OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — The Overland Park Police Department is expanding a team that responds to police calls involving mental health crises. The mental health unit will have more than a dozen members and six co-responders. The change comes after the Overland Park City Council voted in September to raise property taxes to fund the unit, and the city received a nearly $250,000 federal grant. When the mental health team responds to a call, it will be joined by a clinician from Johnson County Mental Health. Sgt. Stewart Brought said the department’s goal is to let the mental health team…
Author: KMAN Staff
Researchers at Kansas State University are the first in the country to look into methods of keeping a foreign tick-borne livestock disease at bay. The Center of Excellence for Vector-Borne Diseases recently received $250,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and an additional $75,000 from the Kansas National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility to build upon past research into containing and controlling heartwater disease. Heartwater is deadly to cattle, sheep, and goats. Center Director Roman Ganta and his team recently published results of the first heartwater risk assessment experiments in sheep. While heartwater originally was identified as a sub-Saharan African disease,…
On Friday’s edition of In Focus we spoke with RCPD Director Dennis Butler.
Riley County commissioners have approved the appointment of Allana Parker to serve as interim director for the Historical Museum. Parker succeeds Cheryl Collins, who passed away last month, and will serve as interim director until a new director is officially named. Board of Trustees member Phil Anderson says all nine members were in favor of this appointment. “We’ve also encouraged her to apply for the permanent position. Cheryl’s death was tragic for the county and for the city. We’re fortunate that Cheryl was grooming Allana for that position,” he said. Anderson says Collins was planning on retiring in the next couple…
WICHITA, Kan. — People with the 620 and 785 phone area code will have to start dialing 10 digits to complete local calls starting Sunday. The Wichita Eagle reports that the reason for the change is to avoid conflicts when the Federal Communications Commission implements 988 as the three-number speed-dial code to reach a suicide prevention hotline next year. Kansas Corporation Commission spokeswoman Linda Berry says 988 is used as a prefix for some numbers in the 620 and 785 areas. From Sunday on, phone users in those areas who try to dial without their area code will get a…
ELLSWORTH, Kan. — A former employee of a rural Kansas water system pleaded guilty to closing down the system. Twenty-two-year-old Wyatt Travnichek pleaded guilty Wednesday to shutting down the Post Rock Rural Water District in Ellsworth in March 2019. Prosecutors said Travnichek told investigators he was too intoxicated to remember what happened. A plea agreement calls for him to be sentenced to a year in jail. The system supplies water for about 1,500 customers in central Kansas. Travnichek worked for the district before quitting in January 2019. In March 2019, he shut down the system using a shared pass code…
LAWRENCE, Kan. — Some voters in the Lawrence area mistakenly received two ballots for the upcoming election because of a mix-up that officials are blaming on a third-party printing and mailing company. The Lawrence Journal-World reports that Douglas County Clerk Jamie Shew said Wednesday that the mistake would not affect the operation of November’s local elections. His office has notified voters who may have received two ballots to destroy one of them. But Shew that even if voters receive two ballots and return both of them, the system only allows workers to log one of them.
SABETHA, Kan. — Authorities are investigating an officer-involved shooting in the northeast Kansas town of Sabetha. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation said the shooting happened around 9:45 p.m. Wednesday. The bureau said the Sabetha Police Department and Nemaha County Sheriff’s Office had responded to the scene about two hours earlier after receiving a report that someone was possibly suicidal. The 38-year-old man who was shot was taken to a nearby hospital and then transferred to a larger hospital in Topeka. His condition wasn’t immediately released. None of the officers were hurt.
On Thursday’s edition of In Focus we spoke with Manhattan Area Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Jason Smith and Director of Membership Sharla Meisenheimer.
Masks will no longer be mandated at Manhattan High School. The USD 383 school board voted 6 to 1 Wednesday for the revised pandemic response plan which makes masks optional at both the east and west campuses, beginning Nov. 1, and continues through Nov. 19. All other school buildings will continue to mask up until at least Nov. 19, when the plan will be revisited. Superintendent Dr. Marvin Wade says this decision comes from a mix of the positive and vaccination rates in the county. Wade says now is the time to allow those who have had the ability to…