The Post Podcast

2022 ACE Auction underway

On this episode of the Post Podcast Thomas More Prep-Marian advance director Troy Ruda shares information about the 2022 ACE auction and dinner. 
 
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
The Hays Catholic Schools Ace auction is firing up this week advancement director with Thomas Moore prep Marion Troy Ruda stops by to talk to us about that and more on this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
Troy Ruda
Yes, and we're excited this year, because for the past two years, let's see, two years ago, we canceled all together and went fully online. And then last year, we tried to bring just a small group of people back together, but the auction was still online completely. And then this year is the first year that we're going to be a full in person auction with a portion of it being online and a portion of it being in person and the oral auction that that folks are accustomed to. So it's gonna be fun to have it. Welcome everybody back into the LBL in your Fieldhouse, very cool. I
 
James Bell 
love that. And you know, it's it's so neat to me, as you know, we're all kind of coming out of the pandemic, to hear about all of these organizations are these things like this fundraisers that have really kind of embraced the digital along with the in person?
 
Troy Ruda
Yeah. If you would have asked us three years ago, would we ever take the auction online, we probably would have said, Heck, no, it would have been a hard no for us. Because it was so successful the way that we were doing it. But the circumstances forced us into a response of learning how learning how the online auction can work. And it turned out really well, I don't know that we'll ever go back to the full in person auction where you have to be there because this is able to let so many more people become involved around the world if they would like to. So it didn't, it just all of the supporters can come out. And so the online has its, you know, we learned something in the last couple of years on on how we can, how we're going to be able to go forward in the future with this auction.
 
James Bell 
Yeah. But you know, in the but the online to me, it never takes away from the excitement, the energy of doing something in person. So let's talk some details, right, because people are coming back and you've got some tickets still available for this event, right?
 
Troy Ruda
We do. There are a few tickets left to attend the in person auction, which begins on doors open for that at five o'clock on Saturday, at the Albion, your Fieldhouse there on the campus of TMP Marian. So if you would like to attend those tickets, the general admission seating is $100 per person. And that gets you a bid number to be able to bid on the oral auction items, as well as your dinner and beverages for the evening as well. And then finish off the evening with cinnamon rolls that are made by our kitchen. And there's also some fun games and things that throughout the evening that you'll be entered into, to win some prizes as well for attending. So if you would like to still attend, you're welcome to you can contact our alumni office at the school, and they'll get you set up with tickets.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. Very cool. So you know, overall, you know, maybe we should back this up a little bit. This ace auction, it really is. It's one of those things that we talked about this all the time on the Catholic schools report how important these fundraisers are, because this is operating costs. And, you know, it's you guys do amazing things for the community and for the schools that you need these funds to keep it going.
 
Troy Ruda
Yeah, so there's two components to the auction. And it does benefit both Thomas Moore prep Marion as well as Holy Family Elementary, a portion of the funds that we raise will go to the operations at Holy Family. So when you support the auction, you'll support both schools. And so the two components of the auction are the operational fund itself, which is going to be the ticket sales and what and the the revenue that's generated by the items and the raffle tickets and those things and then everything that pretty much everything that's outside of the item was item number 60. Item List. Item number 60 is what raises funds for capital need of the school that are outside of the general operating budget. And we can talk a little bit about what that is this year. So traditionally, the auction will raise with both of those components over $700,000 for all of the things that all of the things that are going on. So it is a major. It is a major component of of our schools budget every year.
 
James Bell 
Wow. Yeah, I want to talk about that. I am 60 though because that is such a cool program every year and you know, I'm curious what this year what what that's going
 
Troy Ruda
towards Well, I before before we talk about this year. I'd also like to talk about a big success that we're going to have coming this summer that started last year's auction. Last year's auction was to raise funds to begin repaving the the roadwork, the roadways at the school. It's an extremely expensive proposition. To raise to fund the entire project of the roadways would be about $1.7 million to do all of the parking lots and the driveways there. So we were able to raise money for phase one through last year's auction and see if worth on. Our maintenance team is putting up a banner today that we'll see from Wall Street that says coming coming summer of 2022 the first phase and so right after graduation you'll see machinery out there tearing out the entrances of 17th Street and Hall all the way past the field house and then making the round and going all the way down to on Victory Road to where we connect with a Laughlin. So that's going to be a huge, that's a huge thank you and a huge success for the funds that were given last year at ACE item 60. It always takes us about a year's lag, because we can't go forward with contracts and things until we have the funds raised. So once we get the funds raised, and we know that we have those, then we can go out to contractors and get the project actually scheduled. So it's about a year lag from when we raise the funds to when the project is going to start. So this year, we will be in advance of moving the sixth graders from Holy Family Elementary to TMP in the fall of 2023. We need to add classrooms to the junior high floor to accommodate the approximately 50 or more students that will be bringing into the into the junior high. So we will be using we will be renovating an unused wing of the third floor of the school. It used to be the dorm rooms where the Capuchin Franciscans lived when we had residents on campus. Since the captions moved out that wing has been unused and it's still the it's still the dorm rooms that they slept in. So now those rooms will all be taken out and three new classrooms will be added. And the existing restrooms that are there will be renovated into a new boys and girls restrooms. So that's pretty exciting for this year, because not only are we going to be able to welcome those sixth graders onto our campus, we're going to be able to have a little bit of room to move around at Holy Family that's busting at the seams. As well as, as those sixth graders are going to be able to have that junior high experience, which is going to be pretty, pretty fun to see them over there and they're ready by the time they get to sixth grade at Holy Family, they're ready to they're ready to go. So it'll be really fun to welcome them. The other great part about the item number 60 Is that when you give $1 to that that dollar turns into two, because we do have matching funds available from the DOJ on albino Dreiling trust, and they're matching all of the gifts that go into item 60. So your $1 becomes two your $100 becomes 200 so you can do double the you can make double the gift with their double the impact with your gift item number 60.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, I love that. That's so great for for the school and for the county as well.
 
 
Troy Ruda
So we're you know, if if the funds are available, we'll begin some of the demolition work this summer. And then the completion of the work on the classrooms next summer at the summer of 2023.
 
James Bell 
Awesome look forward to that. You know it's funny in the huge conversation right now in Hayes's is the USD 49 bond issue and, and how expensive it is. And it I think, for a lot of folks, when you when you put dollars like that on on on just projects like fixing the roads, it's like Holy smokes, I know, no wonder we talk about such big amounts, because it's just so expensive to get anything
 
Troy Ruda
these you think three classrooms, right. And it's not like you're building a whole new building with three classrooms and two bathrooms, it's estimated at over $492,000 Just to do those three classrooms. And it's just to do that now. It's everything is incredibly expensive. But you know, there's no signs that it's gonna get less expensive. You know, two years ago, two, three years ago, almost now, when we had a project to build the Learning Commons. I mean, all it was was tearing out and building a room, right? Building a big open room, in theory. It was it was approximately the same amount as it's going to be to do three classrooms. And that was almost three years ago. Wow. So there's no sign that it's going down.
 
James Bell 
All we can do is help support things like the ASR.
 
Troy Ruda
That's exactly right. And you know, these are just great things for for the for the mission of, you know, of Catholic private education. And it's one of the great things that make Hayes great is the diversity of education that we have in our, in our city. Plenty of success to go around.
 
James Bell 
Absolutely, absolutely. Well, anything else folks should know about this ace auction before we go? Yes. The
 
 
only other thing that I want to say is, raffle tickets are still available, as well. The raffles are a huge part of the auction for $100, you can get a ticket to win a nearly brand new car from autoworld a 2022. I believe it's a Hyundai beautiful car. So $100 will win your raffle ticket. There's also two $5,000 drawings. There's, I believe, to $2,000 drawings, or maybe just one $2,000 drawing and for $1,000 drawings. So you can purchase your raffle tickets if that's the only way that you can be involved in the auction. That's a great way to do it. And the raffle tickets are always, always a great thing for us. The other thing too, is that the online auction will be available to preview starting today, later this afternoon. So later this morning, we'll have it online, you'll be able to go to Hayes Catholic schools.org Just click on the menu and you'll see ace 2022 Click there and it'll take you right to the auction. You'll be able to preview all the items and register stir yourself with a bitter number. The actual online auction to be able to start bidding on will be this coming Friday, at nine o'clock, we'll kick that off with a chamber chat there at the field house. And we'll have an open house all day long. So anybody that would like to come out and see the items in person that they're bidding on their welcome to that we'll go, I believe until five o'clock on Friday. The other cool thing that we're going to do is if you come to the open house, and you would like to see the area that the competition's used to live in, it's an area that most people were never allowed to go into. And so if you would like to see that area, that's going to be turned into the classrooms, we'll be able to take you over there. And we'll have an open house in that area, as well as what's going to be renovated. So that's starting at nine o'clock on Friday, we'd invite anyone to the campus that would like to come. And then the other thing I want to mention is if you have bought a ticket to attend to the auction, you do not need to register yourself for the online auction. We'll do that for you. And you'll get a text message on on how you can with a link you can click right into so you have the same bidder number for the online as well as the in person. It's taken care of. Yeah, I love that. Yep. So we're excited. It's gonna be a busy week. But it's one of those things I told. I told the team over there in the advancement alumni office today as like, you know, this is the week that you get to enjoy the fruits of your hard labor. It's gonna be a hard week and it's gonna be a lot of hard work. But every once in a while, I'll step out and look at the great successes and look at how amazing of a project this is. And look at the big picture rather than just faced with the challenges all the time because if it's it's a really hard week, but it's also should be a really fun rewarding week.
 
James Bell 
Absolutely. Very good. Again, more information. If you're curious about that on the website, right?
 
