Month: March 2022

Semi sideswipes SUV on I-70

An accident involving a semi was reported at 6:45 a.m. Monday, March 14, on westbound I-70 at I-635 in Kansas City, Kansas, according to a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper’s report.

The semi, hauling a trailer, was making a lane change into the right lane when it sideswiped another westbound vehicle, the report stated.

The driver of a Chevrolet Equinox, a 37-year-old woman from Kansas City, Kansas, was taken to a hospital with a possible injury, the trooper’s report stated.

The driver of the Freightliner semi, a 26-year-old Kansas City, Kansas, man, had no apparent injury, the trooper’s report stated.

KCK will be represented in St. Patrick’s Day parade March 17

The St. Patrick’s Day parade is back after a two-year break – and it will have participation from people from Kansas City, Kansas.

The annual event will begin at 11 a.m. on Thursday, March 17, in midtown and the Westport area of Kansas City, Missouri. The parade route stretches from Linwood and Broadway, and continues along Broadway to 43rd Street.

The parade’s grand marshal, Pete McCluskey Jr., grew up in Kansas City, Kansas. He and his family were very involved with volunteering with the parade through the years; his father was the grand marshal of the parade in 1994.

Parade spokeswoman Erin Gabert said she’s sure McCluskey will be glad to be grand marshal after two years of waiting. The parade was canceled for two years because of the risk of COVID-19 and crowds, and it also had a severe weather threat last year.

“It’s really exciting,” Gabert said about the return of the parade this year. “Everybody’s really happy, excited to get to be back and continue this great KC tradition.”

Also in the parade from Kansas City, Kansas, are the KCK Police Pipes and Band, Gabert said. The band is expected to be prominently featured in the parade. It was the first place band winner in 2019.

Gabert said more than 100 entries are in this year’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, including many floats from families and organizations, drill teams, Irish dance groups and all sorts of groups.

Honored at the parade this year will be the Ed and Barbara Scanlon family, the Cullinan Family Spirit Award winners; and the late Don Post, the Mike Murphy Honorary Irishman of the Year.

As an outdoor event, not a ticketed, gated event, it’s difficult to control the crowd for health and safety reasons, but the parade organizers are encouraging anyone who may be sick or have symptoms, or who are immunocompromised, to stay home and watch the parade on television or online, Gabert said.

The parade will be broadcast from noon to 2 p.m. on Fox 4 KC, and also will be shown on the Fox 4 KC website.

Gabert said the parade route is long enough and includes a lot of space where people can spread out. They’re asking people to be smart about what they do, she added.

The St. Patrick’s Day parade has been in the midtown area of Kansas City, Missouri, since 2009. The former route was in the middle of downtown Kansas City, Missouri, and back then, areas where people could watch the parade were limited, with not much space available, she said.

There will be no parking along the parade route from 5 a.m. March 17 through the end of the parade. The parade route will close starting at 8 a.m. March 17.

The parade traditionally is a large tourist event for the Kansas City area.

“With this on Thursday, and close to the weekend, and great weather, we expect to get some people from the regional area,” Gabert said. “Fortunately, the rain is not in the forecast ’til the late afternoon or evening.”

The event will be held rain or shine, according to the parade’s website. The theme of this year’s parade is “Doing an Irish Dance.” Co-chairs of the St. Patrick Day parade this year are Adam Cannon and Michelle Kilker.

A Harvesters Go for the Green food drive is being held in conjunction with the parade this year, and donations can be made at https://www.kcirishparade.com/harvesters/.

The parade also will continue the tradition of involving Children’s Mercy Hospital children and families. The usual Children’s Mercy group of dancers will not be able to attend the parade this year, but the parade committee will take craft activities and videos to the children and families this year. Kids at Children’s Mercy are creating shamrock decorations that will adorn the Children’s Mercy Brigade fire truck in the parade this year.

For more information about the parade, visit www.kcirishparade.com.

