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Category: Local News

Brief: Kobach Gets GOP Nom, Snowplows Plow Pipes

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Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer will endorse Kris Kobach after he conceded in a surprise Tuesday night announcement a week after their neck-and-neck finish threatened to send the race to a recount.

The President endorsed Kobach in the primary.

Some insight into the race as it now stands:

A poll by Remington Research Group published in July indicated that a Kelly-Orman-Kobach race would put Kelly and Kobach in a statistical tie — 36 percent for Kelly and 35 percent for Kobach. Orman fetched 12 percent of the vote in the poll, leaving 17 percent undecided.

Kelly said on Tuesday evening that Kansas families suffered under former Gov. Sam Brownback, who left office earlier this year for a position in President Donald Trump’s administration. The state senator form Topeka slammed Kobach for his pledge to return to what she called Brownback’s failed policies and Kobach’s extreme partisanship and self-promotion.

Kobach, currently the secretary of state, is promising to push for lower income and sales tax rates and tighter controls on local property taxes a year after bipartisan supermajorities in the state Legislature rolled back past income tax cuts championed by Brownback.

 

Fort Riley soldiers showed up at Chiefs training camp in St. Joe.

 

Cooling down:

 

MoDOT snowplows got a summer workout on I-35 near Kearney, Missouri Tuesday.

 

The Brief is a daily roundup from St. Joe Post and around the web. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Man dies after becoming pinned between two vehicles

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A 50-year-old man died Tuesday after becoming pinned between two vehicles.

According to Capt. Jeff Wilson with the St. Joseph Police Department, at 5:44 p.m. Tuesday, officers responded to the 2200 block of Oscar Street in reference to a private property incident involving a man pinned between two vehicles. Wilson said the officers discovered the man had become pinned while attempting to pull one of the vehicles out of the mud.

David Welter Jr. was taken to the hospital and was later pronounced deceased as a result of his injuries.

Fire station 9 open house this week

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An open house is being held this week to celebrate the completion of the new Fire Station 9 in St. Joseph.

The open house will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday at the fire station located at 3202 Jules Street. Fire crews will conduct tours of the station, and refreshments will be provided. Fire department staff will also be available to answer questions and provide information on the construction of station 9.

According to a press release, funding for the construction of the new fire station was provided through the 2013 Capital Improvements Program (CIP) half-cent sales tax. The contractor for the project was E.L. Crawford, a local contractor who utilized approximately 20 subcontractors from the area during the construction of the station.

Fairfax teen seriously injured in one-vehicle crash

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A Fairfax teenager was seriously injured in a one-vehicle crash Tuesday.

According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, at 6:15 p.m. Tuesday, 17-year-old Dillan M. Palmer was driving a 2004 Mazda 6 south on State Route J about four miles southeast of Rockport. At Route J and 240th Street, Palmer’s vehicle went off the west side of the road. Palmer overcorrected, the vehicle returned to the road, crossed the center line, went off the east side the road, hit an embankment and came to rest on the passenger side in a ditch.

Palmer was transported to Fairfax Community Hospital for treatment of serious injuries.

According to the crash report, Palmer was not wearing a seatbelt.

Livingston County considers whether to join lawsuit against opioid drug makers

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(Missourinet) – Another Missouri county is debating whether to sue drug manufacturers for the burden the opioid crisis has placed on its community.

Ed Douglas, the presiding commissioner of Livingston County, says the county commission could join a national lawsuit against addictive prescription drug makers.

Several other Missouri counties have also filed lawsuits against drug manufacturers contending that the opioid epidemic burdens their areas with hospitalizations, incarcerations and emergency responses, among other things.

“There has been harm to the county. I can tell you our jail costs are higher because of that. Most of our jail costs are related to drug use,” Douglas said. “Now not all of that is opioid use, but a significant part of it is.”

He says he’s in the process of trying to find out how many deaths opioid misuse has led to in Livingston County.

“It’s significant. Our prosecutor was able to think of about eight that he could remember in the last five or six years. I’m actually going to check with our coroner to find that out too,” he says.

In 2015, the county recorded 117 opioid prescriptions per every 100 residents.

Douglas says there would not be upfront costs to join the suit.

Chance of rain with temps in the lower 80s

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The system that brought some showers and thunderstorms to Kansas and Missouri Tuesday will continue to shift east today, taking what’s left of the rain with it this afternoon. But, another chance for rain will return late in the work week and again at the end of the weekend into the next work week. And, while rain chances for next week are hard to pin down, the general trend has provided us with a high degree of confidence that at least it will not be oppressively hot and humid. Here’s the 7-day forecast from the National Weather Service:

Today: A slight chance of showers before 9 a.m. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 82. Calm wind becoming north around 6 mph in the morning. Chance of precipitation is 20%.

Tonight: Patchy fog after 3 a.m. Otherwise, partly cloudy, with a low around 66. North wind 5 to 7 mph becoming calm in the evening.

Thursday: Patchy fog before 7 a.m. Otherwise, mostly sunny, with a high near 88. Light northwest wind.

Thursday Night: Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 67. Northeast wind 3 to 5 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts between three quarters and one inch possible.

