Troop H of the Missouri State Highway Patrol will hold a blood drive to honor the memory of a state trooper killed by a drunk driver.
Captain James E. McDonald, commanding officer Troop H, invites you to take part in the “Red Cross, Troop H Michael E. Webster Memorial Blood Drive” on Thursday, October 2, 2014. The blood drive will be held at the Missouri Department of Transportation (MODOT) Northwest District Office, 3602 North Belt Highway, St. Joseph, Missouri.
The blood drive will begin at 10:00 a.m. and conclude at 3:00 p.m. All donors are reminded to please bring a photo ID if they wish to donate.
On October 2, 1993, Corporal Michael E. Webster was killed in the line of duty by a drunk driver. Since his untimely death, blood drives like this one have honored his service to the community. Drunk drivers killed 239 people and injured 3,804 in Missouri traffic crashes last year. The Webster family, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, and the American Red Cross want to encourage everyone to come out and support the Michael E. Webster Blood Drive.
Appointments are not necessary, but if you wish to make an appointment go to savealifenow.org and then enter the sponsor code: msphtrooph or call Troop H Headquarters at (816)387-2345.
Lea Taylor, an assistant secretary for the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services, says KDADS has been working with officials in Kansas communities that appear to have above-average numbers of residents with mental illness.-Photo by Dave Ranney
By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
LAWRENCE — A Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services official said Thursday that the agency has identified 11 communities that appear to be referring inordinate numbers of patients to the state hospitals for mentally ill or have above-average numbers of inmates in the state’s correctional systems who are known to be mentally ill.
“We’ve been going out and meeting with people in those communities,” said KDADS Assistant Secretary Lea Taylor, addressing a statewide conference in Lawrence on law enforcement training and mental health crises.
The meetings, Taylor said, are meant to give leaders in those communities time to explore the possibility of applying for $425,000 in state-funded grants aimed at reducing the number of mentally ill adults ending up in jail, prison or the state-run hospitals in Larned or Osawatomie.
Taylor declined to identify the communities. KDADS, she said, will issue a formal request for grant proposals “in the next month or so.”
The application process, Taylor said, will be open to organizations – public and private, local and regional – throughout the state. A time frame for awarding the grants has not been decided.
The $425,000 is part of a $9.5 million mental health initiative announced by Gov. Sam Brownback in May.
KDADS on Tuesday unveiled its plan for spending $75,000 on training projects to help law enforcement officers respond to crisis calls involving the mentally ill.
KDADS, Taylor said, has been especially pleased with its conversion of Rainbow Mental Health Facility, a former 50-bed state hospital in Kansas City, to a privatized detox and crisis stabilization unit, and with the program’s success in reducing the numbers of Johnson and Wyandotte County patients being referred to Osawatomie State Hospital.
Since it opened in April, the new facility, now called Rainbow Services Inc., has diverted 262 would-be patients from area emergency rooms, 91 from Osawatomie State Hospital and 61 from jail, Taylor said.
“It seems to be working,” she said.
About 140 people – a mix of law enforcement officers, program directors and mental health advocates – attended the Kansas Crisis Intervention Training Summit, an annual event coordinated by the Kansas Chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center, Kansas Sheriff’s Association, Kansas Department of Corrections and KDADS.
Steve McCorkill, a sergeant with the Shawnee Police Department and president of the Kansas Law Enforcement CIT Council, led morning and afternoon sessions on processes for building local partnerships among law enforcement officers, mental health providers, and mental health consumers and their families.
“If jail is the best crisis-response resource that’s available to you, that’s a bigger problem than a law enforcement problem; that’s a societal issue,” McCorkill said. “And the best way to address societal issues on the law enforcement level is at the grassroots. That’s what CIT does, it builds coalitions that come up with solutions.”
McCorkill also asked the group to understand:
• “Mental illness does not excuse criminal activity.”
• “Officer safety is still ‘Job No. 1.’ If the officer isn’t safe, then nobody is safe.”