AG-backed bill prohibiting ‘sanctuary cities’ brings heavy opposition to Kansas Statehouse

by Noah Taborda, Kansas Reflector

Topeka — Lawmakers are wrangling with legislation backed by Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt to prohibit municipal governments from adopting rules that block cooperation with federal authorities investigating illegal immigrants.

Schmidt initiated the push for a ban on “sanctuary cities” in response to action by the Unified Government of Kansas City, Kansas – Wyandotte County to authorize the issuance of photo identification cards to undocumented people to improve access to public services. The Safe and Welcoming City Act was structured so the ID information wouldn’t be shared with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Opponents of the legislation outnumbered supporters 64-7 during a hearing Tuesday in the House Federal and State Affairs Committee.

Alejandro Rangel-Lopez, lead coordinator for the New Frontiers Project, a group in southwest Kansas working to empower people of color, described his family history with immigration and the importance of having communities where immigrants can feel safe.

Rangel-Lopez said that while proponents may claim the bill does not target legal immigrants, many with mixed-status families would suffer.

“It should be clear to you now that this is not a game. The choices you make as a legislator have very real impacts on the lives of people like me and my family,” Rangel-Lopez said. “Listen to us when we tell you this will have insidious effects on crime reporting in immigrant communities. Listen to us when we tell you that your decisions don’t exist in a vacuum.”

Under House Bill 2717, local units of government would be unable to adopt any “ordinance, resolution, rule or policy” that would interfere with law enforcement cooperation in immigration enforcement actions. In Wyandotte County, law enforcement officials said they hadn’t joined ICE agents on immigration raids for years.

As of 2021, 12 states have enacted state-level laws prohibiting or restricting sanctuary jurisdictions. The Kansas Legislature has considered legislation to prohibit sanctuary cities across the state on several occasions, but none has passed.

Schmidt, a Republican candidate for governor, said Kansas required such a law to ensure the entire state can be safe and welcoming to immigrants.

“That worthy goal cannot be properly accomplished through a patchwork process of local jurisdictions deciding to prohibit their local law enforcement agencies from cooperating or even communicating with federal authorities, nor can that be accomplished by issuing to non-citizens new local-government identification cards that lack basic anti-fraud and anti-abuse safeguards built into state law,” Schmidt said.

The measure also would forbid municipal governments from issuing ID cards to people not lawfully residing in the United States that were designed to satisfy identification requirements set in state law. Any of these cards would read “Not valid for state ID.”

Violating the proposed statute would be considered ID fraud under state criminal law.

While the Kansas Secretary of State’s Office supported the bill, a representative of the office urged legislators to address a potential conflict between state laws on the use of ID cards that could result in voter confusion and litigation.

“It is the firm position of the Kansas Secretary of State that only United States citizens may vote in an election,” said Clay Barker, deputy assistant secretary of state. “Requiring voter identification to cast a ballot ensures the protection of voters’ rights and the integrity of the electoral process.”

Opponents of the bill said it was late in session to be passing such significant legislation.

Aileen Berquist, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, said proponents were narrow sighted in their approach as the bill would not only instill fear but undermine local authority to make the best decisions for their communities. She said it would also force an unfunded mandate on municipal governments by forcing them to engage in potentially unconstitutional immigration enforcement activities.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers are not arrest warrants, Berquist said, but instead are notifications to local law enforcement that ICE intends to assume custody of an individual.

“Courts have repeatedly found that ICE detainers deny due process and do not comply with the fundamental protections required by the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” Berquist said. “Multiple courts have held that the Fourth Amendment does not permit state or local officers — who generally lack civil immigration enforcement authority — to imprison people based on ICE detainers alone. But that is precisely what (the bill) demands that cities and counties do.”

Kansas Reflector stories, www.kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2022/03/15/ag-backed-bill-prohibiting-sanctuary-cities-brings-heavy-opposition-to-kansas-statehouse/.