Month: April 2018

UG Committee moves trash collection pilot program forward

The Unified Government Public Works and Safety Committee tonight moved a pilot trash collection program forward to the full UG Commission for approval.

Public Works Department and Waste Management officials described the test program for an automated cart system during tonight’s meeting.

The pilot program, if approved, would be conducted for six months in three neighborhoods, Strawberry Hill, North Ridge in Piper Estates, and Highland Crest.

Residents would continue to have weekly trash collection. They would receive one 95-gallon trash can for their trash. Anyone with additional bags of trash would have to purchase stickers at $1.25 for each bag, or they could sign up for an additional trash cart for $5 a month more.

Residents would receive another 95-gallon can for recycling, which would be collected every two weeks, according to officials. There would be no limit on recycled items; extra cans or bags could be added to recycling.

The pilot trash collection program could come before the full UG Commission on May 10, according to the agenda.

The vote to move the item forward to the full Commission was opposed by Commissioner Mike Kane. Commissioners Melissa Bynum, Brian McKiernan, Angela Markley, Jane Philbrook and BPU board member Tom Groneman voted in favor of moving it forward.

Waste Management officials described an automated truck with an arm that reaches out and grabs a trash can, emptying it into the trash truck.

Several other communities throughout the nation, and some in the Kansas City area, already use this system, according to officials.

Some of the commissioners expressed doubts about the plan tonight.

UG staff said there was $79,000 available in credits that the UG could put toward the cost of this pilot program.

Commissioner Kane said he was against giving Waste Management a dime to conduct the pilot program. This program in theory may save the company money, and it will use less employees, he said. He also was against using any credits the UG has with the company.

He also asked how elderly people would be able to drag a 95-gallon trash can up a long driveway, especially in bad weather.

He said he gets a call about once a week from residents in his district whose trash wasn’t picked up.

Commissioner Jane Philbrook also said she has had several complaints about trash pickup. The Stony Point area was mentioned as one place where the work wasn’t done adequately.

Philbrook said the money the UG was talking about was not “credits,” it was what the company owed the UG for not doing the job. She said she would rather see that money used by the company picking up trash in the parks.

She said she was interested in a basic level of care for residents, and also, she wanted to make sure that there was more than one meeting held in each neighborhood with the residents to discuss the program.

In answer to questions from Commissioner Brian McKiernan, officials said the automated trucks would be able to service the community faster. The trucks are slightly larger, with more capacity, according to officials.

McKiernan questioned the access on very narrow streets in some Strawberry Hill neighborhoods. An official said to service that neighborhood, they may have to retrofit a smaller truck with a cart tipper.

Company officials said if residents put out too much trash, over the limit, haulers would take it, but leave a tag that the resident needs to phone the customer service department to get more information about the trash pickup program. If the resident does it again, one possible solution would be for codes officials to give them a ticket, according to officials.

Waste Management officials said there are options available if the community wants to provide special services for the elderly or disabled. That possibly would cost more and would be negotiated as part of the contract.

Two residents spoke at the meeting.

Shirley Ikerd asked the committee to delay approval of the program, and wait until the public had more time to weigh in on it.

Sheryl Becker said trash has not been picked up consistently in town home areas.

For more information, and a video of this meeting on YouTube, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGFGwnldwqI.

Kansas looks to fill child protection jobs with looser requirements, higher staff salaries

by Madeline Fox, Kansas News Service

The Kansas Department for Children and Families is opening up child protection services jobs to people who aren’t licensed social workers.

It’s child protection workers who investigate reports of possible child abuse or neglect and make recommendations about whether or not children should be removed from their homes.

A third of child protection positions are vacant, and some have been for more than a year, according to DCF. Loosening the prerequisites, said DCF Secretary Gina Meier-Hummel, will help fill in the gaps.

“We have been advertising and advertising positions for quite some time now, and we can’t get many of those positions filled,” Meier-Hummel said Monday in announcing the hiring policy change. Considering unlicensed job candidates, she said, is a must, “in order to have an adequate workforce.”

DCF will still require a bachelor’s degree for its child protection workers. And Meier-Hummel stressed that her agency will extensively train non-licensed workers, and intends to place them in offices with licensed supervisors and other licensed social workers.

Becky Fast, executive director of the National Association of Social Workers’ Kansas chapter, doesn’t think opening the child protection jobs up to unlicensed workers will solve the underlying issues that are keeping the positions unfilled.

“Worker turnover, recruitment, retention will not be solved unless there are higher salaries, adequate training, and lower caseloads,” Fast said.