Troy Ruda
Yep. Hays Catholic schools.org Just click on menu

Stress and nutrition go hand in hand

On this episode of the Post Podcast Fort Hays State University instructor, Jessica Phelan shares information about stress and nutrition.
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
Stress and nutrition can go hand in hand to impact health from Fort Hays State University Health and Human Performance instructor Jessica Phelan stops by to talk to us about that and more on this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
Jessica Phelan 
I was really excited to talk about stress and nutrition. This is an area that I think right now, I don't know about you guys. But as school people, we're having some stressful moments, we've got graduation, there's prom, we're wrapping the school year up, which is so exciting. But you know, that does come with some positive and negative stress as well. So I thought today, we could just talk about stress in relationship with nutrition in general. So yeah, I
 
James Bell 
know, in my world, and absolutely, I think for just about everybody, it's a busy time of year because if you've got a parent or even if you're an aunt or uncle, oh, my goodness, so much school stuff going on, and music performances and downtown arts things and all kinds of good stuff. But I know that yeah, in my world, as soon as that starts to hit, it's we're grabbing for the pizza. You know, we're getting the McDonald's, we're getting the chicken nuggets, the the health or the food, that's not necessarily the healthiest
 
Jessica Phelan 
for you. Yes. So love that you brought that up. So whenever I think about stress and nutrition, I think about it in kind of three ways. So the first that you said, when times get stressful? What do we choose to grab? Well, if you're like me, I'm dropping my coffee, my pizza, you know, the easy and quick things. And so here's the thing that's completely normal. And you know what you got to do what you got to do. But, you know, there are a couple of tips that you guys that I would love to share with you about, you know, how do we plan for those stressful moments. And so, a couple of things that you could do that I've actually been doing lately, which has been really, really fun, is I am fortunate to live in a town where I have siblings close by and you know, my family close by. And so it was about a semester ago, I called my sister and I said she, she's a teacher, too. And he said, I need some help, I'm stressed, I'm grabbing these things, I'm not feeling like good, it makes me feel, you know, kind of kind of gross when I'm eating that way. And so we started to actually assign days where we share meals. And so a kind of a take home tip for you is if you are a college student, or if you're somebody that you have some support in your town, one thing that you could do to potentially help with that relationship of, you know, when I'm stressed, what do I grab those convenience things are set up some shared meals, we've been doing this where I think I cook on Tuesdays, my sister cooks Mondays, and let me tell you, it has been changed my world just to know that, you know, I really have some time to think and plan out a really nice healthful meal on Tuesdays, and my sister does the same for Mondays. And then my brother and sister in law. And my parents also do too. And so it's been really fun. And I was thinking about this before it came in. And you know what if you're a person that maybe you have one family, and you don't have the accessibility of a sibling, you know how lucky that I am, somebody that you might be able to do is in your family unit event. So say you have husband, wife, you've got an older kid, say let's make this really fun. And let's assign one day that we get to cook. And so that person kind of takes that responsibility for the day. We've been doing that lately, and it has just been like world changing. Fabulous. So that's kind of a suggestion for maybe, you know, when you're stressed, and you're trying to grab something quickly. Let's have a game plan and plan. Yeah,
 
James Bell 
so thinking ahead really is and yeah, you have to have those connections too. But, you know, I think that's maybe true, kind of in a lot of stressful situations, right. With planning, you can alleviate some of the stressful parts of the situation.
 
Jessica Phelan 
Yeah, absolutely. And I think to that, healthy doesn't have to mean fresh, like, you know, there's like this continuum of balance, right, where, you know, you can still eat well, and use those conveniences. And so I always like to think about, you know, my time as it's so valuable. And sometimes we just don't have the time or to pre plan. And so, you know, frozen foods are great, don't discredit those canned foods are awesome, too. And so I think that that's one part is that not being quite so rigid that you can definitely, you know, use those conveniences to your advantage as well.
 
James Bell 
Yeah. And then if you have to grab some fast food now, and again, that's really you know, it's the moderation piece. It's the not doing it every day that really gets people into trouble.
 
Jessica Phelan 
Absolutely. Another way that I really like to think about stress and nutrition, and this is a kind of a relatively new area of study, I would say is does what you eat. So is your nutrition going to increase or decrease your stress?
 
James Bell 
That's exactly what I was curious about looking my little I drew a little circle chart here as we were talking, because I was what I wanted to know about is like because I imagined it does worse you feel the more stressful you're going to be and then the worse you feel, then you're doing it again and it just gets it's a cycle,
 
Jessica Phelan 
isn't it? Yes. And so I'm so excited you brought this up because this is something that I find so interesting that if you know if you are feeling stressed and you're thinking okay, what can I do? I don't have more time in the day, I can't eliminate these things. Let's look at our diet, that might be a stress management technique, which I think is just radical to think about that if we can potentially choose things that are more helpful, your fruits, your veggies, dairy products, lean proteins, you know, everything that you've been hearing for forever, if we can start to potentially eat more healthful, would it help with stress? Would it help with mental health, depression, etc. And right now, evidence is low studies are still being conducted. But man, there are some really exciting evidence that suggests Yeah, Heck, yeah, if we can start eating well, then maybe that could potentially reduce your stress. And so that could be a potential technique, for those of you that are really feeling overwhelmed right now. That that are maybe having some mental health type of issues that if we can change our diet, it might potentially help us to feel better. Yeah. So cool.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, have an impact, at least I mean, and why not? I like to think of it in terms of well, what's the worst case scenario you eat better? Maybe you get a little bit better shape? It's it? No, there's there's no losing in that situation?
 
Jessica Phelan 
Yeah, exactly. And, and that's the thing is, the best that we can do is just try. And so I always like to talk with my students, and I'm in the classroom of, you know, it's a tough nutrition is tough. There's a reason that, you know, I pursued this area, because it was something that I struggled with, too. And then over time, I think that you just become better at it. You become better at understanding, you know, what's happening in my body. And when I eat that food, how do I feel? Does that make me happy? Do I feel bloated, and sluggish? Because I don't know about you, it's we're getting ready for summer, I want to be outside more, I want to feel good. I want to have less stress. And so yeah, I think that that's another tip that I have actually is, you know, if possible. If you're feeling overwhelmed, or feeling depressed, try to grab those fruits, those vegetables first and then reevaluate, see how you feel, instead of eliminating maybe some of those fun treats, just crowding the good, and then see where that takes you. Because here's the thing, it's all about moderation. Nobody's perfect. And I think the best that we can do is try.
 
James Bell 
Absolutely. You know, I'm curious too, about the nutritional aspect. And Glenn is always we talk a lot about this in this segment, you know, the the fat soluble vitamins and how important they are to keeping yourself healthy. And I think, you know, this, a lot of those convenience foods that we think of their nutrient deficient, there's not a lot of good things there. And I wonder if you wanna talk a little bit about that, like, how does that impact wellness as well?
 
Jessica Phelan 
Yeah, sure. So I like to think about our diets as this really integrative process of looking at, you know, what's your, your environment? Like? What are some social factors that are gonna influence what you eat. And at the root of that, though, we have to make sure that we're getting those essential nutrients. And so we know we have these macronutrients that provide us with energy that are really positive, those are your carbohydrates, your fats, your proteins. But sometimes those vitamins and minerals are overlooked. And it's overwhelming. If I'm going to be completely honest, it is overwhelming to think about where are all these vitamins and minerals located? And how do I get those in my diet. And so I was talking with my sister who again, she's another educator, and I said, when in doubt, eat your dark leafy greens, choose fruits and vegetables, from, you know, all colors of the rainbow. And when you're doing that, and you're listening to your body, you're gonna get those vitamins and minerals in. And so even when you're trying to, you know, do things at a convenience, if you can, try to pull in those, you know, richly colored fruits and vegetables, those lean proteins, because those are going to help you with your micronutrient intake. So your vitamins and minerals. And over time, if you can do that, then those are going to help with your general functioning. So your health preventing sicknesses, how your metabolism works. And so those are also a major and essential part of just being healthy in general. And so, you know, there's a lot of science that goes behind micronutrient metabolism and how they interact with the macronutrients in the body. But my best advice for just the layperson and my students and how I like to think in my head is eat variety, moderation, have an adequate diet and try to be balanced. So those are the four things I like to remember. Righty moderation, adequacy and balance.
 
James Bell 
Easy peasy. Easy peasy. You know, we've got, we've got just a minute or so left here. But I also wonder about, you know, one of the things that I have a nutritionist friend and she's kind of trying to guide me down this the same path that we're talking about today. And one of the things that she is quick to point out is it's the activity pieces, well, if you eat better, you're going to feel more energetic and you're going to you're likely to move more, which is another benefit of delimiting stress. You sure is a helpful way to help mitigate that stressful feeling, I guess I might say
 
Jessica Phelan 
Yeah, absolutely. So in HHP a we are are incredible supporters of just movement. And so I love to just say just, you know, try to move as much as possible. You know, in your day, if you can go and go on a short walk for five minutes to your car to grab something and come back to your office, that's going to improve your mood. When you're exercising, it makes you happy, it releases these happy endorphins. And it that's gonna help with your stress relief as well. Also, if you can get outside with your exercise, that's a good double bonus, because you have the vitamin D, and it just makes you feel good. And so I think what is so fun about this topic is that there's so many interrelated parts that really, if you want to start to become healthier, and reduce that stress, be active, try to eat a little bit better drink your water, you know, have conversations with your friends, there's so many things that are interrelated, that anything that you do is really going to help your stress levels. Activity is so powerful and movement is so powerful for your energy, your happiness, fighting off chronic diseases, you know, there's just so many benefits that if you can, you know, in your schedule in your head, trying to plan those 510 minutes. Research suggests that 10 minutes of activity three times per day is sufficient in order to improve your health. And so you know, I was talking with my mother and I was we were just talking about how sometimes it's hard to fit that in and when went to research and found that yeah, if you can just do 10 minutes so 1010 minutes of activity three times per day, that's still going to give you as much benefit as if you were exercising for you know a long long bout. You know anything is better than nothing and it is going to help reduce your stress in the long run.
 
James Bell 
Excellent and moderation small bits. Make the difference Exactly.
 
Jessica Phelan 
Little by little and hey, we can all be healthier.

Enrollment for next year ongoing at Early Childhood Connections

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Early Childhood Connections director Donna Hudson-Hamilton shares information about enrollment.
 
