Serving Kansas City (Wyandotte County) Kansas for over 50 years!
The Unified Government has four drop-off sites for Christmas tree recycling.
The recycling sites are at City Park, 2601 Park Drive; Alvey Park, 4850 Metropolitan; Stony Point Park, 531 N. 86th, and Wyandotte County Park, 126th and State.
The recycling sites will be open from Dec. 28 to Jan. 31, according to an announcement on the UG Facebook page.
Before recycling, residents are asked to remove all ornaments, ribbons and other materials from the tree.
by Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector
Topeka — Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s list of second-term executive branch vacancies climbed to three with retirement of the state’s fire marshal.
Kelly, who will be sworn into office Jan. 9 following reelection in November, must replace state fire marshal Doug Jorgensen, who was among the few holdovers from the administrations of Republican Govs. Sam Brownback and Jeff Colyer.
Kelly has also launched the search for individuals to nominate for Cabinet posts in the departments of transportation and administration.
She is expected to wait until January to nominate replacements for Julie Lorenz, who led the Kansas Department of Transportation, and DeAngela Burns-Wallace, who was secretary of the Kansas Department of Administration. Both appointees would be subject to confirmation by the Kansas Senate.
Jorgensen, appointed fire marshal by Brownback in 2011, was at the Kansas Bureau of Investigation for 28 years. He was retained when Kelly took office in 2019.
“He has worked tirelessly to protect Kansans and property from devastating fires and to support communities in times of loss,” Kelly said.
Jorgensen will retire in January, but temporarily serve as deputy fire marshal to assist with transition to his replacement. The Kansas Senate also has confirmation authority over fire marshal appointments.
Three years ago, Jorgensen raised questions about shallow investigation of fatal fires in Kansas. He told state legislators cases were “falling through the cracks.” He pointed to six fatalities — including one homicide — resulting from explosions or fires in a one-year period that hadn’t been thoroughly investigated.
In 2013, he generated controversy by proposing the fire marshal’s office resume oversight of the explosive industry in Kansas. The office lost power to issue permits in 2010 when an assistant attorney general inadvertently deleted that regulatory authority. Explosive industry representatives objected to his proposal.
“I have thoroughly enjoyed serving three governors as the State Fire Marshal for the last eleven years, and most importantly, supporting the state fire service and helping keep the citizens of Kansas safe,” Jorgensen said.
Kansas Reflector stories, www.kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
Two Wyandotte County students have been initiated into the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi at the University of Kansas.
The students are Christa Bella Bizimana of Kansas City, Kansas, and Brook Rentz of Bonner Springs.
They are among approximately 25,000 students, faculty, professional staff and alumni to be initiated into Phi Kappa Phi each year. Membership is by invitation only and requires nomination and approval by a chapter. Only the top 10 percent of seniors and 7.5 percent of juniors are eligible for membership. Graduate students in the top 10 percent of the number of candidates for graduate degrees may also qualify, as do faculty, professional staff and alumni who have achieved scholarly distinction.