Friday: A chance of showers, with thunderstorms also possible after 4 p.m. Partly sunny, with a high near 85. North northeast wind 3 to 7 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.

Friday Night: A slight chance of thunderstorms before 7 p.m. Partly cloudy, with a low around 66. Chance of precipitation is 10%.

Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 87.

Saturday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 68.

Sunday: A chance of showers after 1 p.m. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 85. Chance of precipitation is 40%.

Sunday Night: Showers likely, mainly before 1 a.m. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 67. Chance of precipitation is 70%.

Monday: A chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 82. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

Monday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 63.

Tuesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 81.

Platte City man sentenced in hit-and-run that injured K-State student

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MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — A 22-year-old man convicted of aggravated battery after hitting a Kansas State student with his truck in Manhattan has been sentenced to about two years in prison.

Blaha drove the white truck that hit and critically injured Amber Wilhelm- Image courtesy RCPD

Nicolas Blaha, of Platte City, Missouri, was sentenced Monday to 20 months for aggravated battery and eight months for failure to stop at the scene. The sentences will run concurrently.

Blaha hit 22-year-old hit Amber Wilhelm, of Horton, early April 14, 2017, and continued driving. He said he didn’t remember hitting Wilhelm but later came forward and told police he recognized his truck in a video from the scene.

Wilhelm, who suffered a brain injury and several broken bones, said she spent months in rehabilitation and therapy. She returned to classes in January.

Blaha apologized to Wilhelm before sentencing.

Brief: Tariffs Hit, Drought Update, Lawrence Scientist Heads to Immigration Court

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Johnson County is set to release its vote tally at 4pm Tuesday, which follows this post. We wait for updated totals in the Kansas Governor’s race, where Kris Kobach and Jeff Colyer have been within 200 votes of each other since election day.

 

From the trade war:

China Monday accepted the 25 percent tariff on U.S. soybeans, as a vessel waiting to dock for five weeks reached port and began unloading. The move marks the first shipment of U.S. soybeans to be accepted with a 25 percent tariff stemming from the U.S.-China trade war.

 

From the border crisis:

“This is certainly a wonderful day for Mr. Jamal, his wife and their three children,” Sharma-Crawford said in the news release posted on her firm’s website Tuesday. “Since the Board of Immigration Appeals remanded the case for a full hearing, Mr. Jamal and his family will now have the opportunity to ask an Immigration Judge to review multiple forms of relief allowed under the law; it is also a good day for the rule of law.”

 

Kansas City’s Mayor looks to make the most of his last year in office.

City Councilman Scott Wagner:

“If 13 people loved it, or 13 people hated it, it wouldn’t matter (because) we know we’re obligated to put it on the ballot. It’s really a question of what kind of conversation do we want to have now?” There is popular support for publicly-funded preschool, as kindergarten readiness is one of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce’s top priorities. But there’s been some concern with how the mayor wants to pay for pre-K, as sales taxes are considered regressive.

 

Drought update:

 

States have looked to new chemicals for executions. Pharmaceutical companies blocked their drugs from use in executions. Fentanyl is a drug similar to heroin, and has contributed in many heroin overdoses.

…a combination of four drugs: the sedative diazepam, commonly known as Valium, to render him unconscious; fentanyl citrate, a powerful synthetic opioid; cisatracurium besylate to induce paralysis and halt his breathing; and potassium chloride to stop his heart.

 

More school safety stuff:

 

Fun at the fire department:

 

The Brief is a daily roundup from St. Joe Post and around the web. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Open Door to hold inaugural golf tournament fundraiser

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Open Door Food Kitchen holds groundbreaking for new location at 619 S. Eighth Street on Dec. 14, 2017. Photo by Sarah Thomack.

An opportunity to golf and help the Open Door Food Kitchen in St. Joseph is coming up next month.

The Inaugural Open Door “Open Your Heart” Golf Tournament will take place on September 28th.

Open Door Food Kitchen Executive Director Kelly Conant said the funds raised from the tournament will go toward operational costs for their current building and their new location in the future.

“Those operational costs are very important to us because we are a very small entity, not-for-profit, and we solely rely on private donors, volunteers and fundraising,” Conant said.

Marsha Rosenthal with Open Door said the mission of the food kitchen has not changed since it started.

“That is to feed the hungry in a community, no questions asked,” Rosenthal said. “Anyone can come in and get a free lunch who needs to eat. We feed a lot of families, children, men and women, singles, we have a lot of underpaid employees that need it. We have people who have physical disabilities, we have those who have mental disabilities and those who just are in between jobs and need something to eat to sustain them.”

About 200 people come through the Open Door Food Kitchen on a daily basis.

Conant said they are looking for teams and sponsors for the golf tournament which takes place at 1:30 p.m. on Sept 28th at the Fairview Golf Course.

Sponsorships range from $100 to $500 and include Clubhouse recognition and hole sponsorship. A single entry fee is $75 and includes the cart fee, lunch and more.

For more information about the tournament or about sponsorships, call (816) 364-1085 or email ODFKofstjoseph@gmail.com.

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