth.
Jake Petricka relieved Quintana, and it looked as if the White Sox would get out of it when Billy Butler sent a grounder to shortstop.
But second baseman Marcus Semien bounced the relay to first after catching the throw from Alexei Ramirez. That allowed Cain to score the go-ahead run, and Alex Gordon followed with an RBI single to make it 5-3.
That made a winner of Kelvin Herrera (4-3), who worked a scoreless seventh after Shields went six innings.
Wade Davis pitched the eighth and Greg Holland worked the ninth for his 45th save in 47 chances.
Shields allowed three runs and five hits, including a two-run homer by Josh Phegley.
Quintana (9-11) gave up five runs and 11 hits over 7 1/3 innings.
“He threw a good game,” Chicago manager Robin Ventura said. “We had a shot there to get out of it for him, and we didn’t. You’ve got to be able to do that.”
TRAINER’S ROOM:
Royals: INF Christian Colon (broken middle finger) played six innings and had two hits in his first rehab game in the Arizona instructional league, general manager Dayton Moore said. Moore had no comment when asked how Colon’s finger felt, and it’s not clear if he will be on the postseason roster.
White Sox: White Sox OF Avisail Garcia left the game because of a stiff lower back. He lined out in the second inning and was replaced in right field by Moises Sierra before the top of the third. He is day to day, although Ventura expects him to sit out Saturday. … 2B Carlos Sanchez was out of the lineup with his wife set to have a baby.
UP NEXT:
The Royals send RHP Jeremy Guthrie (12-11, 4.28 ERA) to the mound, hoping to wrap up a playoff berth. RHP Hector Noesi (8-10, 4.39) pitches for Chicago.
NO MICKEY MOUSE OPERATION
There was quite a scene in the visiting clubhouse before the game. Royals RHP Liam Hendricks was on all fours while leading the charge to capture a mouse hiding in one corner. He eventually trapped it in a box and took it to the bullpen for the game, with the players dubbing it the “Rally Mouse.”
Hendricks hopes to find the same mouse — or another one — before Saturday’s game and keep it in the bullpen.
TOPEKA, KAN. – A Topeka man was indicted Wednesday on a federal charge of conspiring to buy firearms and unlawfully transfer them to a buyer in another state, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said.
Donald Gene Garst, 52, who is in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons, is charged with one count of conspiring to unlawfully transfer firearms. The indictment alleges that on Aug. 16, 2013, Garst was referring to firearms when he told an unindicted co-conspirator that there was a lot of money to be made in “women’s shoes” and that they should acquire all the “women’s shoes” they could.
On Sept. 13, 2013, another unindicted co-conspirator rented space at Quality Storage Facility, 426 E. 6th in Holton, Kan. The next day, she took out a loan of $1,500 and purchased a Cobra Model FS380 pistol and a New Frontier Armory Model LW-15 rifle. She put them in a suitcase belonging to Garst for delivery to the storage facility. She gave Garst the combination to the storage locker so that he could pass it on to a person from another state who would retrieve the firearms and leave $2,800 in an envelope marked “Barney” to pay for the firearms. On Sept. 19, 2013, the purchaser entered the storage locker and retrieved the firearms.
If convicted, Garst faces a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jared Maag is prosecuting.
Jason Hooper, president of KVC Hospitals, a subsidiary of the Olathe-based KVC Health Systems.-Photo by Dave Ranney
By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
TOPEKA — A coalition of behavioral health programs will receive a $1 million grant for services aimed at reducing the number of people with severe mental illnesses being referred to Osawatomie State Hospital or finding their way into the state’s correctional system, Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Secretary Kari Bruffett said Wednesday.
The grant will help the coalition provide crisis services in south-central Kansas, including the Wichita area, according to KDADS. The coalition includes mental health and substance abuse programs in Butler, Cowley, Sedgwick and Sumner counties.
The grant, a one-time allocation, is part of a $9.5 million mental health initiative announced by Gov. Sam Brownback in May.
Addressing a meeting of the Kansas Mental Health Coalition on Wednesday, Bruffett said the coalition’s services may prove to be similar to those at Rainbow Services Inc. (RSI), a Kansas City-based program that since April, according to KDADS data, has kept more than 250 would-be patients out of Osawatomie State Hospital and more than 60 out of jail.
“On the ground, the coalition’s model may look very different from that of RSI,” she said. “But the goals will be very similar.”
RSI is housed in the former Rainbow Mental Health Facility building near the University of Kansas Medical Center.
KDADS converted the state-owned inpatient facility to a privatized detox and crisis stabilization unit earlier this year, contracting with the community mental health centers in Johnson and Wyandotte counties and the Heartland Regional Alcohol and Drug Assessment Center.
The grant-funded services also are intended to offset the community mental health centers’ costs of caring for the uninsured, Bruffett said.
ComCare, the community mental health center in Sedgwick County, will administer the grant on behalf of the coalition.
Eventually, Bruffett said, the two initiatives – RSI and the south-central Kansas coalition – will give KDADS a “better idea” on where to invest state resources in the future.
In recent weeks, record numbers of patients have been admitted to Osawatomie State Hospital despite the RSI-fueled reductions in referrals from Johnson and Wyandotte counites.
Caring for patients in a state hospital setting is significantly more expensive than caring for them in community-based settings.
Several coalition members expressed support for RSI but raised concerns about unofficial reports that KDADS had disbanded its “Hospital to Home Transformation Work Group,” a long-standing advisory committee charged with helping the department define the mission of the state hospitals in Osawatomie and Larned and respond to issues affecting admissions and discharges.
