Topeka s mayor and city council may be asked to authorize the demolition of the iconic Menninger Clock Tower building, a Topeka landmark standing on the former campus of the famed Menninger psychiatric clinic.
The Topeka Landmarks Commission voted 9-0 on Jan. 14 to reject an application for a demolition permit submitted by Colorado-based SCL Health, the owner of the property, which is just northeast of S.W. 6th and Wanamaker Road.
But Kansas law enables SCL to appeal that decision to Topeka s governing body, which consists of the city s mayor and council, said city planning director Bill Fiander.
SCL plans to appeal the Landmark Commission s vote if it is unable to find a viable partner to which to donate the building, said Nikki Sloup, its public information officer and vice president of system communications, on Monday.
Shanta Trice could have lived anywhere in Topeka, but she chose the Hi-Crest neighborhood.
“There is just a sense of belonging, being aware of who you are and being accepted,” said Trice, who is also a spokeswoman for Mothers of Murdered Sons.
The diversity of Hi-Crest, coupled with its sense of community, gives the area potential, Trice said, but she believes it is being squandered. She said some central, northern and eastern neighborhoods “definitely get slighted in city infrastructure investment.
Trice said everything from roads to business development is lacking, and that has a negative impact on schools.
“I can t tell you really where it’s broken, other than it is broke,” Trice said. “It’s a cesspool of all kinds of problems.”
Ortiz wants community members to know about a program that will bridge that divide.
The TPD has a Take Me Home program, which is a database of “adults and children who may have difficulty communicating due to a developmental or cognitive disability,” the city’s website said. TPD uses this database to better assist officers in the field, but people need to sign up someone for the program to put them in the database.
“It’s very important that we know our community,” said interim Chief Bryan Wheeles during Tuesday’s Police and Community committee meeting. “Your approach is different.”
As cries of no justice, no peace and Black lives matter once again rang out in streets across the country this summer, policymakers were faced with the most intense calls yet to increase racial equity in policing.
Kansas was not immune to those discussions in the wake of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis, Minn., police. Protests followed in Topeka, Wichita and scores of other communities, as residents again sought changes in their backyards and across the state.
Whether state legislators will consider advancing aggressive reforms favored by those activists, however, remains unclear. And some changes, like alterations to how police departments are funded, can only be pursued at the local level.
If you rent out “more than two rooms” in Topeka, you might have a new tax to pay after the Topeka City Council voted to broaden taxing language.
Topeka’s previous transient guest tax ordinance only taxed providers who rented out more than eight rooms in one location, but Topeka City Council voted to reduce that limit to tax entities that are renting out “more than two rooms,” the ordinance reads.
A transient guest is someone who stays in a hotel, motel or “tourist court for not more than 28 consecutive days.
The updated ordinance also makes “accommodations brokers” subject to the tax. An accommodation broker is a business that rents two or more rooms in one or more locations, like Airbnb.