Meier-Hummel said hiring college graduates for these child protection jobs, regardless of whether they have a license in social work, puts Kansas in line with many other states across the country who don’t require licenses for all child protection roles.

DCF is also planning pay raises. The agency is asking the state for an additional $5.4 million over three years to increase staff salaries by 5 percent, to attract and retain the licensed workers it currently has.

“In order to make sure we can move to the unlicensed staff, we want to make sure we can take care of our current licensed staff,” Meier-Hummel said.

But the bulk of the new budget request announced Monday —$22 million — would go toward updating the old IT systems DCF uses to track children and cases.

That follows a request in January for a $16.5 million budget enhancement for this year and next to address other nagging problems, including providing a place for children awaiting placement to sleep, locating kids missing from their foster homes, and family preservation.

Madeline Fox is a reporter for the Kansas News Service, a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio covering health, education and politics. You can reach her on Twitter @maddycfox. Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to the original post.
See more at http://kcur.org/post/kansas-looks-fill-child-protection-jobs-looser-requirements-higher-staff-salaries.

Martinez emphasizes experience and diversity in his campaign for judge

Tony Martinez

Tony Martinez, a Kansas City, Kansas, attorney, is a candidate for Wyandotte County District Court judge, Division 5.

The position is open this year as Judge Dexter Burdette is retiring. Also running for Division 5 are Jane Sieve Wilson and Mike Nichols. Martinez also ran for judge in the 2016 election.

Martinez emphasized his 27 years of experience as an attorney, handling criminal law, juvenile, family law, probate, trust and estate cases. He said he wanted to give back to the community.

His two main themes in running for office are that he is very qualified, and it is important to have more diversity on the bench, he said. Currently there are no Hispanic judges in the Wyandotte County District Court.

“This is my community, and I think I can serve this community very well as a judge, as well as I’ve served this community as an attorney,” Martinez said. He held a campaign launch event recently at the Kansas City Kansas Community College Mary Ann Flunder Lodge by the Lake.

He has always worked for the people, not for the corporations, coming back to serve the community in the best way possible, he added.

“I also believe there is a need for more diversity on the bench, and I think I represent the face for that,” Martinez said.

Martinez, originally from the Armourdale, Argentine and Rosedale areas, is from a second-generation Mexican-American family in Kansas City, Kansas.

“I believe I represent the best there is to come out of Kansas City, Kansas,” he said.

“My parents were hard-scrabble, hard-working people,” he said. One grandfather started as a meat-cutter, another grandfather worked for the railroad, his father was a teamster and his mother was a mill worker, he said.

Martinez received his law degree from Washburn University, Topeka. He attended several schools and graduated from Bishop O’Hara High School in south Kansas City, Missouri.

He began work before he got out of high school, starting at age 14 working in a grain elevator near 18th and Kansas Avenue, he said.

It was that job that eventually led to him becoming a lawyer. He worked for years shoveling at the grain elevator when his employer recommended that he go to work in the company’s laboratory in Topeka, he said.

After a while, his employer convinced him to further his education, and he went to law school.

“I was lucky enough to have him push me,” Martinez said. “I was encouraged by some really nice people who thought I had the ability to think.”

Martinez said he worked his way through law school, paying for it himself.

If elected, Martinez said he would want to streamline the process by which the court accepts cases, to bring about more of a scheduled way of accepting and disposing of cases.

Criminal cases represent only 10 percent of the cases judges handle, he said. While he has not been a prosecutor, he has handled criminal law from the defense side. He said he is more qualified, practicing law longer than the other candidates, and he has handled all the other types of cases.

“There needs to be more of a transition so all the judges know how to handle all the different types of cases,” Martinez said.

Besides his experience in most areas of the law, Martinez has served as a judge pro tem in Municipal Court.

“We have a population that’s culturally so diverse here in Wyandotte County,” he said, “it’s densely populated with a diverse background.”

Three groups, whites, blacks and Hispanics, are nearly equal in population.

“There isn’t any face that looks like mine on the bench,” he said. It’s important to have a bench that reflects the culturally diverse population, he said. Young Hispanic people wonder if they can ever become a lawyer or judge if there are none there that look like them.

“I’d like to be one of those faces in the community, where Hispanics and all people can say, we have a diverse bench that reflects the community,” he said. “We don’t have that yet, but I’d like to see it.”

Martinez and his wife, Angela, have been married 21 years. He has five children and four grandchildren.

He serves on the executive boards of the Kansas City, Kansas, Rotary Club, the Kansas City, Kansas, NAACP, and the Armourdale Renewal Association. He also is a member of the Greater Kansas City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Kansas City, Kansas, Downtown Shareholders.