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
Enrollment for next year for the Early Childhood connections is underway. Director Donna Hudson-Hamilton stops by to tell us a little bit about that. And more on this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
 
Early Childhood connections we are located out across from Hayes Hi 2501 easterton Street. And we serve families prenatal to age five, we have a variety of programs in our prenatal to three age range, we have parents as teachers, which is a home visitation program that is open to anybody that would like those services. And then we also have an early headstart program. And within that program, we have a home visitation, we partner with some family childcare partners to provide services children to children. And then we also have a center based program there where children come every day. And then in our three to five program, we have our preschool out there, we offer full day sessions out there. So we're serving children, um, you know, at 330. And then we also have a home based option. We also do provide services in outlying counties. So not only do we serve Ellis County, we serve rush, Russell and rooks county as well. Very cool,
 
James Bell 
very cool. So you know, if you're a parent out there, and you're kind of like, again, like me, and you're thinking, Oh, my goodness, what am I gonna do with my kiddos next year? What's the process to start that either enrollment or getting more information from you guys? Well, we
 
 
have just launched a new online enrollment process. So if you are interested, you can go to the USD 49 website, and then click on the schools and click on early childhood connections. And right there, you're going to see a green button that says enrollment information. And you can start your enrollment right from that, right there online, we've really tried to make it a lot easier for families to get enrolled. So we've moved to this online process. Another piece that has really changed for us is that especially in our three to five suit, children that are aged three to five, is now we're going to be able to serve more children age three. And so if you're looking at enroll, enrolling in that program, the guidelines have now changed so that we can serve children. Three and four year olds that have are either eligible through a single parent, a teen when the child was born, if either parent is lacking a high school diploma, if the family is eligible for free lunches, if the child does not speak English, or if they're migrant status, so that has opened up for us this year. So I really encourage families to they're not sure if they would be eligible to give us a call, and we can kind of walk them through that.
 
James Bell 
Sure. Oh, no. Is that the only or I can't think of the word qualifications maybe for the kiddos or is there others as well? Well,
 
 
that is that is the requirements for eligibility. Now also housed in that building is the USD 49 for PE preschool, and that is open to anyone. And so that is an option that's also available out there. The other option is at no charge to families.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. And you know, and I do believe, correct me if I'm wrong, but there are some spots open in the paid version of the preschool because we I was on the phone with him the other day, like it? Yes, but not very many. There's only a handful
 
 
of spots. I sometimes think oh, I'll wait to August to get my children enrolled in I just wanted to put it out there. Now is the time now's the time to be thinking about getting getting everything set for August now.
 
James Bell 
Absolutely. You know, and I am curious, we've heard a lot in the recent months about the lack of daycare here. Yeah. I mean, does that extend to early childhood connections as well?
 
 
Well, where where it impacts us is is that we do especially for our program for prenatal to age three. We'd like to partner with some family childcare partners. And that has been difficult for us just because of the decrease in the number of family childcare partners. I'm on the childcare task force that we're trying to encourage more individually It was to look at that as a profession and help support them. Because we have had a significant decrease in child care in our area.
 
James Bell 
Absolutely. And you know, it is great that I love to hear that you're on that committee as well. It's it's been one of those things that I've seen kind of grow and expand and, and really being being tackled head on by some of the interested parties here in the community.
 
 
Yes, it is a need for this area. And and we are working hard at trying to find resources, not only to start a childcare, but also workforce to make sure that we have the people to work in that and that they can make a livable wage and doing that. Absolutely.
 
James Bell 
Now, before we run out of time, Donna, we got to talk about this too. What about those kiddos that are starting to age out of your services or similar services here in the areas?
 
 
Well, I just I know that children or parents get a little nervous as their children start to enter kindergarten. So I just wanted to let them know that on our website, we do have a section for families for children that are transitioning to kindergarten, and on that you're going to find say you're going to Lincoln our Roosevelt Elementary you will find a little notebook on there that has the pictures of of the staff there the playground, the lunch room, anything you might want to look over with your child. We also have activities on there how to help your child prepare for kindergarten, we have books on there that you can audiobooks that you can read to your child so we just have a lot of resources as your child moves into kindergarten if if I just want people don't know just check it out. There's there's things there for them.

Apartment construction in Hays to help housing shortage

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares information about the ongoing apartment construction in Hays.
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
Over 100 apartments will open soon in Hays, Grow Hays, Executive Director Doug Williams shares with this that impact of those apartments on the housing market and more on this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
turnkey properties LLC has brought forth an application for an Rh ID, which is a rural housing Senate District, which is a program that helps pay for some of the infrastructure and that type of thing. These type of projects and it's a, it's a 36 unit apartment complex, at the corner of fourth and fourth, which is right behind the old Washington school property. In South Hays, it will be 36 units for buildings with nine units each if I've got my math right, so much. And they will be both one and two bedroom units with garages and multi storey with garages on the main floor, because it's in the floodplain, you have to do some things a little bit differently. And so there will be garages on the main ground level, and then apartments above. So a good project and should be should be a very positive addition to that part of town.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, very cool. Very cool. So you know, RH IDs, we've we've talked about these a lot. And I think it was maybe two or three segments ago, we talked about kind of all of these tax incentive districts, but this one that gets seems to be getting used pretty regularly here in Hays,
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
it is it's, it's a good tool for a developer to use to try and recover some of the infrastructure costs that they have to incur in putting in a development. So that can be sewer water, Electric Gas, some other costs are eligible to be recovered, and it's recovered through the tax increment, meaning today, the taxes on that property are zero, it's been a school, when that apartment complex is complete, and it's probably 36 units, you can just take that easily, probably times $100,000 per unit, that's $3.6 million dollars, the property taxes are going to probably be 30 to $40,000 a year, well, a portion of that can come back to the developer to pay for some of those infrastructure costs until he is recovered his costs on those. And so it's a good program really doesn't cost the taxpayers anything. Because it's all based on the creation of taxes and not taking any of the property taxes that are currently in place. So it's a good program, it encourages development that we badly need. And so he was taking the first step last night with the City Commission next Thursday, they will adopt a resolution to start the process of acquiring that RH ID designation, which is about a 90 day process, it has to be approved by the Kansas Department of Commerce, it is in approved by the city that we have to bring forth the housing study that shows the need, which we have a say that shouldn't be too hard. That's not That's not a tough requirement to meet. And then we have to get that it has to go to the county in the city, or I'm sorry, the county and the school district, both of which have to approve it as well. So it's a process that has to be gone through, but we're confident that it will happen. And we'll see some activity down there sometime in August or September is when the plan would be to start.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, you know, I really like on these deals, it seems like everybody is willing to accept that the RHA D programs are are a necessity. And to me, it's a win win win. Because just as exactly as you say, it's not taking away tax revenue. It's just using that tax revenue to offset the cost of the infrastructure and everybody or nobody's losing any money. It's all it's all net gain.
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
Well, that's That's correct. I mean, the only way that you would say that, that it's a loss of any tax revenue is if you think that this developer would do this project without this particular incentive. 99 times out of 100. That's not the case, they would just not do it, because it doesn't make economic sense. So these things have to be put in place to allow them to recover these costs. And these are, these are things that are going to be in existence for decades, you know, the infrastructure, for example, the heart of America Tallgrass addition that those streets and the sewer and the water that'll be in place for a long, long time. And it really cost the taxpayers nothing. Because the development just wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for these incentives. And this this program for the developer to recover some of these costs. So they're good programs. They don't take any existing tax revenue, and they're accomplishing what they're they're set out to do, which is to provide housing in a market in a market that's much needed. And that's why they send in the application to the Department of Commerce, because they assess whether or not you You truly have a housing need. Now we, we can say this is obvious, and it is here. But still they go through the process of making sure that this isn't something that's been given when there really isn't a need for this type of housing.
 
James Bell 
Okay, you know, also we talk a lot about, you know, housing, like homes, but the apartment piece is something I think that it kind of is been maybe overshadowed by that lack of available homes for sale. But this project is just one of many that are going on. And I think if I'm let me check here, oh, yes, the there's over 100 or nearly 100 apartment units that are about to be completed here in Hays, right.
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
There are there there are, I think 102 or 104 units that are either currently under construction, or that will be started in the near future. This been 36 of them this project at fourth and fort, of course, right in front of it is the Washington school renovation that Oberlin property group is doing. And that's 14 units. And they're there right at the end of that I believe they're having an open house here in the next week or two,
 
James Bell 
I was gonna say I think I was speaking to somebody in the community not too long ago, who had toured one and said it was just a amazing apartment, maybe a little bit on the pricier side for a college student. But what a great location.
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
Well, the good news, I guess for that is that they're not eligible to rent to college students, Oh, those are income regulated apartments and they to hit the income qualified and to hit the price, the demographic that they have to appeal to it's not students that people have to be non students. And they're, they rent below market rate to certain amount, that's one of the factors to that program that the developer has to comply to is they have to rent them below market rent for a certain, I think believe it's 15 years, in order to get the tax credits that they got that allowed them to construct this thing, but I'm eager to see it, I haven't seen it. And that's a great repurpose of a building that in a great location down there by the aquatic Park and that kind of thing that that really should be good. And then there are other projects around town as well, Ellis estates on 33rd Street, that's a project that geared towards retirees and seniors, they've got 42 units under construction, if you've driven over there, as of late, you can see the steel starting to come up out of the ground and a lot of activity over there. And then there's a couple of duplex projects in town going on to so it's over, I counted, it's about 102 or 104 total units going up right now or in the near future will be being built and we we have a strong need for nice apartments in this community, we don't have enough. And consequently, it that does drive rents up, you know, real estate, housing markets are supply and demand based. And when you don't have enough choice, you know, rents go up. If the demand is high, and the supply is low, that's what causes rents to go up. So if we add some supply, it should soften those rents a little bit and give people some choices.
 
James Bell 
It helps to on the the home buying piece, right because those folks that we talked about a little while back about your housing rehab program, and the housing that might be eligible for those programs are just getting rented right now there because there's such a need that they're just rent, they're turning them out. So I wonder if you wanna talk a little bit about that as well how that might affect the overall housing picture?
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
Well, you know, when you add inventory to a market, whether it's rental property, whether it's new homes, it does free up other property. And that's the argument that everybody likes to make when they when they say that the $225,000 is not an affordable home. Well, that's very subjective, everybody has a different opinion as to what is affordable. But the reality is, when that $225,000 home is completed, and somebody buys it, they probably have another home, that they're moving out of maybe for 125 or 150, or whatever, they may move out of an apartment that somebody can then rent and that opens up. And so when you add inventory to a market, you soften the pressure on these upward prices of both the cost of housing in terms of buying as well as renting. So inventory added to a market is a very good thing. Now it's it's always a challenge to balance that because you you really have certainly I've been in the other side of that as a landlord and it's not a fun place to be when there's nobody to rent it and rents are continually dropping and and you know that that's you've got a payment to make and you don't have enough rent coming in to make that payment. That's not a good situation. So we strive for that balance but we're way out of balance right now with way too much demand and way too little supply of both apartments and homes.
 
