Category: Opinions

Facebook marks a listing of UG government meeting times in Wyandotte Daily as ‘sexual solicitation’

A funny thing happened on the way to the virtual office

Opinion column

by Mary Rupert, Editor

Facebook last night marked the listing of UG government meeting times on the Wyandotte Daily page Monday as “sexual solicitation” and commented to the Wyandotte Daily that the meeting notice was a violation of their standards.

There was nothing sexual in the content, however, according to Wyandotte Daily Editor Mary Rupert. Facebook on Monday night did not let residents here see the link to the times and topics of the upcoming meetings, but they are on the Wyandotte Daily page at www.wyandottedaily.com.

The meetings were already started or over with at the time Facebook pulled the link to the story, except the Planning Commission meeting was still going on at 9 p.m. when Rupert checked the link to see what they were doing. The audio for this planning commission Zoom meeting didn’t work on the Rupert computer, so we won’t know for a while, until it comes out on YouTube, exactly what they said at that meeting. The bad technology prevented us from covering the meeting right away.

Rupert saw a Facebook note on Tuesday with this misclassification of violating their rules and filled out a form saying she disagreed with their decision that it was a violation. Although they said there was an opportunity for us to tell them why it wasn’t, they also said there was no one available to discuss this decision. There was no phone number given to call and no email to send to.

Within an hour or so of the disagreement with their determination, Facebook came back with an answer that it had changed its mind and now was restoring the post on Facebook.

Here is the text of Monday’s story whose link was deleted temporarily by Facebook. “Tonight” in this story refers to Monday’s meetings:

UG committees to meet tonight
Two Unified Government committees plan to meet tonight. In addition, the Board of Zoning Appeals and City Planning Commission will meet tonight.
The meetings are available to watch on YouTube, Zoom, UGTV cable channels and in person at City Hall.
The Public Works and Safety meeting at 5 p.m. Monday will be followed by the Administration and Human Services Committee meeting.

UG Public Works Committee

Agenda includes active assailant training drills; winter weather operations updates; and five-year capital maintenance and improvement program.

UG Administration and Human Services Committee

Resolution of support for increasing the base salary of sworn sheriff’s office employees; grant for reconnecting communities planning.

Planning Commission
Planning Commission information is at http://public.wycokck.org/sites/planning-agendas-minutes-staffreports/Agendas/November%202022%20CPC%20Agenda.pdf.

Rupert watched the UG standing committee meetings and said, believe me, they were nothing like “sexual solicitation.” She is not asking the UG to change anything or their style of those meetings.

Rupert asked readers not to rely solely on Facebook to see anything new that it posted in Wyandotte Daily, but also to check the Wyandotte Daily website at www.wyandottedaily.com for new information.

Facebook has been a great help to link our readers to new content, but we want to warn our readers that Facebook may remove that link on its own site, affecting your ability to follow the news. That’s why you should keep going to www.wyandottedaily.com to check the website. Facebook does not have any control over our WyandotteDaily.com website — we have our own editor. We have been monitoring our content for more years than they have, since we have been in existence longer, and we never printed sexual solicitations.

When we had technological issues in the past with our website, we were able to post on Facebook some of the content we couldn’t post yet on our own website, and that will probably continue. It was wonderful that we could do that as a stopgap. However, just letting you know that there could be stories posted on our website that are not linked on Facebook, for these above reasons. Facebook has no editorial control over the content on our Wyandotte Daily website.

If you disagree with something you see on the Wyandotte Daily website, you may send an email to Rupert at [email protected].

Another topic, thanks to Tony Warden

Thanks, Tony Warden, for your kind words in noticing when I am out for illness. Yes, I missed a few days of editing recently when I had to visit the hospital to work on cancer issues. Bonner people are very observant.

To reach Mary Rupert, editor, email [email protected].

Community learns of college plans for downtown campus, successful programs

Opinion column

by Murrel Bland

The hope is that construction will begin next spring on the downtown campus of Kansas City Kansas Community College. It will be a $62 million project. The college will cooperate with Community America Credit Union, the Kansas City, Kansas, School District and Swope Health.

That was the message that Dr. Greg Mosier brought to about 90 community leaders who attended the President’s Annual Breakfast at the college Thursday, Nov. 11, at the Paul Jewell building at the college.

The year 2023 will mark the college’s centennial anniversary.

This capital fund-raising effort is the second in the college’s history. Voters approved a bond issue to build the main campus that opened in the early 1970s.

The college has been successful in private sector fund-raising with a $10 million grant from the Sunderland Foundation. The state of Kansas has awarded $12 million toward the construction.

The campus will be located in the 600 block of State Avenue. Course offerings will include high-wage technical education programs plus classes in General Educational Diploma and English as a Second Language.

A highlight of the breakfast was testimonials from two students who received scholarships. The students were Elizabeth Daniels and Madalynn McInness.

Dr. Mosier cited achievements including 15 awards student musicians received from Downbeat magazine and the college’s softball team that made it to a national tournament and was seeded ninth.

The extension course in welding at the Lansing Corrections Facility has been successful in training inmates to help assure that they will have a skill when released.

A major improvement to the main campus is a dormitory called Centennial Hall. It can house 258 students in a state-of-the-art building.

Murrel Bland is the former editor of The Wyandotte West and The Piper Press. He is a member of Business West.

Kansas Legislature predicted to be even more conservative

Views

Opinion column

by Murrel Bland

It appears that the Kansas Legislature will be even more conservative next year.

That was the opinion of John Federico, a lobbyist who spoke Friday, Oct. 21, at a meeting of the Congressional Forum at Children’s Mercy Park in Village West. About 50 persons attended. The forum is a division of the Kansas City, Kansas, Area Chamber of Commerce. Federico represents the chamber in Topeka.

Federico said his organization will have as many 12 persons monitoring the efforts of the Legislature once it begins its 2023 session next January.

The chamber is developing its 2023 Legislative Agenda. As it does, it celebrates its victories from the 2022 session.

Those victories include food sales tax reduction, tax credits for the restoration and preservation of commercial abandoned structures, tax credits for child care, sportsbook gaming, property tax reduction for the elderly and storefront property tax relief because of COVID-19.

One of the major issues which did not pass was Medicaid expansion. Federico said a couple a weeks ago, he would not have predicted the expansion would not pass; however recently he said there may be hope of it in 2023.

Murrel Bland is the former editor of The Wyandotte West and The Piper Press. He is the recording secretary of Business West.