Category: Bonner Springs

Saturday events

Breakfast with Easter Bunny planned
Breakfast with the Easter Bunny will be held from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. Saturday, March 19, at the Strawberry Hill Museum, 720 N. 4th St., Kansas City, Kan. Breakfast is $6 for adults and $5 for kids. Breakfast is free for 10 and younger. The menu includes biscuits and gravy, pancakes, sausage and drinks. Visiting with the Easter Bunny is free, and a picture with the Easter Bunny costs $5. For more information see www.strawberryhillmuseum.org.

Democrats to meet for breakfast Saturday
The Wyandotte County Third Saturday Democratic Breakfast will meet Saturday, March 19, at The Dotte Spot Bar and Grill, 8123 Parallel Parkway, Kansas City, Kan. Speakers will be State Sen. David Haley, D-4th Dist., and State Rep. Louis Ruiz, D-31st Dist. Rep. Ruiz is the assistant Democratic leader of the Kansas House of Representatives. The breakfast buffet will be available at 8:15 a.m. and the program will begin at 9:15. All Democrats are invited to attend. The cost for the breakfast is $10; or $6 for students and those on limited incomes. Those attending are not required to purchase breakfast

Bank to offer free tax classes
Enterprise Bank and Trust is offering free tax classes to help small business owners prepare their 2016 returns at the bank’s full service bilingual location at the Prescott Plaza, 151 S. 18th St., Kansas City, Kan. The sessions are offered on four Saturdays. The next program is March 19, and will feature an Enterprise Bank and Trust financial adviser and a local tax professionals. The informational sessions will be in both English and Spanish. Presentations will begin at 9:30 a.m. Saturday in the branch lobby, followed by a brief question-and-answer period. The remaining session is at 9:30 a.m. on April 2. For more information, call 913-693-2790.

Legislative coffee planned
A legislative coffee is planned at 10 a.m. Saturday, March 19, at the Main Kansas City, Kan., Public Library auditorium, 625 Minnesota Ave., Kansas City, Kan. Sen. Pat Pettey, Rep. Valdenia Winn and Rep. Pam Curtis are expected to attend and discuss their work in Topeka. There will be a question-and-answer session. The public may attend.

Church plans parade and Easter egg hunt
Neighborhood children have been invited to a parade and Easter egg hunt at 10 a.m. Saturday, March 19, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 1300 N. 18th St., Kansas City, Kan.

Learn how marbles are made
A marble-making demonstration is scheduled from about 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, March 19, at Moon Marble Co. store, 600 E. Front St., Bonner Springs. Demonstrations begin around 10 a.m. or 10:30 a.m. and end at about 3 p.m., provided a glass artist is available. For more information, see www.moonmarble.com/.

Learn sewing and quilting at the library
Sewing and quilting for beginners or for those who want to learn more will be offered from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, March 19, at the West Wyandotte Library, Kansas City, Kan., Public Library, children’s craft room, 1737 N. 82nd, Kansas City, Kan. The class is for adults, and for those ages 10 and older. There is a limit of 15. Advance registration is requested to the library, 913-596-5800. Those who register get priority.

Community event planned at Old Quindaro Museum March 19
A free community event is planned March 19 at the Old Quindaro Museum, 3432 N. 29th St., Kansas City, Kan. “Keeping Hope Alive” is the theme of the spring break event. The event is sponsored by the Kansas City, Kan., Branch and Greater Kansas City Chapter of the NAACP, and the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. The hours are noon to 4:30 p.m. Saturday, March 19. Food, music, hayrides, poetry readings and impromptu entertainment are part of the plans for the family event. For more information, call 816-820-3615 or visit http://www.oldquindaromuseum.org/.

Spaghetti dinner benefit planned for Grinter Place March 19
A spaghetti dinner is planned at the Grinter Place state historic site, 1400 S. 78th St., Kansas City, Kan., from 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday, March 19. It will be at the Grinter Barn. Prairie Praise Band will provide entertainment. Tickets are $7 in advance or $10 at the door. Kids 5 and younger are free. For information, call 913-481-3527.