James Bell 
How long you know, with this 100 units coming on, how long will the impact take to really kind of, as you say, you know, soften out even out across the, I don't know, Ellis County, I guess you might say,
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
I think that we've got so much pent up demand that it's going to take a while, you know, we've got these 100 units that are going to be constructed. But it's going to take a couple of years to get these constructed. We've got 10 homes in the Tallgrass second edition that are nearing completion. Actually, a couple of them are closing, I think this week, I was told by the builders, the others will be closing pretty quick. And there's another 14 or 15 that are going to be you know, if you go out there right now, there's a lot of dirt flying around because they're digging basements and putting in basements. So there's going to be another 1516 homes constructed in the next six months. So that that will help add to it. But I think we're still a ways away from meeting the demand as well as the opportunity for people who are looking to relocate into our community, we're still not even with all these apartments. And with this construction going on, I don't believe we're still getting to the point where we need to in terms of having sufficient inventory in our market to meet the demand.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, you know, you mentioned those builders, we were Are you are kind enough to host a tour with the city leaders down there. Oh, I think it was maybe two weeks ago now. Yes. And I happen to go down there. And I got to the opportunity to talk to a couple of those builders. And yeah, they were more or less saying many lots as we can get our hands on, we're ready to go.
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
Yeah, the challenge right now is, you know, we had 36 lots in phase one. And there's 29 of them are spoken being going to be built on right away here. And so we're trying to get the engineering done for the next phase of 18. Lots and hope to start that this summer. But I know we're gonna run out of lots, I can just see that before we can get the next phase up and going. But we're going to try real hard to get there before we do run out. But at the pace of things are going we're going to run out a lot. And then we're going to be wishing we had done more to begin with.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, I'm wondering, you know, I know, there's always stuff bubbling under the surface that you can't talk about, but are there some similar projects kind of in the works or, and I know, there's there's also the private construction going on as well, in Ellis County, right, a little bit of
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
that the challenge with the private construction is that they build one at a time, typically. And this is the first time in, I would say 40 years that I have seen in our community. And I've been here for all of them, that I have seen a builder building at this scale like they're doing in the tall grass edition, you know, we're eight at a time six at a time. We haven't seen that for a long, long time. So we're starting to see some some that are building the way that builders need to, to hit certain price points, you know, they need to build at scale, you build them one at a time. And that that doesn't. You can't get any economies of scale, any efficiency. But if you've got eight of them in a row, you can make a deal with your foundation guy. And he just comes in and does all eight of them in a row. And then your framework follows him man and building more in the way that they do and metropolitan areas. In terms of building scale. Yeah,
 
James Bell 
you know, you drive towards the Denver on i 70 used to see him break rows and rows of these houses, they're cookie cutter, they look exactly the same. Well,
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
not not really what we're after. But we're certainly after, you know, some scalability and getting some inventory to the market. And that to when when you can buy a brand new house for $225,000. That's absolutely going to cause some of the other inventory to have to soften. Just because people always like new. Same with apartments, people like new it makes sellers of homes have to step up their game and maybe do some updates before they sell it makes apartment owners have to clean theirs up and have their you know, maybe do some maintenance things that they don't have to do right now. Because they rent either way, there's no choice. So if we can add some inventory to the market, that will be a very good thing.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, you know, and again, going back to the tour of these houses, I don't think we've got to talk about this yet at least not on air. I was really impressed with the builds on all three but also the take the three builders had were so very different. And it I mean, they're all kind of a similar size. But the very different have a very different personality in the builds. I think
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
I agree. You know you've got some with basements, you've got some without, you've got different floor plans different ways they have finished it out. And so and that's great that diversity in the options out there is terrific. That way we can appeal to you know, maybe a family who has a growing family who wants some more room so that a basement might be important for future expansion. They're not finished but at some point in time they can finish the basement and add some additional living space. They're the one the basement houses have egress windows and the things that you would want in a basement but by the same token, the slab homes are all zero entry. So Though if you've got somebody that is older, that doesn't want to deal with steps and that kind of thing, they've, they've got us an option for them too. So lots of options out there. That's going to continue, I think they're going to continue to see some slab, some basements, different types of floor plans, the one thing they all have is at least 1000 square feet and at least a two car garage because we want to get the cars off the street, as opposed to lots of street parking, which makes it a little bit difficult on those streets to go up and down when there's cars on both sides on the street.
 
James Bell 
But again, really good homes and I think, are you planning on another tour out there where people might go check those out in the near future?
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
I'd like to that I'd love to have a public open house out there. The problem is that they're all sold ahead of time. And so once people are wanting to move in, I hate to traipse people through, you know, three fourths or 90% done house because it's it's hard to see what it's really going to be like when there's no countertops or the flooring in in yet or what have you. But I'd love to get ahead of the game where we could have a public open house and people could really see what's happening out there. Because it's it's pretty cool. I mean, I have not taken anybody in any of those houses out there that have thought that this isn't a good thing. You know, I think everybody that went through from the city, the county or anywhere else school district thought that hey, this is this is badly needed. And this is a great development. Absolutely.
 
James Bell 
Well, Doug, I can tell you, we got to get over the news. But any last thoughts before we go?
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
I just I just encourage people to drive out by the Housing Development at 22nd. Wheatland and see what's going on because it's impressive. And also keep an eye on these other projects we talked about as they go up because they're going to be exciting. They're going to be great addition star community

Forward Ever: Kan. 110 District Rep. Ken Rahjes

On this episode of Forward Ever: Leading in Challenging Times host Gary Shorman speaks with Kan. 110 District Rep. Ken Rahjes.

Hays Arts Council’s Spring Art Walk anchors busy month at the Arts Center

On this episode of the Post Podcast Hays Arts Council executive director, Brenda Meder shares information about the 2022 Hays Spring Art Walk.
 
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
The Hays Spring Art Walk is on the calendar for later this month and there's going to be a lot going on. Hays Arts Council Executive Director Brenda Meder stops by to share with us the details on this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
Brenda Meder 
The Smoky Hill art exhibition is in its 53rd year, and it always opens as the anchor of the spring Artwalk. So that's an amazing day because our Smokies pretty spectacular. And it's going to be pretty spectacular again this year. And last year having moved the spring Artwalk with the the kind of the the chaos of scheduling that happened during the pandemic. We put it on a Saturday, there's a lengthy audience, but we found out that a lot of people really really enjoyed the more leisurely pace they enjoyed, they had more time to see everything including going down to the college, they enjoyed being able to also patronize and frequent the retail establishments, the restaurants, coffee shops and breweries in downtown Hayes. And so it's like we're gonna we're gonna give that a shot again, and let people just really relish and enjoy everything that is about you know, arts culture in our downtown over the course of that day. And that is on Saturday, April the 30th from 10am to 4pm. So a week from this Saturday, Saturday, April the 30th. And there is just a wealth of everything in addition to the to the Smoky Hill exhibition, which is the state's oldest juried Fine Art competitive. I think I counted I probably am missing some, but there are at least two MFA thesis exhibitions big important shows, you know, with wonderful bodies of rich contemporary artwork, but I mean, they put a lot on the line when these masters students are doing their MFA show. That's a big deal. And they bring out they bring out all the stops, and both crystal Hammerschmidt and Tanner Hoffman will be having their crystals it'll be down at the moss Lawrence gallery, Tanner's will be at our annex. And I think I counted four or five BFA exhibitions. So students who are finishing their their undergrad, their bachelor of fine arts programs, they, the visual artists, they need to mount exhibitions, or at least should for fulfilling all their requirements. And between some places on campus, both the Taylor Gallery and the Robbins center at the public library. And I think another couple of places, I think there's at least four if not five, BFA exhibitions, and then there's also just a variety of community artists and professional artists, and photography and programs that allow organizations like options, Big Brothers, Big Sisters and Janis campaign, those three important community organizations will be having features out that are, you know, arts and culture based, like Big Brothers Big Sisters is going to do a display of creative things that have been done by these collaborative partnerships. So to bring some awareness to get people excited to see what kind of things it is that people engage in, and quite frankly, just a great showcase for some of the great creative fun things that some of these pairings have done together. And there's, for instance, in the Chestnut Street building, which is where they're housed out of. And so you've got a little bit of everything that goes from North Main, the style stand center, which is where Janice campaign is located all the way to seventh in main Dallas County Historical Society, which is hosting a wonderful two photography exhibits one of them, one that Dr. Laura Wilson from Sternberg Museum is doing with some sort of abstracted photography that has to do with the natural world, and various scientific components that they're working with out there. But it's creating art out of these very unique, almost micro views of interesting things. So that's going to be fascinating. And a whole bunch in between including defiance brewery has been really wanting to get on the art walks for a while. And so they are going to be hosting a body of work that we still have from Gordon Sherman, with some frank nickels pieces in there. So anybody just going there, as a matter of course on Saturday will see things in there. But other folks may just want to migrate down that way. Because again, you've got six hours on Saturday. I do want to remind everyone that I mentioned the campus exhibitions, they are just 10am to 2pm. But otherwise, everything else is 10 to four, we've got a new art car that's going to be over at the Pavilion. I'm so excited. It's called spellbound and a gentleman who just moved to Hoisington from Trinidad, Colorado, an incredible artist, but also an art car enthusiast. He's organized tons of them all over the country. He has a couple of them. And this one is covered in in fabulous artwork and a gazillion scrabble tiles in phrases and words and quotes and statements. There's places on the cars where people can do their own, you know, make their own words and phrases and contribute to you know, with the Scrabble tiles, but it's covered. It's awesome. And that will be over there as will be a ceramic show and sale from Fort Hays State students that was very popular last spring over at the Pavilion and John makings from Great Bend will be back with his handcrafted drums. So we'll have three interactive drum circles at 11am 1pm and 2pm. There in the pavilion, and then another student coming from the performing arts, Danny Zhang will be having sort of his graduating undergraduate special, or I don't know if this is his masters, but his special jazz concert showcase performance. That'll be at three with Brad Dawson, Josh Duran and Spencer wheat corn, so no slouches there. And so that'll just be a wonderful free concert at three. And speaking of concerts on Friday night, we have our opening events at the downtown pavilion will be the Fort Hays jazz band spring outdoor concert, and it will be the final time that the jazz bands will be under the direction of Brad Dawson. He's still here still going to be doing music, but he will be conducting the jazz bands as the director for the last time in this wonderful open air concert at the Pavilion at seven o'clock on Friday night the 29th. The same night that the Encore series has their final program of the season. And of Green Gables the ballet, of course, there are tickets that you need to purchase for that. But I thought it was exciting that on that, you know pre Artwalk nights sort of the pre event, we've got these two amazing performing arts events. And this information that I've just shared is not on our website yet it will be on our website this weekend. And it's just a nice eight and a half by 11 sheet of information, easy to print out. So be watching for us on Facebook and our website because this will be available to you for the entire week before the Artwalk happens. So you can plan your attack and not miss a thing. But it's going to be a really, really amazing event. The Smoky Hill itself will run through June 4. So if you do have to miss the Artwalk weekend, still take time to come and see the smoke because there will be our amazing artwork there in so many different styles, genres and sizes from artists all throughout Kansas. And we will be dispensing $3,000 in cash awards. Don't know yet who's getting those. But that's something that'll happen right before we open. So a lot going a lot going on there. Good event.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, excited for that. But that's just a fraction of what you got going on here because it's this time of year, the kiddos wrapping up their school year and I know you specifically especially love to be involved in
 