Bruffett said the committee’s role had been delegated to the Governor’s Behavioral Health Planning Council, which has several subcommittees assigned to topics affecting the state hospitals.
“There is no intention to say that these topics don’t need to be talked about,” she said. “They’re what the planning council is talking about.”
Coalition members also heard an informational presentation by Jason Hooper, president of KVC Hospitals, a subsidiary of the Olathe-based KVC Health Systems.
VC Hospitals owns and operates two inpatient mental health facilities for children, ages 6 to 18, on behalf of the state: Prairie Ridge Hospital, with 49 beds, in Kansas City, and Wheatland Hospital, with 24 beds, in Hays.
Hooper said that in the fiscal year that ended July 1, the two hospitals admitted 2,393 children. The average patient age was 13.5, and their average length of stay was six to seven days.
At Prairie Ridge, he said, a third of the patients are in foster care, a third are private referrals and a third are from out of state, primarily Missouri.
Three-fourths of the patients at Wheatland are private referrals while a fourth are in foster care.
The hospitals, Hooper said, are seeing ever-rising numbers of children with suicidal intentions, “substance issues that require detox,” or increasingly complex medical and clinical diagnoses.
“A lot of this dates back to the trauma that these children have experienced,” he said. “And when you throw in the clinical complexities and all of the substance abuse, it’s pretty clear we’re looking at the deep end of the population. It’s pretty scary, actually.”
Many of the children, Hooper said, arrive at the hospitals displaying “a lot of hopelessness. Unfortunately, these are children who are literally checking out. Their parents are not wanting to take them back into their homes and not wanting to engage in the healing process … much less in the treatment process.”
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A northeast Kansas father and son have been convicted of manufacturing and selling synthetic marijuana through a worldwide network.
The U.S. Attorney’s office says a federal jury on Thursday found 55-year-old Clark Sloan and 33-year-old Jonathan Sloan guilty on 20 counts each. They were acquitted on five other counts.
Clark Sloan lives in Tonganoxie. His son lives in Lawrence, where he was co-owner of a shop where the synthetic marijuana business began.
Prosecutors said the Sloans’ operation involved the manufacture of K2, a substance treated with the active ingredient in marijuana and marketed as an all-natural herbal product.
The enterprise grew to include suppliers, vendors and others throughout the U.S. and in countries around the world. Investigators said the defendants made at least $3.3 million from selling the drugs.
PERRY, Kan.- A Kansas man died in an accident just before 11 a.m. on Thursday in Jefferson County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2009 Nissan Frontier driven by Darin E. Christman, 49, Lecompton, was northbound on Lecompton Road just south of U.S. 24 and made a left hand turn, failing to yield to a southbound 1994 Harley Davidson driven by Kurt A. Lucas, 49, Valley Falls.
The motorcycle attempted to avoid the collision but and struck the Nissan in the passenger fender.
Lucas was pronounced dead at the scene and transported to Barnes Funeral Home. Christman was not injured.
By KHI NEWS SERVICE
TOPEKA — A new report from the nonpartisan Rockefeller Institute of Government says that changes in federal tax policy are not the main cause of a steep drop in Kansas revenue collections.
The report says while the federal changes, which caused people to shift when they took capital gains, are the main cause of revenue declines in many states, Kansas and Alaska are exceptions.
“Twenty-nine states reported declines in overall tax collections, with Kansas and Alaska reporting the largest declines at 21.9 and 15.7 percent, respectively,” the report says. “The large declines in Alaska are mostly due to declines in oil and gas severance taxes, while the declines in Kansas are mostly attributable to legislative tax changes.”
At Gov. Sam Brownback’s urging, Kansas legislators cut income tax rates in 2012 and again 2013. When fully implemented in 2019, the cuts will have reduced the state’s top income tax rate by 40 percent and eliminated income taxes for the owners of more than 190,000 businesses.
The Rockefeller Institute report says that income tax collections in the second quarter of this year were down by 43 percent compared to the same period last year. That is the largest drop of any state.
The drop in revenue will lead to a budget shortfall of nearly $240 million by July of 2016 unless lawmakers cut spending in the current budget year, according to projections compiled by the nonpartisan Kansas Legislative Research Department.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill today released the following statement after Ford announced that its Kansas City Assembly Plant will add 1,200 new jobs and a second shift for its Transit van, bringing Ford to 6,000 hourly workers at the plant:
“Investing in the hardworking folks of Kansas City is a smart business decision by Ford. When companies invest in the Kansas City area, they continue this vibrant community’s trend of economic expansion, and send an unmistakable signal to other employers that Kansas City is the right place to create new job opportunities.”
Ford recently began production on its Ford Transit vans at the Kansas City Assembly Plant following a $1.1 billion investment that created 2,000 jobs. Ford’s plant in Claycomo, near Kansas City, consistently ranks among the most productive auto plants in the United States.
Missouri ranks among the top 10 states in automobile production. Nearly one-third of Missouri’s counties have auto industry employment concentrations that exceed the national average. Given the importance of the auto industry to Missouri’s economy, McCaskill has made advocating for auto jobs a priority since being elected to the U.S. Senate. McCaskill testified before the International Trade Commission in December 2010 and March 2012 to advocate for trade policies to protect jobs at Missouri auto part manufacturing facilities. She also wrote to the Obama Administration in November 2011 and July 2012 raising concerns about barriers Japan has imposed the keep U.S. automakers from competing in the Japanese auto market.
