County Appraiser Matt Willard, right, and his deputy, Janae Robbins, explained the functions and duties of the appraiser’s office at the spring membership meeting of Business West.
by Murrel Bland
Residential housing values have increased more than 13 percent during 2021, compared to 2020.
That was the message that County Appraiser Matt Willard and his deputy, Janae Robbins, brought to the spring membership meeting of Business West held Friday, March 16, at The Dotte Spot Bar and Grill.
That increase was due to a high demand for single-family housing here and across the country. Nationally, there is a need for more than 4 million new homes.
Willard explained that the annual notice of appraisal and classification went out March 15 as required by Kansas state law which specifies that real property be valued at fair market value. If a property owner believes that his or her property is overvalued, he or she has until April 14 to appeal it. Real estate values are used along with the mill rate to determine the amount of tax charged.
Willard said he and his staff closely monitor real estate sales in determining values. There were about 5,400 residential sales during 2021 in Wyandotte County.
Willard joined the County Appraiser’s office in 2006 after working as a fee appraiser. The Unified Government Commission appointed him county appraiser in 2021 to a four-year term.
Murrel Bland is the former editor of The Wyandotte West and The Piper Press. He is an advisory director of Business West.
Four men have been charged with cyberattacks on energy sector facilities around the world — including Wolf Creek nuclear plant in Burlington, Kansas. The unsealing of indictments comes amid rising tensions between Washington and Moscow.
A federal indictment made public Thursday accuses four men with ties to Russian spy outfits of trying to gain control of U.S. nuclear power plants — including one in Kansas — through cyber sabotage.
Prosecutors contend the defendants targeted both software and hardware to cripple critical infrastructure in the U.S., including the Wolf Creek nuclear plant near Burlington, Kansas.
The U.S. Justice Department describes a pair of concerted attacks that involved, among other tactics, planting malware on more than 17,000 devices.
That alleged hacking, the indictment says, had some success that gave saboteurs unauthorized access to networks and computers across the energy sector.
All of the men are Russian nationals accused of working for their Ministry of Defense to wreck parts of the global energy sector between 2012 and 2018. Justice officials say the hacking campaigns sought to infiltrate thousands of computers at hundreds of private companies and government agencies across roughly 135 countries.
“Russian state-sponsored hackers pose a serious and persistent threat to critical infrastructure both in the United States and around the world,” Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said in a news release. “The criminal charges unsealed today … make crystal clear the urgent ongoing need for American businesses to harden their defenses and remain vigilant.”
Although the indictments were unsealed Thursday — amid rising U.S.-Russia tensions — they were first filed in secret in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., and Kansas City, Kansas, in 2018.
Prosecutors said in a news release that Wolf Creek and its owners, Evergy and the Kansas Electric Power Cooperative, worked with investigators and “provided invaluable assistance.”
The Justice Department contends Wolf Creek fell target to attack in a second phase of attacks known as “Dragonfly 2.0” focused on specific energy facilities, including engineers at the plant. The indictment says the Russian operatives targeted more than 3,300 people at 500 U.S. and foreign companies and government agencies.
Part of the alleged scheme banked on spearfishing hacks that use email to draw people to seemingly legitimate websites that were actually traps designed to steal passwords, plant malware or otherwise gain ways to bypass cybersecurity defenses.
“When the engineers browsed to a compromised website, the conspirators’ hidden scripts deployed malware designed to capture login credentials onto their computers,” according to the Justice Department.
Officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission were also targets of the alleged attacks.
Pavel Aleksandrovich Akulov, Mikhail Mikhailovich Gavrilov, and Marat Valeryevich Tyukov are charged with conspiracy to cause damage to the property of an energy facility and commit computer fraud and abuse, in an indictment in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kansas. A second indictment from the D.C. court alleged that Russian national Evgeny Viktorovich Gladkikh and unnamed co-conspirators targeted a foreign oil facility and a U.S. energy company between 2017 and 2018.
FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate said in a news release that Moscow was responsible for the attacks.
“We will continue,” he said, “to identify and quickly direct response assets to victims of Russian cyber activity.”
News website Politico cited an unnamed Justice official saying more action on the issue could come from the federal government in coming days. The same source told Politico that the defendants are unlikely to be extradited.
Scott Canon is managing editor of the Kansas News Service, a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy. You can reach him on Twitter @ScottCanon or email scott (at) kcur (dot) org. Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished by news media at no cost with proper attribution and a link to ksnewsservice.org. See more at https://www.kcur.org/news/2022-03-24/federal-officials-say-russian-spies-tried-to-hack-into-a-kansas-nuclear-power-plant.
National Weather Service graphicMinimum relative humidity will be in the 30 percent range on Friday, contributing to elevated fire weather conditions. (National Weather Service graphic)Maximum wind gusts could be up to 32 mph Friday in Wyandotte County, according to the National Weather Service. (National Weather Service graphic)Minimum relative humidity on Saturday will be around 30 percent, according to the National Weather Service. (National Weather Service graphic)Wind gusts on Saturday in Wyandotte County could reach a high of 20 mph. (National Weather Service graphic)
Sunshine is back in the National Weather Service forecast today for Wyandotte County, along with wind gusts up to 32 mph.
There will be elevated fire weather conditions Friday and Saturday because of gusty winds and relative humidity, the weather service said. Outdoor burning is discouraged.
Wind gusts in the 30-mph range are possible Friday. Temperatures will reach the 50s on the weekend, then will rise to the 70s on Monday, according to the weather service.
The high could reach 82 on Tuesday before plummeting to a high of 64 on Wednesday, the weather service said.
In the coming week, storms will be possible Tuesday night through Thursday, according to the weather service.
Today, it will be mostly cloudy, then gradually becoming sunny, with a high near 56, the weather service said. A west wind of 9 to 17 mph will become north northwest in the morning, and winds may gust as high as 32 mph.
Tonight, it will be mostly clear, with a low of 33 and a west wind of 7 to 10 mph, according to the weather service.
Saturday, it will be mostly sunny, with a high near 54 and a north northwest wind of 7 to 11 mph, gusting as high as 20 mph, the weather service said.
Saturday night, it will be mostly clear, with a low of 31 and a north wind of 3 to 7 mph, according to the weather service.
Sunday, it will be mostly sunny, with a high near 54and an east wind of 6 to 10 mph, the weather service said.
Sunday night, it will be partly cloudy, with a low of 39, according to the weather service.
Monday, it will be mostly sunny, with a high near 71, the weather service said.
Monday night, it will be mostly clear, with a low of 56, according to the weather service.
Tuesday, it will be mostly sunny, with a high near 82, the weather service said.
Tuesday night, there is a 60 percent chance of rain and thunderstorms, then rain likely and possibly a thunderstorm after 1 a.m., according to the weather service. The low will be around 52.
Wednesday, there is a 70 percent chance of rain, with a high near 64, the weather service said.
Wednesday night, there is a 50 percent chance of rain, with a low of 36, according to the weather service.
Thursday, it will be partly sunny, with a high near 51, the weather service said.