Brenda Meder 
some stuff. We love working with the schools and getting involved with the kids in the schools. The schools love it. We try to bring things to them as often as possible. Just some of the things like today is high school art day. So we know there's some people out there that love seeing that and there's a few people who do go down and traipse around gross Coliseum. That's where all these I think there's something like 64 high schools represented I think I saw on Fort Hays website. This is Fort Hays, our high school art day. So it's not a haze Arts Council event. But we will have hundreds of students who will be visiting the Hayes Art Center to view our current exhibition for which it's the closing day of the Fort Hays State University departmental showcase faculty and graduate and undergraduate students that we've got there. So we'll be hosting tons of them today. Tomorrow, I'll be hosting about 1000 Kids in beach MIT for an outreach that we are doing with the Encore series for fourth and fifth grade students from 12 different elementary schools in our area. And then on Sunday, the day after the Artwalk. We have our big creative writing award ceremony. invitations have gone to the schools hopefully they've come on with winning students, families to know about that. Just a reminder, I've because I think there's almost 100 students from kindergarten through seniors in high school in both pose and poetry. In fact, I know your wife was one of the judges for us again this year. The English department is so kind and generous with their time to serve as the judging panel. And because it's 13 grades of you know, three to four places because we do a lot of honorable mentions in both prose and poetry. So about 100 young people will be honored and recognize so about 300 guests in the ballroom on Sunday afternoon for that. And then from Sunday, May 1 all the way through the end of the week, we have a residency with Che and Leslie Katie laughing matters that amazing, wonderful duo. In fact, on Thursday night, may the fifth Anyone is welcome to come to the Hayes Public Library at 630. Because Jay unless they will be doing their public showcase. We want to make sure everybody can see them, even if it's adult soup aren't part of the school systems because there's nothing better and more entertaining, and more professionally well done than Jay and Leslie Katie's laughing matters performance and famous figures finals are going to be on Friday May the sixth in the Beechman Performing Arts Center. So that kind of overlaps during the week that we've got these residencies with J and Leslie Katie. I also want to remind people that are wondering about our summer classes, we will be having our summer class program again. And we are working on getting things arranged. We know we'll have theater classes we know we're going to have classes in two and three dimensional art. We'll have a stained glass class again, things are looking good for another one of the Sternberg outreaches with those critters classes that we have. But those classes will not be ready for for public review and enrollment until probably the middle of that first week in May. It takes us a long time to get those together because all our teachers who are amazing people fit us into their schedules, they value this, they want to do it right. But they have a lot of items they have to check. So it will be the middle of that first week in May before you will find this information on our website, or announced through our Facebook page. But yeah, so just tons of stuff. Oh, and then I just want to give them a plug. Finishing the weekend, I talked about the performing arts that kicks off on Friday the 29th. And then Saturday, the Artwalk itself Sunday, not only will there be the creative writing award ceremony, late that afternoon DSM Wk is inviting to the public to their event with Jay and Leslie Katie, we're helping to serve some of their specific clients and constituents Sunday night at 730. Again, free because of their sponsorship support, the amazing Hayes Symphony Orchestra will be having their final concert of the season at 730 in beach, MIT. So this amazing, wonderful rich community has no shortage of different areas in the Visual Performing and literary arts for people to be engaged from the youngest of children, through the most senior of citizens, and throughout the community on campus. And I just want to remind everybody to keep your eyes open for that, again, if you follow us on, on Facebook, the Hayes Arts Council, we try to share as much as we can for not only our events, but events that happen for other elements of the community as well. So be watching and looking for that and definitely come out. It's all free on Saturday, April, the 30th 10am to 4pm to just enjoy the best and the most exciting that our community has to offer in the most wonderful environment possible.
 
James Bell 
Absolutely. You know what else? If you want to find out more, I always like to talk about this, you got your website,
 
Brenda Meder 
we do. And there's a lot of stuff on our website, even exhibitions that close, but you just want to sit around and look at artists, you got nothing else going on. That's up there. The famous figures videos from last year still there, they'll be there till we get this year's up. And in fact, it gives me a chance to give a plug to Tiger media network is going to film everything for us this year. So even though we get to go back to a live competition on stage and beat Schmidt on Friday, May the sixth people will be able to watch those videos, all the videos of them after the event on our website. It'll take us a little while to get them up there. But yeah, there's so much on our website, the exhibition that's up now if you don't get in since it closes today, every single piece and every artist that's featured in there is up on our website. There is information on those people so that you can really understand where they're coming from their backgrounds and their views as they make their art and yeah, a lot of stuff on our website. And it you know, I'm always afraid I'm not getting as much up there but it's already full so what the heck

Hays Chamber: Shopping local can make a big difference

On this episode of the Post Podcast Hays Chamber, president and CEO Sarah Wasinger along with vice president of marketing and communications, Mariah Leglighter stop by to talk about the importance of shopping local.
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
Choosing to shop local can have a significant impact on the local economy. From the Hays Chamber, president and CEO Sarah Wasinger along with vice president of marketing and communications, MariahLeglighter stopped by to talk about that and more on this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
Sarah Wasinger 
It's been a while since we've really focused our message on the radio of shop local. And I think you hit the nail on the head, there are so many big events coming up Mother's Day is just around the corner this weekend as well. Or no, sorry, three weeks from now.
 
James Bell 
I don't know why you're looking at me, I have no idea.
 
Sarah Wasinger 
I'm thinking about the golf tournament. And that golf tournament, Friday leads into Mother's Day weekend. So I'm already there. I'm at the time, but too much. But no. So we've got a lot of important and fun things coming up. And our business community does so much to support, whether it be our local schools, our sports teams, our arts programs, and things of that nature. And so just a good reminder to slow down. Um, instead of pushing, instead of going online and clicking a cart online, we want you to go push a cart somewhere in Hays somewhere in Ellis County, where that tax base that you're paying for your goods that you're purchasing actually goes back to reinvest into your community, our roads, our schools, our infrastructure, things that help us have good quality of life here.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, you know, and I, there's been a couple of situations real recently with myself, where I've realized that things that I were buying online, you can find locally, and, yes, slightly more expensive, um, but it's just so like, not even enough to really make it a consideration. But I found that it you know, it feels better, because you're out there. And you, you know, when you when you lay down that $10 bill for whatever it is, it's supporting the local community.
 
Sarah Wasinger 
While there was a statistic back in 2017. That said, for every dollar that is spent in haste, it reads circulates an average of seven times. So think about the power of $1. And how many dollars we spend on a daily basis, we have to talk a little bit too about our cost of gas right now. Right? So for people that are considering shopping out of town, because they just want to go someplace else, you have to add the cost of your gas in your time into that trip, as well. And when you look at the cost savings that you could have by just staying here in Hays, um, it really adds up very quickly.
 
James Bell 
Yeah. And for those that are in those towns that scattered around here in Hays, I know Hayes's your your deal, but you know, think like Ellis Victoria, those little small businesses there, same kind of deal. And this was, especially in the Victoria, you were at that meeting where we heard that, you know, they really want to support the community, it's a vocal and, you know, almost tangible desire there in the community to keep that money locally.
 
Sarah Wasinger 
Absolutely. So I think the more we reinvest in ourselves, the more we help ourselves. So I'm just thinking about those businesses again, that, you know, I was surprised, we looked everywhere in town for a couple of items for the chamber A few weeks ago. And finally, I just said, You know what, we can't find it here right now. But let's just see if they can order. So sometimes, maybe you don't actually see the item on the shelf, but give that business owner an opportunity to share with them what you're looking for nine times out of 10, they're going to be able to find something for you and probably get it in just as quick as if he would buy something from the evil word amazon online. So when I hear people talking about Amazon, I just want to beat my head against the wall, because Amazon is not investing in our schools, they're not supporting local initiatives, and making our community a special place to live work in place. So please, please, please keep that in mind as you are making your purchasing decisions this spring.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, absolutely. You know, and I think to about, you know, in the, in the historical kind of nature of shop local, you know, at least in my head, I still think about supporting those local business owners, you know, the main street businesses and not going to those chain stores. But even when you if you have to make the decision between going to a chain box store here in Hays, and going to Amazon, the chain box stores still better in terms of supporting the community.
 
Sarah Wasinger 
They are, you know, they, Mariah, I think you have some, you know, we've been talking a little bit about this, and the actual chamber office, you know, Walmart, I think this was two years ago, give a very wonderful donation to the ark Park. You know, it's not just the mom paws, it's everybody that comes together in our community to make a big difference. So we don't discriminate between smaller big businesses at the chamber. We support them and love them all, that they're local. And we're our job is to make sure that people keep that in mind when they purchase.
 