Historian to tell of Klan activities

Tim Rives
Tim Rives

Tim Rives, a noted historian who has done extensive research and writing about the Ku Klux Klan in Kansas during the early 1900s, will be the featured speaker at the quarterly meeting of the Wyandotte County Historical Society at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 20, at the Wyandotte County Museum, 631 N. 126th St. , in Wyandotte County Park, Bonner Springs.

Rives is deputy director and supervisory archivist at the Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene, Kan. Previously he was an archivist at the National Archives, Kansas City, Mo.

Rives found that the Klan had an extensive influence among political activities and elected officials, particularly in Wyandotte County. His work is detailed in a 62-page article in the winter edition (2015-2016) of The Historical Journal of Wyandotte County entitled “Klan on the Kaw: The Ku Klux Klan in Wyandotte County, Kansas.”

Rives grew up in Wichita, Kan., and graduated from Wichita East High School. He received a Bachelor of General Studies degree from Wichita State University and a Master of Arts degree from Emporia State University.

The Historical Society will present its annual awards for volunteer service.

Legislators want to postpone waiver integration

Subcommittee recommends putting off plan until January 2018 because of lack of details

by KHI News Service staff

Legislative support is growing for a further delay of a plan to combine Medicaid waiver services — part of a recent pattern of the Republican lawmakers pushing back against Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration.

A subcommittee of four members of the House Health and Human Services Committee recommended last week that the administration postpone the waiver integration one year to Jan. 1, 2018.

“When the administration brought this to us, we did not see enough data that it was going to be done in a way that would meet the needs of our most vulnerable citizens,” said the subcommittee chairman, Rep. Willie Dove, a Republican from Bonner Springs.

The subcommittee’s recommendation is available for the full House health committee to act on. The committee also may consider House Bill 2682, which would require legislative approval before the administration combines the waivers. The committee had scheduled debate and a possible vote on that bill Monday, but it was pulled from the calendar.

Dove’s subcommittee held two hearings on the integration plan. First the panel heard from a dozen disability advocates who said the state was moving too fast on the high-stakes plan.

At the second hearing state officials from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment made their case for the Jan. 1, 2017 implementation date, which had already been pushed back from July 1, 2016.

Rep. Les Osterman, a Republican from Wichita on the subcommittee, said the state didn’t provide enough details about how the waiver integration plan would actually work.

“We didn’t get the answers we wanted,” Osterman said. “They didn’t show us any procedure manuals. They showed us no plan. We asked the question of KDHE and they didn’t give us any plans whatsoever.”

The subcommittee also wants to see what Dove called “doorstop” points along the way, where state officials could stop and assess the transition and make adjustments if necessary.

Disability rights advocates said they were impressed with the subcommittee’s work.

Tom Laing, executive director of Interhab, a non-profit that serves Kansans with developmental disabilities, said the group commissioned by House Health and Human Services Committee chairman Rep. Dan Hawkins was thorough.

“Hawkins deserves credit for naming the subcommittee and the subcommittee deserves credit for the work they’ve done,” Laing said.

Mike Oxford, executive director of the Topeka Independent Living Center, which serves Kansans with physical disabilities, said he initially thought the subcommittee hearings would just be a formality for a Legislature that has generally been receptive to Brownback administration proposals.

But Oxford said Dove, Osterman and the other two members — Rep. Jim Kelly, a Republican from Independence, and Rep. Jim Ward, a Democrat from Wichita — asked the right questions.

The subcommittee’s skepticism of the administration’s assurances fit a larger pattern of Republican House and Senate members, who are all up for reelection in November, increasingly resisting the governor’s office.

They’ve pushed back on Brownback’s plan to use special tax incentives to lure the American Royal across the Missouri border, ripped an administration deal to finance a new power plant, sought to pre-empt any administration attempts to unilaterally privatize state hospitals and even introduced bills to roll back Brownback’s signature income tax exemption for businesses.

Osterman said he believes the administration has enacted too many big changes without sufficient vetting — including the move to privatized, managed care Medicaid under KanCare.

“I saw what happened with KanCare,” Osterman said. “It wasn’t going to happen again. Not on my watch.”

KHI reporter Megan Hart contributed to this story.

The nonprofit KHI News Service is an editorially independent initiative of the Kansas Health Institute and a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor reporting collaboration. All stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to KHI.org when a story is reposted online.

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