Lawrence Journal-World. March 20, 2021.
Editorial: With weeds, Douglas County commissioners have a chance to show rural residents they understand
Weeds are a real hassle everywhere, but they have the chance to turn into a true problem at the Douglas County Commission.
County commissioners last week agreed to delay adoption of the county’s annual noxious weed plan for at least two weeks after environmentalists expressed concern about the use of chemicals in the weed control plan.
A delay of a few weeks in approving the plan is not particularly problematic. County commissioners certainly should hear from environmentalists on issues such as this. Rather, the extent of this problem will be determined by what happens next.
County commissioners need to realize they are dealing with an issue that goes beyond weeds. This is one of the first tests for a new commission that has relatively little experience in the rural environment. As the Journal-World has reported, this county commission is the first in memory where all three county commissioners live inside the city limits of Lawrence.
That’s fine. The vast majority of residents in Douglas County also live inside the city limits of Lawrence.
However, it is worth remembering that the vast majority of land in Douglas County is still outside the Lawrence city limits. While the number of people who live on that rural land isn’t great, their importance to the Douglas County community certainly is. Farms in Douglas County - there are about 1,000 of them at last count - still easily produce $50 million to $70 million worth of crops and livestock per year.
County commissioners hopefully will realize that issues like this weed plan aren’t just words on paper to people who are trying to make a living in this industry. If you have a pasture with Johnson grass and no feasible way of treating hundreds of acres of it at a time, you very well could lose one of the assets that help you put food on your table.
Hopefully, commissioners also will bring proper perspective to this issue. One member of the local Sierra Club and other environmental organizations, told county commissioners that chemicals are “indiscriminate killers.” She noted chemicals “kill birds, bugs, fish and people.” Not to be too facetious, but you can also say the same about water. (Yes, even a saltwater fish will die in freshwater.) The point being, the issue isn’t that clear cut.
Certainly, though, county commissioners would be within their rights to make changes to the county’s noxious weed plan. After all, that’s why the plan is presented for their approval. Hopefully, though, they will be moderate in their approach.
If the county wants to launch an education campaign with rural residents about not using certain types of chemicals that are otherwise legal in the U.S., it should do so. Likely, though, it will be beneficial if county commissioners first do a deep dive into how the agricultural community uses those chemicals today, or else the commission probably is doomed to get little to no buy-in.
County commissioners should resist any thought of banning the use on private property of otherwise legal chemicals. In other words, don’t tell local farmers that they can’t spray a legal chemical on their own land. If commissioners go that route, they will have really stepped in it, as they say on the farm. Kansas legislators - many who already don’t like Douglas County - will attach a target to that action.
Worse, though, it will create an unnecessary divide between the urban and rural populations of the county. The country already suffers from such a divide. Douglas County doesn’t need to emulate those problems.
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Topeka Capital-Journal. March 19, 2021.
Editorial: Senate bill banning transgender youths from Kansas sports is a bad solution looking for a problem
The 24 Kansas senators who voted Wednesday for a bill banning transgender youths from girls and women’s school sports evening voted for small-minded bigotry.
They voted for harassment, for name-calling, for bullies. The House of Representatives should refuse to hear the bill. If it passes there, Gov. Laura Kelly should veto it.
Right now, it’s reported that a total of five transgender athletes are competing in the whole of the state of Kansas. And Republicans in the Senate would have us believe that somehow these athletes’ involvement in youth sports is a pressing problem demanding a legislative solution.
You don’t have to understand why someone might come out as transgender. It’s really none of your business. But you do owe anyone in such circumstances a bit of empathy. Can you imagine how difficult it is to tell everyone that your gender is different than that assigned to you at birth? Can you imagine the bravery it takes to change how you present yourself to the world, living your truth openly?
Again, you don’t have to understand why. But you should understand the challenges. And then realize that legislators in the state capitol have decided that your very being is worth passing a law against. And not a law that would bar bullying or abuse against you - but a law that is itself bullying and abuse.
Bill is incoherent
The bill isn’t even coherent on its own terms. Why does it only address girls’ and women’s sports? Why not boys’ and men’s sports? Could it be that stereotypes of predatory transgender women motivate hateful activists more than transgender men?