Mariah Legleiter 
Absolutely. And like you said, I mean, that was something that kind of surprised me is that you can go in and if you can't find something that you're looking for, you know, just talk to the owners and usually they can get you what you're looking for just as kind of a deterrent to go to evil Amazon.
 
Sarah Wasinger 
And we talk about it too, you know, just planning in advance. I think our society has become very good about instant gratification. And delayed gratification can be something you can do with as long as you're planning ahead. So, um, just make sure that if you're looking for birthday presents, like we talked about this wedding presents, graduation, Mother's Day, all those things you know, just put Ain't ahead and you can make sure that you're supporting your community while taking care of the people you love all at the same time.
 
James Bell 
Absolutely, you know, and a great way to do that we've talked about this before, but the chamber checks, get that and whether or not you're using them, or giving them as a gift that ensures that that money is going to be used locally.
 
Sarah Wasinger 
Well, if you're like me, and your mom and dad literally, like buy everything they need themselves, and don't give you the opportunity to buy them something for them, just to say thank you, um, chamber checks, do you make a great option because they can be spent at almost 500 locations, you know, across Ellis County. And, you know, that's a great way to make sure that that money is staying local chamber checks can't be used and other communities. So that's really the big benefit. They spend like cash, and they don't expire. So you can take them in at any time and go ahead and use them to purchase whatever you want. So and the nice thing is, is, you know, because they have that choice, and that flexibility, the sky is really the limit. And you know, whether they want to go out to eat at one of our wonderful restaurants, that's a chamber member, or just do some shopping or maybe get gas or groceries. They're all options.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. You know, and I like that too. Because it's, it's one of those things, you know, when I think about gift cards, right? Gift cards are can be so handy, but also so annoying. Because if it's something that's not local, you got to think about it. Like I'm trying to think of a restaurant that is not in haste schlocky Sovran slide forgot a gift card to schlocky is it to remember to take that with me all the time. Or remember that I'm going to be stopping in schlocky wallum in Salina later this afternoon. So I should grab that gift card. But a chamber check, you choose it anywhere. Exactly. And for the experiences, I love that, you know, it's not just the shopping, it's the you know, doing things as well, you could use those for
 
Sarah Wasinger 
Absolutely. So just a friendly reminder, chamber texts do come and 510 and $25 increments. And if folks do want to make any orders for their upcoming gifts and things of that nature, if they can just give us a call at 785-628-8201. We'll go ahead and get those orders ready for you. That way we can make sure that they're I'm ready to pick up when you come by the office. Oh, quick and easy love. Very easy. Yes. And we do also include a brochure. We tried to have our brochure be as up to date as possible. But the best way to figure out and which businesses do take chamber checks is usually by visiting our website, Hayes chamber.com. And clicking on our membership directory.
 
Mariah Legleiter 
I just updated that shop local brochure. So it'll be updated for about three days about how long that lasts. So what's a good thing though, that
 
James Bell 
means businesses are coming? Joining up? Yes,
 
Mariah Legleiter 
absolutely.
 
James Bell 
Well, guys, we want to get into this too. There is there's a lot going on. Now. There's always a lot going on down the chamber, but this week, especially Holy smokes.
 
Mariah Legleiter 
We were just talking about that on the way here. Today. We actually today, Tuesday, April 19 at 10am. We have a ribbon cutting at my town media. They are a new member at 1105 East 30th Street Suite. See I've heard that's on the north side of the building. Tuesday, April 19. At noon, we have the H yp connection lunch at thirsties venue Wednesday, April 20 at 8:30am. We'll have the leadership Hayes group at the Welcome Center. Thursday, April 21 at 8am. We'll have the downtown dialog Friday, April 22. At 9am. We will have our regular chamber chat over the USD 489 Bond opportunity at Rockwell Administration Center 323 West 12th Street, and on Friday, April 22. At noon, we will have our monthly Ambassador luncheon at the Rose Garden banquet hall
 
Sarah Wasinger 
and a few quick clarifications. We will have Joseph Glassman, he is the president CEO at Glassman Corporation, he will be our guest speaker for the hrrp lunch today. And the downtown dialogue event of course is sponsored by the downtown Hayes Development Corporation. And they always had that event down in the basement at breathe coffee house. So um, it's a great opportunity for us to get to sit down with the downtown business owners. And one final point of note is today is a big day. And for people who have possibly been paying attention to the USD 49 upcoming bond election today is voter registration deadline. So if you have not already verified if you're registered to vote, you can go to 489 bond.com There's a link to verify that you're registered.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. And it's not hard to get registered, just sit down to the county chamber or the county whatever that what's the building the administration's county administration center, yes. And get yourself registered if you're not even for this election or for the next one.
 
Sarah Wasinger 
Absolutely. And a friendly reminder to folks to that this week and next week and they can still purchase raffle tickets in our Avalon of Hayes and CO patio party tickets that are in conjunction with our golf tournaments. So always a lot going on and as always make sure that you check out his chamber.com/events for all of our upcoming them and that's what we have

Race for Education fundraiser date set

On this episode of the Post Podcast Holy Family's Race for Education co-chair Taryn Crawford shares information about the upcoming event.
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
The Holy Family elementary race for education fundraiser is quickly approaching. Co chair Taryn Crawford stops by to talk to us about that and more on this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
Taryn Crawford 
Actually our 18th annual raise protein fundraise. Wow.
 
James Bell 
Yes, racing must work. I guess I
 
Taryn Crawford 
Yes, yes.
 
James Bell 
So let's just start off with the basics. What is the race for education fundraiser?
 
Taryn Crawford 
Basically, what we do is, we send out flyers for sponsorship to friends and family of our students on behalf of our students, and just trying to raise funds for our general operations at our school. So the funds are imperative, but the kids, people can either send in a flat donation, or they can donate the students to the students on how many laps that they run, it's in one eight mile lap that they run or walk around. And so that's how they raise the funds. Okay.
 
James Bell 
So it's like, when we were kids, they had the the get on the bikes and would do the similar thing. Well, what am I trying to think? What's that called? It's like that for life or jumping for life. Yeah, bike for but was the bike for life. I don't know. It's
 
Taryn Crawford 
like it might be. And most people actually now instead of doing the per lap, say send us flat donations, which we love, but the kids get so excited about the per lap. So on that day, which it's Friday, this year, the 22nd. They go out, they raise for about an hour, and try and get as many laps as they can for people that have donated on further prolapse.
 
James Bell 
Simple and easy, but very cool. Very important. And I like you know, you mentioned that the fundraiser it's for general operations, I don't like to talk about this with any of the fundraisers down there at the Catholic schools. It's exactly as you mentioned, it's for operations. It's not for trying to, you know, put in a fancy new pool or something like that. It's actually what keeps education going. And right,
 
Taryn Crawford 
if we schools, it's not fun, money, it's imperative, it's very, very important. It keeps the lights on at the school, it's a part of what keeps a little thumb to school, I should say. And this year, our goal is 60,000. In years past, we've our goal has been about 50,000. But last year, we were able to raise 62,000. So he's over 62,000. But so we raised our goal this year to 60,000. And I will say the flyers have been going out, we've been getting lots of donations in we've been tallying our dollars that we've raised so far, we have 38,000, so far this year, wow. But we continue to receive donations. So if people would like to donate, they can go to Holy Family pick up a form in the office, or they can go to HFP hayes.org. That's the Holy Family website, and click on our race for education page. And they will find a form there that they could fill out and send in. We like this fundraiser, because it's a way for kids to ask family and friends that aren't necessarily in our community to help donate because they're able to send these all over the United States. I mean, the world really if they wanted to, but they can send them to, you know, people as far away as they want, and we get funds in from people from far away, because they love their they love their students.
 
James Bell 
Well, sure, sure. And you know what I also think, gotta believe that for those kiddos, it's a it's a kind of a fun way to be involved in this process. Because you know, it is important that everybody steps up and does a little bit of work. And what a great way to take some ownership of your education. Absolutely.
 
Taryn Crawford 
They get so excited. They love it.
 
James Bell 
Now, I am curious if anybody's wanting to actually, you know, watch the kiddos run, is it open to the community? Or is that close to the school because it's a school?
 
Taryn Crawford 
You know what it's absolutely, I mean, if you want to come and watch, they raised just right in the parking lot at Holy Family. So you can drive by and Honk if you want to. But if you want to come and participate, you're more than welcome to come and walk with the kids. It starts at 830 is the first race that's for our fifth and sixth graders at Holy Family. The next time slot is 945. That's our littler ones a preschool, kinder prep kindergarten, first grade, and then at 115, after lunch, second, third and fourth. And they all just run for an hour.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. And again, you said that this Friday, right is this Friday. All right. So if anybody's out there listening right now and they are do want to get involved again to donate or whether it be the five donation or find a student to sponsor what's the easiest way for them to
 
Taryn Crawford 
do so. I think the easiest way would be to go to the website and look up that form yourself. But like I said, you can go down to Holy Family's office or give Holy Family a call and let them know that you're interested in donating we can direct you the right way.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. Yeah, I tell you every time I call down there, no matter who picks up the phone, Oh, he's so helpful. Right. I love it. Well, all righty. Anything else that you think folks need to know?
 
Taryn Crawford 
Just that we are so thankful for? Any type of contribution whether it is Just in prayer and thoughts or if it is a monetary donation we appreciate any, any thought towards our school and our students and what we're trying to do here

Ellis County Commission recap: April 19, 2022

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Hays Post reporter Jonathan Zweygardt recap this week's Ellis County Commission meeting with County Commission chair Butch Schlyer.
 
