Budget time approaches

Units of local governments will soon be starting work on their 2014 budgets.  So I thought you might be interested in seeing the history of the mill levy for Hutchinson residents of USD 308.

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Timeline for the new Reno County Jail

Architect's drawing of exterior of new Reno County Jail.

Reno County officials met Monday with Treanor Architects and came up with this timeline for the new jail approved by voters earlier this month.

May 14 – Architects present updated schematic design to County Commission, then go into design development stage

Aug. 6 – Much more detailed design presented to County Commission. Architects then begin work on blueprints and construction documents.

Nov. 12 – Construction documents completed and project is put out to bid by sub-contractors that will work with JE Dunn Construction, the construction manager.

Dec. 19 – Bids returned and opened.

January or February 2014 – Construction begins.

Summer 2015 – Jail completed after 18-month construction period. Next 30-60 days occupied by staff training and testing of systems.

Late Summer/Early Fall 2015 – Inmates transferred to new jail.

Early design of the floorplan. 

On the warming shelf

Here are a few things coming up in Hutchinson and Reno County government in the next few days.

* At 3 p.m. Thursday, Kirk Ebmeier, a homeowner in Ring Levee C just west of Hutchinson, will present a petition to the city asking for creation of a special benefit district to finance improvements to the levee so that those property owners won't be forced to buy flood insurance. The city owns the entire levee system in and around Hutchinson and has already committed to improving the levees protecting property within the city. However, Levee C is outside the city and those who own property there don't pay city taxes.Creation of the special benefit district, with the consent of the Reno County Commission, will allow the city to make improvements to Levee C and collect annual special assessments of about $130 per property to pay off the bonds issued for the improvements. The petition must be signed by at least 51 percent of the owners of the 398 parcels within Levee C.  Assuming the petition is certified as having enough valid signatures, expect the City Council to take up the matter on May 21.

* Dan Rowe of Treanor Architects will meet with Reno County officials on Monday to discuss the progress of final drawings for the new jail and discuss the timing of the construction of the new secure entrance midway between the courthouse and the Law Enforcement Center on the south side of the buildings. The new entrance, which will be equipped with X-ray machines and metal detectors, is intended to prevent anyone from bringing a weapon into the buildings, primarily the courtrooms. When the entrance is built isn't really dependent on any of the other construction projects, but there's a bit of discussion going on over whether to build it but mothball it except for during high-profile trials or potential threats until the jail annex is renovated and the county clerk, treasurer, register of deeds and appraiser move out of the courthouse and into the annex on the southeast corner of First and Adams. Part of the reason for moving those offices is so that the public won't have to stand in line to go through security just to get into the courthouse to transact routine business such as paying their taxes or getting car tags.

A name for the new troika

Sensing that we needed a name for the first women's majority on the Hutchinson City Council, I started kicking around the names of all-girl bands and musical groups.
The Supremes, the Spice Girls, Destiny's Child, Bananarama and the list goes on.
Then I was chatting with Jesse Juma, himself an unsuccessful candidate for the Council, during a reception Tuesday morning for the outgoing and incoming council members. Leave it to Juma, a former concert promoter, to come up with the perfect fit -- the Go Gos.
And so that's how Cindy Proett, Jade Piros de Carvalho and Nancy Soldner will always be known.
At least in my mind.

Breaking up the boys' club

With the swearing in of three new Hutchinson City Council members at 9 a.m. Tuesday, a majority of the council members will be women for the first time since the city was founded in 1872.
Current Council Member Cindy Proett will be joined by new members Nancy Soldner, representing the Southwest District, and Jade Piros de Carvalho, the new at-large representative.
Hutchinson's first female council member was Blanche Openshaw, who was elected in 1967 and served a two-year term. Eight years passed before Hutchinson elected another woman to the Council, Dorothy Hall in 1977.  She stepped down the following year.
Joan Schrag was elected to the first of several terms in 1979 and served until 1994.
With the appointment of Virginia Fesler in 1982, there were two women on the Council for the first time. Fesler was elected in her own right in 1983 and served two more years.
Although Fesler left the Council in 1985, there were still two women on the Council because that's when Frances Garcia was elected to the first of several terms.
Garcia was the only woman on the Council for a short period after Schrag retired from the Council in 1994. In 1995, there were two again when Linda Lair was elected as a write-in candidate. She served until 1997.
That left only one woman on the Council until January 1999, when Garcia  resigned after being elected to the Reno County Commission.
There were no more women on the Proett were elected. Rose resigned in January 2011 after she was elected to a district judgeship. But she was replaced by another woman, former City Attorney Carolyn Patterson, who served about three months until the end of Rose's term.

Council until 2007, when Trish Rose and Cindy
Since then, Proett had been the only woman on the Council.

Hutchinson's City Council Women, clockwise from top left, Joan Schrag (1979-94), Virginia Fesler (1982-85), Frances Garcia (1985-99), Cindy Proett (2007-present), Trish Rose (2007-11) and Linda Laird (1995-97).  Not pictured are Blanche Openshaw (1967-69), Dorothy Hall (1977-78) and Caroline Patterson, who filled Rose's unexpired term for three months in 2011.

Taking office Tuesday are Jade Piros de Carvalho (left) and Nancy Soldner.

Looking deeper into the jail vote

With the canvas of the April 2 election, it's official: 77.4 percent of the 7,252 Reno County residents who voted supported the sales tax increase to pay for a new jail and more.

The jail won in all but one of the county’s 81 voting precincts.  The one exception was immediately south of where the jail will be built at Severance and Blanchard, and the vote there was only 3-0 against the new jail.

Support was widespread but strongest among urban voters who were better off financially.

In the 18 Hutchinson precincts north of 17th Avenue, 14 supported the jail by 80 percent or more.  Three of the other four supported the new jail by 77 to 79 percent. 

Precinct 23, roughly between Plum and Severance and 23rd and 38th, supported the jail by a still convincing 63 percent.

County-wide, 27 of 81 precincts supported the jail proposal by 80 percent or more. Another 33 precincts supported it by 70 to 79 percent, and 17 more supported it by 60 to 69 percent.  That totaled all but four of the 81 precincts.