• “The biggest problem we have to deal with is overcoming stigma – the stigma that comes with having a mental illness, the stigma that comes with being taken to jail.”
• “Seven percent of the calls we get directly involve a mentally ill person. If you’re in law enforcement, you know that’s a lot.”
• “CIT will not prevent bad things from happening, but it will give the responding officers more resources.”
Mark Potter, men’s basketball coach at Newman University for the past 17 years, also addressed the conference. He discussed overcoming the stigma that accompanied his diagnosis of depression nine years ago.
“If we have a broken arm, we go to the doctor and get it fixed,” he said. “If we have diabetes, we go to the doctor to get it fixed. But if we have a mental illness – if our brain is broken – we don’t tell anyone. We don’t get it fixed. Why is that?”
Missouri Western State University Board of Governors will consider administration recommendations to refund tuition to resident undergraduate students.
The board will hold a telephone poll Wednesday morning to consider the recommendation made by Western Administration to refund a 1.74% ($3.35 per credit hour) tuition increase charged to resident undergraduate students this fall and permanently remove the tuition increase going forward.
The result of the poll is expected to be ratified by the Board of Governors at its next regularly scheduled meeting.
According to Western the board secretary will call members individually to record their votes. At no time will board members be on the line at the same time and no discussion among board members is allowed to take place. Western said an official press release will be distributed once there are enough votes to render a decision are counted.
OLATHE- A Kansas woman was injured in an accident just before 1:30 p.m. on Monday in Johnson County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2001 Peterbilt semi driven by Karl Dennis Knight, 63, Neosho, Mo., was southbound on Interstate 35 in Olathe.
The truck failed to maintain a lane and struck a 2005 Toyota Tacoma driven by Kathleen S. Dieckhoff, 54, Olathe, in the rear. The collision caused the Toyota to spin out of control and leave the roadway.
The semi then left the scene.
Dieckhoff was transported to Olathe Medical Center. Knight was not injured.
The KHP reported both drivers were properly restrained at the time of the accident.
School board member Chris Danford is apparently being blocked from gathering information on a number of different financial controversies in the St. Joseph School District.
In an E-mail sent last week to the Superintendent Dr. Fred Czerwonka, and the district’s two lawyers, Danford asks for information on the district’s contracts with the OPAA food-service company. She says she has not received one response. On Monday, Danford sent another E-mail, and this time included reporters in the list of recipients.
In that second E-mail, Danford asks “…isn’t it ridiculous that an elected board member should have to sunshine the district they provide oversight for?”
She also asks for a lot more information. Here’s the list:
1. OPAA contracts for both 2013-2014 and 2014-2015
2. A list of all district owned vehicles with make/model/year and the name of the employee and their position in the SJSD that the car is assigned to.
3. List of all out of district travel for all administrators (from superintendent down to building principals) paid for by the SJSD –list by 1. administrator name, 2. conference/meeting including dates & destination and 3. costs (travel, mileage, food, lodging and any other expense) from July 1, 2012 through September 1, 2014.
4. List of all purchases made with SSI School Specialty Industries from July 2009-September 2014.
5. The total costs involved with the investigation on Beau Musser by Freeman and Fowler. The investigation was done June &July 2014, the oral report was given to the board on 8/4/14 and the written report given to the board on 9/8/14.
6. List of all costs paid for any attorney services including Mr. Briggs, Mickes, Hobbs and all others for the time July 2009-September 2014.
7. List of all settlements and their amounts from July 1, 2009 -September 1, 2014.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Educators and parents chosen to rewrite learning benchmarks for Missouri children are divided on how to move forward.
Work groups tasked with writing new education standards spent their first meeting Monday clashing over the state education department’s involvement and how to rework the national goals currently in place.
A law passed in May requires new goals for learning in each grade to replace the standards adopted in the Common Core. Those standards are used to create consistency between states, but opponents say they were adopted without enough local input.
More than 40 states use the Common Core, but Missouri is one of several states backing away from it.
A Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education spokeswoman says the level of fighting over education standards is “unprecedented.”
TOPEKA – Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt today asked a state court to end a lawsuit challenging the school-funding law enacted in April by the Legislature.
Schmidt filed the motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which was filed in August by the Kansas National Education Association (KNEA), in Shawnee County District Court in Topeka. The filing is the State’s first formal response to the lawsuit.
“At its core, KNEA disagrees with the Legislature’s policy choice to amend the Kansas statutes regarding teacher dismissal and termination of teacher contracts,” Schmidt wrote in his filing. “Rather than attack that issue directly, the KNEA raises an abstract challenge to the process by which the Legislature enacted the law.”
Schmidt argues that the KNEA lacks standing to challenge the law, that no actual controversy has yet arisen under the new law, and that the education bill enacted by the Legislature complies with the state Constitution’s requirement that each bill contain only a single subject.
Allowing the lawsuit to proceed, Schmidt argues, could put in jeopardy more than $134 million in K-12 spending that was provided by the new law. That spending is being used in schools throughout Kansas during the current school year.
The case is Kansas National Education Association v. State of Kansas, et al., in the District Court of Shawnee County, Kansas, Case No. 2014-CV-789.
SEYBERT (AP) – The Missouri State Highway Patrol said a southwest Missouri man has been missing since he went fishing on Stockton Lake during the weekend.
Searchers were still looking Monday for 61-year-old Rodney David of Golden City. The search began Friday evening when his empty boat was found circling in northeast Dade County between Greenfield and Stockton.
KYTV reported the area is known locally as Chicken Rock because of a big bluff where people dive and jump into the water.
The staff of the Missouri Public Service Commission is raising red flags over the Grain Belt Express power line project. That’s according to a group organized to oppose running high-voltage power lines across Missouri to connect wind farms in Kansas with electricity customers east of here.
In a news release, the group Block Grain Belt Express says the PSC staff have filed “mountains” of paperwork in the case, and BGBE officials say much of the testimony is negative.
They say staff has express doubts about the promised economic benefits to Missouri. In fact, according to the staff testimony, the project could increase both transmission congestion and electricity costs in Missouri.
The PSC staff act as investigators in matters before the Commission. Staff reports the Commission has thus far received 7,016 comments opposing the project, while only 60 comments of support were submitted.
There were safety concerns voiced by a pipeline company. Rockies Pipeline questioned the safety of siting GBE parallel to Rockies’ pipeline. According to the companies expert, “when HVDC circuits are located in proximity (within 1,000 feet or less) to an underground steel pipeline, both normal and abnormal operation of the HVDC circuit can compromise the operation and integrity of the pipeline system.
“When these threats are not properly mitigated, the HVDC line and its grounding system can cause pipeline operations to reduce operating efficiency by the reduction of operating pressure and delivery capacity, can necessitate costly and disruptive repairs to the pipeline, and can even lead to pipeline rupture.” Fifty-three percent of the chosen route is sited within 1 mile of a pipeline.
The PSC will be hearing cross-examination of filed testimony and weighing evidence at its formal hearing on the matter in November. The Commission will likely make their decision on GBE’s application after the first of next year.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Jackson County judge says a 34-year-old man accused of fatally shooting three people and brutally beating two others who later died will be allowed to wear street clothes during his courtroom appearances.
Brandon Howell is facing a dozen charges in the Sept. 2 attacks, including three counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of 88-year-old Alice Hurst, her son, 63-year-old Darrel Hurst, and 69-year-old Susan Choucroun. Charges have not been updated in the beatings of George and Ann Taylor, who died after the other counts had been filed.
Howell appeared in court Monday wearing a blue pullover sweater and slacks, but no visible shackles. His attorney told Associate Judge Mary Weir the jury pool could be tainted if news stations repeatedly showed him in leg irons or other restraints.
Troop H of the Missouri State Highway Patrol will hold a blood drive to honor the memory of a state trooper killed by a drunk driver.