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
Hays Post reporter Jonathan Zweygardt recaps this week's Ellis County Commission meeting with commission chair Butch Schlyer on this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
Jonathan Zweygardt 
not a huge meeting last night by any means handful things on the agenda. And kind of the the one thing I guess we'll start with the budget discussion, because that's going to be something that you all talked about last night. And it's going to be a continued kind of process through the next several weeks and months. And I know, a week ago, Commissioner, Rutherford County Administrator, Dr. Meyers kind of laid out the the calendar. And then last night was the first opportunity to kind of start to direct how the commission would like the budget to look. And I guess that's kind of where we start. So it's an opportunity for the commission to kind of lay out their vision for what the department head portion of the budget budget and elected officials looks like,
 
Butch Schlyer 
right? Last night, we were to start to give them direction on what the budget should look like, and what department heads elected officials should try to do with their budgets. And of course, as I reflected on that, through the week, our budgets are going to go up, we know that going in. And they're gonna go up because we had additional personnel, we added, I believe our IT department added a person we added an assistant to our admin administrator, we've we've increased a clerical position from halftime to full time and we just increased an appraiser position for three quarter time to full time. So we know that personnel wise, we're going to have an increase. And we know given the inflation on things, we are going to look at an increase in supplies and increase in equipment. And on top of that everyone has had their homes valued at a whole new level, mine went up 19.4%. So that just going to impact people's wallet and trying to make sure people are aware that what what we definitely came to a conclusion last night is we want the department heads and elected officials to bring in a budget that they believe they need to provide the services necessary in their departments. And that includes their supplies and their equipment, we know the cost of fuel is going to go way up. That's even going to be real hard to budget for. But But looking at that, it just comes down to a matter of what we can do with the dollars we're going to get. And we're going to pull them. And we're also looking at trying to increase money into our public works department for road and bridge projects. Currently, we're allotting one mil for Bridge Park project, specifically, which gives us about 450,000 a year that we had one bridge failure on the saline river this year, that costs us $900,000. So we feel like we really have to put more money back for that. And then addition, as we look at personnel, we have been giving them the same cost of living increase that Social Security recipients get, we don't know where that's going to fall either. So the budget, we're going to look at where the budget kind of comes in at and then see where we can best to reallocate funding resources wherever we need.
 
Jonathan Zweygardt 
It's interesting to talk about so road and bridge Public Works and the revival of a old fund to now make two funds where there's a highway fund road and bridge fund that, as you mentioned, is funded $400,000 each in each fund. So combine $100,000 A year ago, but as you mentioned that that won't replace a bridge. I mean, if we have, and we have some bridge that bridges that are extremely old and the county is structurally deficient is a is a is an interesting term, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's actually you know, going to fall down tomorrow. It's just a tech, technical term. But there are bridges that the county and rows of the county has to look out for in the future. And so it's important to start to set money back in case there are big projects, big failures and bridges,
 
Butch Schlyer 
right, like I say with that one bridge failure versus $900,000. And that should be finished up here this year sometime. But it when a bridge fails like that it does cause an inconvenience to the users of that bridge. And this bridge that did fail. The oil industry is really harmed by that bridge failure. They have a big detour they have to go around.
 
Jonathan Zweygardt 
And I know that something that with the road and bridge, the road tour coming up next week. That's something with that we wanted to hit on Well, let's keep talking about the budget but obviously that's an opportunity for the commission next week. was part of a special session to take a look at some of those bridges, right?
 
Butch Schlyer 
They do take our the commissioners around and shows the various projects that are going on and the projects which we may be facing in the future. And that's always an eye opener.
 
Jonathan Zweygardt 
When you look at the budget budget process, we talk about some of the unknowns, the inflation, the price of fuel, the cost of health care may change as well. You talk about the direction that the Commission talked about last night and keeping it as you know, make sure you keep the services that you want. That's something that as you've been a part of the commission that the you guys have, really, I don't want to champion to the right word, but making sure that you keep the level of services that we have in Ellis County at the level we have,
 
Butch Schlyer 
right? Well, well, county government is governed by statute from the state. And the state really tells us what we're going to provide with most of our departments, there is an exception with just a couple. But we have to provide certain services for departments, and with with the elected official departments, we have to provide them adequate funding to provide those services or else they could come back and take us to court on those kinds of issues, which I hope that never has to happen. So it can get. We've had budget sessions in the past, I'd got quite intense.
 
Jonathan Zweygardt 
And I know to you being a part of the Commission, as part of the discussion for the sales tax, and it went past and the Commission, you can only through the sales tax or tax directly a certain portion of that specifically to one which the commission elected to do health care, which we can talk about in just a moment, but also then kind of earmarking saying, Okay, we have a percentage that needs to go to road and bridge. And that probably goes more to what we were talking about earlier, too,
 
Butch Schlyer 
right? Yeah, that what we've done with the with the portion for road and bridge, is we did take out a bond for certain projects. And as as we start down that list, if a project is overrun, comes in more than it should have or what we anticipated, then the list just gets shorter. So list doesn't go away. It just shortens up and we have to make a new list next year. And I
 
Jonathan Zweygardt 
know Darrin County Administrator, Dr. Meyers talked about it a week ago with the sales tax and how much that has helped on the budget, with the being able to fund the health through that. And then also with Raja road and bridge. So that's a big part of the success that the budget has had for the county.
 
Butch Schlyer 
Right. Without that sales tax, Ellis County would have crashed and burned, we would have had to have layoffs service, whether it had been curtailed, probably would have had to cut hours for existing staff, it just wouldn't have been a good outcome at all.
 
Jonathan Zweygardt 
I'm curious to in your position with the as the commission chair, and with kind of those numbers and understanding that that will sunset in 10 years, obviously, under 10 years now. But and looking at it as far as who knows what happens the next time you go to the voters? Is there also that way in the back of your mind that you have to find a way to set aside money and and start to make sure that you don't get back in that situation? As before.
 
Butch Schlyer 
We're trying to build up the reserves for it for the LS County.
 
Jonathan Zweygardt 
Yeah, I'm curious. That was something that you guys kind of talked a little bit about last night. Right. And so any particular reserves, we talked about Rowan bridge, but is there any other than that you think that you want to highlight as far as from your chair?
 
Butch Schlyer 
Well, our reserves, our capital equipment fund, just our cash carryover balance. And anything we can build up to help sustain this, should we not have quite the revenues we think we need is going to help and maybe get us by a year. If we run into a situation in eight years where our sales tax doesn't pass, we're in bad shape immediately. That's that's just going to be that effective.
 
Jonathan Zweygardt 
And obviously, that's something that Darren had pointed out and you see an ad budget, and there's some things that you just can't control, as we talked about before. One of the things that came up last night. So your director was talking about outside agencies, and as a whole, those are agencies of the Commission and the county of funds. Is there anything as far as director that you're talking about with them that, that you think that won't be related? As far as well.
 
Butch Schlyer 
We we talked about the outside agencies or the agencies what just enhanced quality of service or quality of life in Ellis County. And we talked last night, we just wanted to see them bring in pretty much flat budgets. And as we look at our county budget comes in, look at the subsidize agencies that will determine if we're going to increase decrease or allocate different agencies within those outside agencies different funding, so it's something we just got to look at the big picture when we start getting the pieces put together
 
Jonathan Zweygardt 
and This is going to be a process that will go all the way to September because there will definitely be an increase in the budget. And so that takes an extra step. Yes, absolutely. So I know we'll be talking more and more about that. So we look forward to having more of those types of discussions. Anything else from last night, it's a meeting that kind of stood out to me, we got an update from the health department. I think that was something with Kim mareel, the Director of Health Department talking about a couple of different things
 
Butch Schlyer 
we did, we did send the health department back to the governor's Public Health Conference, the whole staff went, they closed up the department for a few days, it sounded like it was very beneficial for him. We have completely redone the health department as to what it was, when I retired, we brought it back to that same level with with an administrator directly into the department, running things on a day to day basis, instead of having us split administrator, that just doesn't seem to be working well. So I think our health department is kind of getting its feet back under him. They're looking at expanding some programs with the maternal child grant, as well as with the family planning grant. So that's all helpful. And then they're trying to find ways to spend some of the COVID grant they had with with some remodeling and some signage and things like that. So we'll see how that turns out. Yeah, I
 
Jonathan Zweygardt 
know, that's something that I think we'll definitely be hearing more about as far as maybe a little bit of a different look. And it's because of safety issues that have been brought up within the departments, that new location is not new anymore. It's been settling for a while, but that's something that I know that the the remodel and kind of making it a little bit safer, and then also more efficient. Right. Absolutely. And we'll look forward to hearing more about that. I know Kim presented last night and as you mentioned some COVID money that has to be spinner. It it goes back to the federal government. So I think the odd the, basically the understanding was this is your chance to use that money or you will never get it again.
 
Butch Schlyer 
But you have to lose it according to certain contingencies. So sometimes that can be hard to sort it all out.
 
Jonathan Zweygardt 
Very good. Well, um, that kind of wraps it up. I know, there was, as you mentioned, an approval of a little bit of a change in income, kind of some of the positions there through the appraisers office. That was some personnel change a little bit and then more about the Katherine township that was one of those that was out for dissolve nine, but it looks like that some folks have stepped up and decided that they want to keep their township running. Yeah,
 
Butch Schlyer 
I guess according to the county clerk if they don't file the budget or the proper reports, we can dissolve the township and the Catherine township I believe it was decided they didn't want to do that. So they got some offers. We got everything renewed last month. Great.
 

FHSU celebrates creativity during John Heinrichs Scholarly and Creative Activity Days

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Fort Hays State University associate professor Whitney Whitaker shares information about the John Heinrichs Scholarly and Creative Activity Days.

Hays receives Kansas Main Street designation

On this episode of the Post Podcast Downtown Hays Development Corp. executive director Sara Bloom shares details about the Kansas Main Steet program.
 
www.thedatagroup.cloud

Hays microfactory to bring industrial opportunities to the area

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares information about  the Hays microfactory project. 
 
