Clay County Lawmaker Joins Kinder’s Challenge to “Dear Colleague” Letter May 27, 2016

Clay County St. Rep. T.J. Berry says the Obama administration’s new regulation on transgender bathroom preference in public schools could encourage pedophile and child molesters.
“If I’m a pedophile and found in the other bathroom, now I just claim I’m transgender and it allows me to access it (the other bathroom)”
Berry is one of 108 Missouri state lawmakers who signed onto the letter from Lt . Peter Governor Kinder.
Kinder’s letter demands the Obama administration rescind the ‘Dear Colleague” letter sent out to US school districts earlier in May.
“your administration is seizing local control from public schools,” Kinder charges in the letter.
The letter says students who be able to use the bathroom of their preferred sexual identity rather than their gender at birth.
The “dear Colleague” letter from the Obama Education and Justice departments warned that district that do not comply are risking their federal funding.
11 states have sued the Obama administration challenging the regulation.
Kansas and Missouri, however, are not among them.

Transit Policy Stalls May 26, 2016

The proposed ‘Transit Oriented Development Policy’ran into opposition Thursday at a joint meeting of two Kansas City Council committee.

Sponsor Jolie Justus pulled the proposal back at the end of the meeting.

Several council members, including three from the Northland, raised questions about the scope and intent of the plan.

Northland Council member Dan Fowler said he had just received a copy of the lengthy plan. He was concerned that only transit activists had been involved in drawing up the proposal.

“There has been no effort to reach out to those groups beyond those in the city center.” Fowler said, “That’s my concern. Something is going to be passed that most of us are not aware of”.

He added in was in favor a general transit policy,. He think less densely populated parst of the city, like the Northland and South Kansas City, need to be more involved. .

The proposal is intended to guide development along the streetcar line downtown and along some of the city’s bus stations, especially ones of the dedicated MAX bus routes.

The goal is to try and link economic development and transit.
City leaders claim the new 2 mile downtown streetcar route helped revive downtown and south of the loop.
Kansas Citian Sheila Styron testified at the hearing with her guide dog at her side. Styron is blind.

She said it’s right for the city to require business to make sure there bus station near by their operations that the disabled can use easily.

Kansas Citian Fred Gambino noted he owned property in Olathe, Kansas.

He says the city needs a transit guidance plan.
“Because without a policy, there’s no policy. And you’re going to end up like Olathe. Heaven help us,” he said.

The planning department leaders say they will arrange for a set of meetings in both the Northland and South Kansas City before drawing up a revised transit development policy.

Transit Policy Has to Streetcar Plan May 26, 2016

Kansas City, Missouri’s Director of planning says there is no intent to expand the new streetcar line through a new transit policy.

” No. It is not implicitly a plan to expand the street car,” said Jeffery Williams, Planning Director.

The issue came up early in a lengthy Thursday morning meeting on the proposed “Transit Oriented Development” proposal the council is considering.

Northland Council member Heather Hall brought up her concerns about the streetcar expansion early in the meeting. She says she has concerned about a possible expansion.

” I do. I hear, as he (Williams) was discussing the plan, ‘future streetcar expansion’ is in the policy. To me, that means future streetcar expansion,” she said.

Hall remains skeptical about the no-expansion pledge.

Self’S LLC Renews Talk on Closing Tax Break May 17, 2016

(AP) – Bill Self isn’t paying state taxes on the bulk of his millions of dollars of income as men’s basketball coach at Kansas, all legal under 2012 tax reforms.

KCUR (http://bit.ly/1Tkll2m ) reports Self earns a taxable salary of $230,000 a year.

But he also gets at least $2.75 million annually from the entity that runs the school’s intercollegiate sports, and that money goes to Self’s BCLT II limited liability company. That’s among the nearly 334,000 Kansas businesses that owe no state income taxes under Gov. Sam Brownback administration’s 2012 tax cuts. Self’s tax break comes out to more than $125,000 a year.

Kansas Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley of Topeka says he likes Self. But he argues that while the cuts were meant to create jobs, Self doesn’t do that.

Brownback Signs Bill Dropping Welfare Benefits for Needy Families to 24 Months May 16, 2016

(AP) – Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback signed a bill Monday that he said is aimed at freeing more people from poverty, but opponents argue the new welfare restrictions leave families without a safety net during financial difficulties.

Under the new law Kansans will be limited to 24 months on cash assistance over their lifetime. The previous limit was 36 months.

Able-bodied recipients of food assistance also will be required to participate in an employment or training program and not quit a job that offers at least 30 hours of work per week.

The Brownback administration estimates that about 9 percent of the approximately 4,900 households receiving cash assistance will reach the new lifetime limit within the next year.