By Stephen Koranda

After pushing for changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement, President Donald Trump earlier this year kicked off negotiations among the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Any major changes to the agreement could have a big impact on Kansas.

Kansas Republican Sens. Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran have said they’re open to updates but emphasize that the agreement needs to preserve or expand export opportunities.

“I support the administration’s effort to modernize and improve NAFTA,” Moran said in a newsletter this month. “I am concerned that withdrawing from the agreement … will harm our farmers and ranchers and cost us jobs.”

Food and ag products are the state’s top export, at more than $3.5 billion last year. Josh Roe, deputy secretary of the Kansas Department of Agriculture, said the two NAFTA trading partners are critical destinations for those exports.

“There have certainly been years where Mexico and Canada are number one and number two,” Roe said.

Roe said NAFTA has led to development of infrastructure and processes that make it easier to export Kansas products to Canada and Mexico.

Last year, Mexico was the top destination for Kansas ag exports and Canada was the third.

Roe said commodity prices are low right now for some products. An upset of the trade agreement could reduce foreign demand and further hurt prices.

“We’re in very depressed agricultural prices now, even with very good export numbers. A further disruption could be absolutely devastating to agriculture and to the Kansas economy,” Roe said.

Certain Kansas products rely especially heavily on exports. Roe said nearly 60 percent of the wheat grown in Kansas last year was shipped to foreign markets.

Roberts disputed what he said was a “pervasive” view that the U.S. economy has not benefitted from NAFTA.

“U.S. agriculture has grown because of agreements like NAFTA,” he said. “And from the farmer in the field to the grocer in the store, American workers have benefited from that growth.”

Trump has been a persistent critic of the trade deal.

“NAFTA is the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this country,” he said during a debate on the campaign trail.

Trump has said the U.S. may pull out of NAFTA, but as of now the three countries are in negotiations to instead modify the agreement.

Stephen Koranda is Statehouse reporter for KPR a partner in the Kansas News Service. Follow him on Twitter @kprkoranda.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Police in Los Angeles have arrested a man they suspect made a hoax emergency call that resulted in a SWAT police officer fatally shooting a man at the door of his own home in Kansas, law enforcement officials said Saturday.

Wichita Deputy Police Chief Troy Livingston on Friday characterized the hoax call as “swatting” in which a “prankster” called 911 with a fake story about a shooting and kidnapping to draw a SWAT team to the victim’s address. Authorities haven’t released the name of the man who was killed Thursday, but relatives have identified him as 28-year-old Andrew Finch.

Tyler Barriss, 25, is suspected of making that call and was arrested in Los Angeles on Friday, according to the Los Angeles Police Department and the Wichita Police Department in statements emailed early Saturday afternoon.

Officer Paul Cruz, a spokesman for the Wichita police, said the two city police departments are working with the FBI on the case, but provided no further details including on possible charges or extradition.

In audio of the 911 call played by Wichita police at a news conference on Friday, a man said he shot his father in the head and that he was holding his mother and a sibling at gunpoint. The caller, speaking with relative calm, also said he poured gasoline inside the home “and I might just set it on fire.”

Officers subsequently surrounded the home at the address the caller provided and prepared for a hostage situation. When Finch went to the door, police told him to put his hands up and move slowly.

But Livingston said the man moved a hand toward his waistband — a common place where guns are concealed. An officer, fearing the man was reaching for a gun, fired a single shot. Finch died a few minutes later at a hospital. Livingston said Finch was unarmed.

The officer, a seven-year veteran of the department, is on paid leave pending the investigation.

Lisa Finch on Friday told reporters “that cop murdered my son over a false report in the first place.”

In addition to the 911 call, police also released a brief video of body camera footage from another officer at the scene. It was difficult to see clearly what happened.

Dexerto, an online news service focused on gaming, reported that the series of events began with an online argument over a $1 or $2 wager in a “Call of Duty” game on UMG Gaming, which operates online tournaments including one involving “Call of Duty.”

Livingston said investigators were tracking online leads, and a law enforcement official who earlier confirmed Barriss’ arrest said the shooting stemmed from a dispute over “Call of Duty.” The official wasn’t authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to The Associated Press Saturday on condition of anonymity.

The official said Barriss believed a person involved in the dispute lived at the address, but that investigators don’t believe Finch was the intended target. Finch’s mother said her son was not a gamer.

The official said it wasn’t clear if Barriss was involved in the dispute or if he had been recruited to make the false call.

