Month: October 2017

Saturday events

Silver City parade scheduled today
The Silver City parade is scheduled at 10 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 7. The parade will start near 42nd and Strong Avenue, and proceed east on Strong to 24th. Afterward, a festival will be held at Emerson Park, 29th and Strong.

Renaissance Festival continues Saturday
The 41st annual Renaissance Festival will continue Saturday, Oct. 7, Sunday, Oct. 8, and Monday, Oct. 9, and will run through Oct. 15. Hours are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. The festival site is located at 130th and State Avenue in Bonner Springs. For more information, visit www.kcrenfest.com.

Wyandotte County Young Democrats to meet
The Wyandotte County Young Democrats will meet from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Oct. 7 at the West Wyandotte Library, 1737 N. 82nd St., Kansas City, Kansas. It will be the group’s first meeting, and officers will be elected. Members of the Johnson County Young Democrats and the Kansas Young Democrats will speak. The group will complete the constitution of the Wyandotte County Young Democrats. Membership requirements include living in Wyandotte County, a registered Democrat, and age 18 to 35. Those who plan to attend are asked to make reservations @[email protected] or [email protected] by Thursday, Oct. 5. The group is on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/WycoYoungDems.

Jazz history program planned
A program on Jazz History on the CODA Fund will be presented by Steve Penn from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 7, at the Café area of the Main Kansas City, Kansas,Ppublic Library, 625 Minnesota Ave.

First Friday exhibit features KCK artist

Kansas City, Kan., artist’s show opens tonight

Michael Young, a Kansas City, Kan., artist, has an opening reception from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 6, at the Jones Gallery, 1717 Walnut, Kansas City, Mo.

The show is “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” a series of original paintings based on the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

The paintings will be at the gallery through October.

The artist’s website, michaelyoungfineart.com, features information and pictures from the “100 Years” series.


Art sale to benefit tallgrass prairie effort

Art depicting the rolling emerald hills and striking prairie fires of the tallgrass prairie will be part of the ninth annual Vision of the Flint Hills art benefit and sale at Buttonwood Art Space in Kansas City, Missouri.

The gallery exhibition will include art from and inspired by Kansas’ Flint Hills region, including the Konza Prairie Biological Station, a part of Kansas State University. Opening night of the art sale, featuring the diminishing ecosystem, will be from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 6, at Buttonwood Art Space, 3013 Main St., Kansas City, Missouri, in conjunction with the KC Crossroads Art District’s First Friday Art Walk. Admission is free and sales will benefit the artists and tallgrass prairie education in the Flint Hills.

Fifty percent of the proceeds from sales will go to Friends of Konza Prairie, a nonprofit organization that supports the Konza Environmental Education Program, or KEEP, at Konza Prairie Biological Station south of Manhattan.

The exhibit also will feature QR codes that link to tallgrass prairie ecological information.

Documents show Kobach proposed changes to federal voting laws

by Stephen Koranda, Kansas News Service

Newly unsealed documents show Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach had proposed changes to federal voting law when meeting last year with then President-elect Donald Trump. The American Civil Liberties Union wanted to disclose the documents in a lawsuit over Kansas voting rules.

At issue were two documents. One was a partially obscured paper Kobach carried into a meeting in November 2016 with Trump, and the second was a document distributed in his office.

They show Kobach had proposed to change the National Voter Registration Act to promote proof-of-citizenship laws. The federal act has been used to challenge Kansas voter registration policies. The changes would allow Kansas and other states to require proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

The ACLU wanted to disclose the documents in a case over Kansas voting rules. The documents were unsealed Thursday by a federal judge.

Dale Ho, an ACLU attorney, says the public has a right to know about Kobach’s proposals.
“I’m glad this dispute over these documents is finally coming to an end. These documents never should have been concealed from the public,” Ho said.

Kobach is vice chairman of a presidential commission studying voting policies and fraud. As secretary of state, he has pushed for laws that require people to produce a citizenship document when registering and show photo ID at the polls.

Kobach has said the ACLU had a political agenda in making the documents public and that unsealing them would hinder his ability to advise the president.

Earlier this week the ACLU launched a national voting rights campaign with an event in Kansas.

Stephen Koranda is Statehouse reporter for Kansas Public Radio, a partner in the Kansas News Service. Follow him on Twitter @kprkoranda. Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to kcur.org.

See more at http://kcur.org/post/documents-show-kobach-proposed-changes-federal-voting-laws.