For that matter, what about students who may identify as nonbinary? More and more young people are identifying themselves as occupying a space between genders. How might we define them?
Gov. Kelly is right to call the bill regressive. Student athletes are right to call on national sports tournaments to boycott Kansas if the law passes. We are better than this piece of nonsensical garbage masquerading as legislation.
Change isn’t the end of the world
We understand: Transgender men and women can be difficult to understand for those of us who grew up with a certain view of the world. But some 20 years ago, it was unimaginable that gay men and lesbian women would get married and raise families across the United States. That has happened, and far from damaging anyone’s moral code, the change has been wholly positive for families and communities.
Change came, and it ended up being no big deal.
The inclusion of trans athletes is precisely the same situation. It may seem strange or uncomfortable. But there’s no indication the sky is falling, or that school sports or women’s sports will somehow fundamentally change if trans girls and women compete.
Let them play.
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Kansas City Star. March 19, 2021.
Editorial: Overland Park burned taxpayer money covering up severance in police killing of teen
Do you need a permit to burn money in Overland Park? If so, the city government needs to get one, because it’s throwing taxpayers’ dollars on a billowing bonfire.
For some reason, the city hired an outside lawyer to fight The Kansas City Star’s lawsuit that seeks release of a confidential severance agreement with the former police officer who shot and killed 17-year-old John Albers in January 2018. The tragedy happened during what was supposed to be a welfare check on the youth.
Fighting release of the $70,000 agreement with former Officer Clayton Jenison is a complete and ongoing waste of money. The question, in Johnson County District Judge Rhonda K. Mason’s words, is “whether an agreement setting forth the terms and conditions to end employment (i.e. severance agreement) constitutes an ‘employment related agreement.’”
What an asinine question. It’s a costly one as well for Overland Park taxpayers, and perhaps an easy one for the courts: Mason ruled Thursday that the agreement is clearly a public record under the Kansas Open Records Act.
It’s a sure bet that 10 out of 10 people on the street could’ve told the city that an agreement ending one’s employment is “employment-related.”
“It is absurd,” says Star attorney Bernie Rhodes. “It’s been absurd since day one. I don’t understand how it’s been so complicated.”
The city’s position, Rhodes says, is that only an agreement that begins an employment relationship is an “employment-related agreement.” Where in the Milky Way galaxy does that make sense?
The city council’s Public Safety Committee chairman, Paul Lyons, told The Star Editorial Board last week that he wishes the city could release the agreement.
“Now a judge has told them they can,” says Rhodes.
Lyons said Thursday he was waiting on the city attorney’s reaction to the ruling.
An Overland Park spokesman wrote late Thursday that the city will “make a determination soon regarding the city’s next step.” Of course, the city has options besides releasing the agreement as ordered, thanks to the guaranteed flow of tax dollars. It can appeal the ruling. It can even string the case out longer than that - by arguing that it doesn’t owe The Star its attorney fees, and only then appealing the ruling on the severance agreement.
But no other entity in Kansas is fighting release of such a severance agreement. And, in fact, the University of Kansas released former head football coach Les Miles’ agreement the day it was asked for.
“It’s only Overland Park that’s taking this position,” Rhode says.
If such agreements were kept secret, the judge writes in her ruling, “how would the public ever know what amounts have been paid and under what conditions? … One of the fundamental concepts behind Kansas’ open records law is to provide for transparency and accountability in government. If an agency felt that these types of agreements were not subject to disclosure what incentive would there be to use tax dollars responsibly if the amount would never be disclosed?”
“We will be interested to see who in city leadership felt it was appropriate to pay Jenison a severance package and then mislead the public about his separation from Overland Park Police Department,” says Albers’ mother, Sheila Albers, who was thrilled with the latest victory for transparency about her son’s death. “This is disgusting on so many levels.”
Another perverse aspect of the whole affair is that the longer Overland Park fights openness, the more attention it brings to 1) the fact that one of its young residents was killed during a welfare check and 2) the city doesn’t want the world to know how it parted ways with the officer responsible.
Taxpayers are burning money for the privilege of watching the city’s reputation go up in smoke.
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