Court records show Barriss was convicted in 2016 on two counts of making a false bomb report to a TV station in Glendale, California, and sent to Los Angeles County jail for two years. Jail records show he was released in January.

The FBI estimates that roughly 400 cases of swatting occur annually, with some using caller ID spoofing to disguise their number. An FBI supervisor in Kansas City, Missouri, which covers all of Kansas, said the agency joined in the investigation at the request of local police.

In other cases of apparent swatting, three families in Florida in January had to evacuate their homes after a detective received an anonymous email claiming bombs had been placed at the address.

SHAWNEE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a suspicious fire in Shawnee County.

Just before 2a.m. first responders were dispatched to a car fire near the intersection of 15^th and Hudson in Topeka, according to a social media report from police. Authorities found a body inside the vehicle.

Police did not release additional details but did indicate they would have more information available later Saturday.

By CELIA LLOPIS-JEPSEN

The former legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas thinks a practice among some school boards of restricting patron complaints at public meetings eventually will end up in court.

Doug Bonney, legal director emeritus for ACLU Kansas, said if barring complaints about school board members, the superintendent or employees is common, that doesn’t make it right.

“What I think that means,” he said, “is that eventually we will get a complainant and we will take this on in litigation. It’s so widespread that it’s almost certain to be litigated at some point.”

There are no tallies of how many of Kansas’ 286 school boards specifically bar parents and others from airing grievances about employees or board members in public. But Angie Stallbaumer, policy specialist and staff attorney at the Kansas Association of School Boards, said it isn’t unusual for boards to set some parameters for comments. Protecting privacy is a key motivation for doing so, she said.

“We don’t want to get to a situation where people don’t want to get into the profession because they don’t want their private work stuff discussed out in the open,” Stallbaumer said.

The Topeka school board, for example, has a policy barring the public from complaining about the superintendent or other employees at its meetings. Such complaints must be submitted in writing to the superintendent or, if they concern the superintendent’s actions, to the school board president or clerk.

View the Topeka school board policy

Wichita Public Schools, meanwhile, has a policy that doesn’t permit “attacks by public speakers on the personal integrity, character, or competency of any employee and/or student of USD 259” at its public meetings. But the board allows people with such comments to ask to make them in closed-door sessions.

Bonney said these types of public comment restrictions caught his organization’s eye when the Shawnee Mission school board earlier this year interrupted a patronwho was complaining about a perceived conflict of interest on the board.

Allowing patrons to praise district leaders and staff but not criticize them violates the First Amendment, he said.

“I’m quite confident on our position,” he said.

The ACLU wrote to the Shawnee Mission school board in May and again in December asking that it drop restrictions against people voicing their complaints at meetings.

Read the ACLU’s letter to the Shawnee Mission school board

Shawna Samuel, spokeswoman for the Shawnee Mission district, said the board replied Dec. 7 in a statement by Vice President Brad Stratton.

In the statement, Stratton indicates the board will revisit the matter after newly elected members join next month.

“Once the Board of Education has had an opportunity to review the items outlined in the letter, and has consulted with legal counsel, a thorough response will be provided,” Stratton said.

Stratton indicated the board would consider the ACLU comments as it balances free speech rights with privacy rights.

View the Shawnee Mission school board policy

Stallbaumer said case law talks about employers’ responsibility to protect the privacy of their employees. School boards aren’t required by law to allow public comment periods, she said. And if they do, they can limit the topic of conversation — for example, a comment period specifically for input about a potential school closure — or place other “reasonable time, place and manner restrictions.”

“That’s what we’re trying to make clear,” she said. “The time for public comments is something that the boards are undertaking voluntarily.”

Bonney said boards can indeed choose not to hear any public comments whatsoever or even set some basic rules, such as allowing three minutes per commenter. But he added: “Once you open it up, then you have to abide by the First Amendment.”

Celia Llopis-Jepsen is a reporter for the Kansas News Service.  You can reach her on Twitter @Celia_LJ.

SHAWNEE COUNTY — A Kansas man died in an accident just before 1p.m. Friday in Shawnee County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2003 Chevy Silverado driven by Harold E. Poertner, 73, Osage City, was northbound on U.S. 75 just north of 57^th.

The pickup left the roadway to the right and entered the ditch. The driver swerved the pickup to the left and attempted to re-enter the roadway.

The driver over-corrected, the pickup entered a counter-clockwise rotation, slid sideways across the northbound lanes, entered the median, and rolled into the west ditch.

Poertner was pronounced dead at the scene. He was not wearing a seat belt, according to the KHP.