Category: Bonner Springs

Bonner Springs, Edwardsville could apply for UG’s ARPA funds

Bonner Springs and Edwardsville may be interested in applying for American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds.

At a Unified Government ARPA subcommittee meeting on March 22, representatives of the two cities indicated interest in receiving some of the ARPA funding that the UG has not yet spent.

Another ARPA subcommittee event, a community workshop, is scheduled from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. tonight, March 29, both virtually and in person at City Hall, 701 N. 7th St., Kansas City, Kansas. At the workshop the public may discuss how COVID has affected them and the community, and discuss how they would prioritize recovery funds. The workshop will be on Zoom. Registration is required to https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYpdemprDIiGd2rYOBG2IDTNYr2jZ4ldL5g.

Kathleen von Achen, UG chief financial officer, told the ARPA subcommittee on March 22 that ARPA funding for the smaller cities was determined by the state under the direction of the state treasury office. The cities received allocations directly from the state. Bonner Springs received $6 million and Edwardsville received $680,000. The school districts also received ESSER allocations from federal funding.

The UG ARPA subcommittee has been actively evaluating the process for distributing funds and setting priorities.

The ARPA funding to the UG was split between an allocation to the city of Kansas City, Kansas, and Wyandotte County.

Von Achen said $7.2 million in ARPA funding to Wyandotte County is still available and has not yet been allocated. Initially Wyandotte County received $32 million in ARPA funding, she said, and the county’s estimated revenue loss replacement was $11 million. An immediate needs resolution was adopted on Aug. 26, to spend $8.5 million, with an additional $1.58 million set aside for housing assistance.

Public health in Wyandotte County received $8.3 million, according to Von Achen. There also were allocations for the Area Agency on Aging and community corrections. Public health expenditures included the vaccination facility at the downtown UG Health Department expanded; booster shots and pediatric shots for ages 5 to 11 expanded; contact tracing for managing the spread of COVID, quarantine and isolation housing, free food and cleaning supplies, technical assistance for local health providers, long-term care facilities and mental health facilities.

Also, the Community Health Improvement Plan was addressed, and violence prevention staff was hired, along with a health equity coordinator.

About $1.85 million was allocated through United Way for housing assistance, she said. These funds should be distributed to nonprofit agencies for all of Wyandotte County, she said.

About $500,000 has been allocated for nonprofits, and these allocations are still pending, to be launching in April, according to Von Achen.

According to Bonner Springs officials, the city is experiencing a need for funding to address stormwater problems.

Edwardsville officials discussed a need for funding for participation in the dispatch system, and other issues.

Von Achen said that while the UG could decide to give some of the county ARPA funding to Bonner Springs and Edwardsville, the cities would have to apply for the funding and tell how it would be used. The UG is required to have this sort of information and application before it allocates any funding to agencies, governments and organizations, as part of the rules governing ARPA spending, according to von Achen. The UG cannot just make a line-item allocation to the cities.

Local nonprofits also may apply for ARPA funding from the UG. More information on the application process is at https://www.wycokck.org/files/assets/public/board-of-commissioners/documents/arpa-nonprofit-application-process-1.18.22.pdf.


For more information on the workshop tonight, see https://www.wycokck.org/Engage-With-Us/Calendar-of-Events/ARPA-Community-Workshop-1.

Bonner Springs police nab shoplifting suspect

The Bonner Springs police reported the stop of a person who was suspected of shoplifting on March 23.

An officer who was at the Bonner Walmart saw a person who was known to have committed multiple thefts from Walmart, according to the police department’s Bonner Brief posted on social media.

The officer attempted to stop the person, who was leaving without paying for items concealed in pockets, according to the report.

The person fled to an awaiting vehicle, while the officer chased on foot, police stated. The driver was in possession of stolen goods along with multiple narcotics, according to police.

In other action, the Bonner police animal control officer and a police corporal were called into action on March 24 when two horses escaped around I-70 and 142nd Street, according to the Bonner Brief report. The Bonner animal control officer and police wrangled the straying horses.

Historian tells of Sumner High School

Chester Owens

by Murrel Bland

Chester Owens Jr. received a telephone call in about 2005 (he can’t recall the exact date) telling him that many artifacts of Sumner High School were about to be destroyed. He quickly rescued these historic items, storing many of them in the basement of his home.

This is one of several stories that Owens told Sunday afternoon, March 20, at a quarterly meeting of the Wyandotte County Historical Society at the Wyandotte County Museum in Wyandotte County Park, Bonner Springs. About 50 persons attended.

Today, there is a history room at Sumner Academy of Arts and Sciences displaying many items including the rescued artifacts.

Owens, a dedicated historian of Sumner High School, came to Wyandotte County with his family from Ashdown, Arkansas, in 1946. He became a sophomore at Sumner.

Owns told of how Sumner became the only segregated high school, by law, in Kansas. On April 12, 1904, a very popular white youth, Roy Martin, was shot and killed in Kerr Park. Charged and convicted was Louis Gregory, a Black youth. Throughout the years, Black historians have argued that Gregory was trying to defend himself. The white community was up in arms. The solution was to segregate schools—all Black students would attend Northeast Junior High and Sumner High School.

Kansas Gov. E.W. Hoch was reluctant to sign the bill that made Sumner a segregated school; he did it only after being assured Sumner would be of the same quality as other buildings in the Kansas City, Kansas, School District. The law also guaranteed that Sumner faculty members would be paid as well as their white counterparts. These factors attracted faculty members from all over the United States.

The name of the high school was chosen honoring U.S. Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, an abolitionist.

Owens told several prominent graduates, faculty members and administrators of Sumner. They included:

• William Foster, president of the American Bandmasters Association and board member of the John Phillips Sousa Foundation.
• Fernando J. Gaitan Jr., senior U.S. Court Judge for the Western District of Missouri.
• John McClendon, first Black head coach of any professional sport.
• Leon Brady was band director at Sumner. His jazz band raised $25,000 from private sources so the band could attend international competition in Paris—they called the event “Sumner in Paris.”
• Col. Vernon Coffey was appointed as the U.S. Army aide to President Richard M. Nixon.

The Historical Society named Owens the “Historian of the Year.”

Murrel Bland is the former editor of The Wyandotte West and The Piper Press. He a member of the Board of Trustees of the Wyandotte County Historical Society.