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
A spark grant from the state of Kansas is going to allow Grow Hays to move forward with their microfactory project. Grow Hays, Executive Director Doug Williams stops by to talk to us about that and more on this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
It was an exciting week, the Kansas space grants were awarded on Monday, I believe it was. And the bass stands for building a stronger economy. I believe that this was $100 million, that the state of Kansas was putting out for grants to people who applied and fit their criteria. These are funds that came down from the ARPA, federal funds, post COVID infrastructure type bill. And so the Department of Revenue wrote some specifications for grants that they would be willing to do that they had, I believe it was 417, or over 400 applications totaling 1,000,800,000 1,800,000,000, for this 100 million. So clearly, there was a huge demand. But we were fortunate enough to get a, a grant for microfactory, which we've been working on for a while. And so that was terrific news.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, I want to back this up a little bit, because I do remember, we talked about it on this segment A little while back, but this is one of those projects that I think it was kind of flying under the radar. And I really I kind of want to ask this and not in a bad way. But I don't think this grant we we really didn't expect to get this great. Did we? Well, we always expect well, I know you want the you applied and you hope but
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
You know, we you just never know in these situations, you hope you put forth a good proposal, David Klingon, who is our new Director of Recruitment and retainment put together a great grant proposal explained it very well. And so but you never know, when you send them in, there were at least five grants submitted from Ellis County, we submitted a couple a couple other people submitted a couple. And I think there was one other one that I'm aware of. And this was the only one in Ellis County that was awarded. So we were we were happy about that. In looking at the criteria, it was it was very much economic development driven. And many, many of the applications were infrastructure related streets, roads, that kind of thing. And we put one in for infrastructure as well, and the Tallgrass edition. And it was clear by the awards that they didn't do a lot of infrastructure stuff, they they really narrowed down projects that were economic development related. And that's what this microfactory really is, is a long term economic development engine. We hope it's an incubator for manufacturers. And so I think that's why it received the attention it did and got the award.
 
James Bell 
You know, I want to talk about this kind of a facility in detail, the one that's proposed here, but, you know, this is really something I think that's kind of new to the industry, you run the brief space down there, that co working space and for office, kind of jobs. But, you know, I haven't really heard anything about this kind of a microfactory concept isn't relatively new.
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
It is at least as far as I know, I've not seen much of it out there. But it makes a lot of sense. Just like brief space makes a lot of sense. It's an incubator, in this case, and microfactory is an incubator for manufacturers, this, this building will be a 30,000 square foot structure built to the specifications that manufacturers need, you know, tall ceilings, large overhead doors, the opportunity maybe to put in a overhead crane of some sort, or what have you. And this 30,000 square feet will be sliced up in five or six areas of five to six to seven, you know, it might slice and dice a little differently depending on who goes in and what you need. But we will offer it to a small manufacturer or an existing manufacturer who has a new idea and need some space to develop that idea. A small, maybe an inventor who has an idea for an invention but just needs some space, as well as some assistance to bring this product to market. And then the hope is that they they go into this space at a considerably reduced rate of rent, they develop their product, build their business and outgrow it so that we can then build them another building and have them expand into that and then move the next guy in where they were and so that's the concept we're excited about it i think i think it's got good opportunity for the community and and I think it'll be really good.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, absolutely. And I think for Hey, specifically we've talked about this in the past Hays is primarily a white collar economy and this can help maybe drive some of that opportunity space that we're that we have here in the region.
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
Well absolutely Hays in our our three largest employers are the Medical Center, the University and USD 489 Was your primarily white collar office type jobs. We have some manufacturing obviously with inner sis and Hess and cross and size wise and and what Not but we don't have a lot of manufacturing. And this is an area of opportunity for us and an area that we believe we need to grow this part of our economy in an effort to kind of diversify things and have a broader range of of job options in our community. And so this will be a great opportunity to do that. And we need some more manufacturing here. And this, this should we hope, over time, provide that opportunity to grow some manufacturers.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. Now, I know, location, and a lot of the details have yet to be worked out because it really was kind of a conceptual plan when the grant was applied. And now you've got the money now, we have to actually make it go. But I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about some of those specifics on this project that will be the people will see is it's kind of coming to fruition.
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
Sure. You know, as you say that the easy parts over now we have to actually execute and make it happen. But the proposed location is at the corner of ninth and commerce Parkway, which is just to the south of Glassman Corporation, that's an area owned by heart America development and has had seen some activity out there lately, there's been a couple of lots sell out there. And, and this is on one of those lots that they have available. It's about a five or six acre tract, which will house this structure nicely and would even add allow for some potential additional development of structure if need be. It's it's a great location from the standpoint that it's easily accessible to highway 40. Right down the street is on day 70. So it's a great spot for shipping things in and out and that kind of thing. And, and so we think it's a great spot for it. timeframe, this has to be done, doesn't have to be done. But the guidelines require about two years. So within two years, we need to be have this project completed. That's a bit of a challenge. Because right now as an example, there's about a 12 month lead time on metal buildings. So you know, the process, we've got to get some architectural drawings done. And then we've got to start the construction process bidding on the construction process and things, order the building, put the slab in and those kinds of things. So we'll be busy for the next couple years getting this done. But it's very doable in that timeframe, we just can't doddle on a lot of things.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, and, you know, I'm curious, like, what does that process gonna look like for air review even thought this far ahead. For those people that are interested, you know, like, you know, say, I've got an idea for a new broom, and I want to move out there, what do I do?
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
Well, you contact us to begin with that that's the good part of a two year lead time or a 1218 monthly time as well we're constructing the facility, we can be looking for prospective tenants, and they can be ramping up and figuring out how much space they would need. Because in a building like that, you can divide it really any way you want to divide it, it could be, theoretically, if you had the right opportunity, it could be one person could take half of it, I don't see that happening, I'd rather have more small spaces. But when you've got 30,000 square feet, if you've got five, you know, if you divide it up by five, that's 6000 square feet per tenant, which is a fair amount of square footage. So just depends on kind of what happens. But that's that's the as I said, the nice thing is, we'll be able to be looking for those tenants while we're constructing the facility. And really how you how you split it up inside is one of the last decisions you have to make. And you can even leave it open until you have somebody that needs a certain amount of space, and then you just put up a wall. So it's a pretty simple process at that point in time. But so if anybody out there has an idea or is a small manufacturer that needs some additional space and is looking to do some things, we'd love to hear from them, because we'd love to figure out how they might work into this space.
 
James Bell 
Excellent. You know, I'm curious to what about businesses that maybe are looking to relocate to this area? I think about there was a project over in Russell a couple years ago to bring a hemp processing manufacturing, they made the equipment and they were building it there in Russell, is that going to be helpful for those kinds of businesses to move into the region as well?
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
Well, certainly could be, you know, a lot of times those people looking to move and make that kind of a move are going to be larger. So they may need more space than what 6000 7000 Square feet might offer. But definitely somebody who's in a community or out in another location that that needs some space and would be willing to relocate. We'd love to talk to them as well.
 
James Bell 
Do you think to that folks might utilize this space as a way to kind of collaborate even like a no. And again, I think I think of that brief space model that co working space and it's such it's such a cool situation that's happening down there as you're seeing more and more businesses that are kind of firmly you know, using that spot, it's not a temporary space, it's their office space. So I wonder if that's gonna happen there as well,
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
I think it could I think you could get complementary businesses out there. You know, if you look at to Wichita, which is very heavy manufacturing community because of the aircraft industry and whatnot. There's a lot of small businesses that that make this particular widget for an airplane, and then it has to be attached to this next thing. And there may be two manufacturers side by side who, who work closely on a complementary product. So I could see that happening, for sure.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. And you know, and I think the last piece on this, so we didn't really talk about it's the the funding piece overall, because two and a half or 2.6, from the state that covers a giant portion of the overall cost, but you still got about what 800,000 to go right.
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
And we do. And that's going to be the challenge. But we've we're working on making sure we've got that covered, we obviously had to show that we had the funds to do this to cover our match to begin with. And so we've got a couple of sources for that. But we're also exploring other sources. So we've got it in place. But that's not to say that we aren't looking for alternative ways to fund that portion of the project. And, and I think we're, we've got a pretty good story to tell. So I think a couple of our other sources will be helpful to us and bridging that gap and making this happen.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. Well, we've got just about a minute left, Doug, any other last thoughts or anything else you think folks should know about this project? Is it starting to kick off?
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
Well, just take watch, we'll keep people posted on our website on Facebook and that type of thing. And in terms of when we get started and where we are in the process. I don't think you'll see a lot of activity on the actual site for a while yet probably six months, maybe but maybe sooner, but just we'll try and keep everybody posted. And obviously if there are prospective tenants out there that are looking for space, and we'd like to utilize this opportunity. We'd love to talk to him.

Forward Ever: American Cancer Society chief patient officer Arif Kamal

On this episode of Forward Ever: Leading in Challenging Times host Gary Shorman speaks with American Cancer Society chief patient officer Arif Kamal.

Fort Hays State University Day of Giving scheduled

On this episode of the Post Podcast Fort Hays State University Alumni Association director of engagement Carolyn Tatro and board chair Mike Slattery share information about giving at FHSU.

Hays High education impacted by lack of space

On this episode of the Post Podcast Hays High principal, Shawn Henderson shares the latest from USD 489.
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
Hays High continues to struggle with this space and aging facilities. Principal Shawn Henderson stops by to talk to us a little bit about that and more on this episode of the post podcast. As we've heard from some of the other principals here on the go morning show, there's a pretty big problem with space in the district. Right?
 
Shawn Henderson 
Exactly. And I think that would hold true for sure it hits high. And that's kind of the thing that we've really been talking to everybody about is space and beyond space, even just how space works in terms of how modern learners learn, and really what industry is asking us. And that's about having students that know how to collaborate, they know how to innovate and work as a team. And to do that you've got to have a place for them to, to take care of those needs, and to engage in that kind of learning, which is really important. Yeah, you know, I
 
James Bell 
think I saw a picture pretty recently from Hays high. And it was it was students working in the hallway, because there's no place else for him to work.
 
Shawn Henderson 
Yes, and that. And really, that's a very common sight for us. When you look at how schools are handling those spaces, now, there are different types of classrooms, different kinds of spaces allocated for the kind of learning that's taking place for our teachers to replicate that now. They're, they're sending them to the hallway. So it is very true. When I talk to people, there are always students lining the halls, and it's not the old school model of you're in trouble, go to the hall. Otherwise, I'd have a whole lot of people in trouble. That's not what this is. This is this is a place to give kids an opportunity to collaborate, which again, comes from industry, and that's the skills they want those kids to have.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, you know, we hear about that quite a bit too. The the desire 20 years ago was to send everybody to college or big goes to college gets a four year standard degree. But now we've we've learned that those those those hands on skills, electricians, the plumbers, the tech jobs, are what's in real high demand. And so yeah, so what you're saying is you guys are responding to what is needed out there in the world world. Right. And,
 
Shawn Henderson 
Yeah, and it is, again, it's listening to industry, and it is understanding, and I appreciate that you said that, because it's true. There's not just one path for students, you know, we talked about things at the high school level called individual plan of study, and what we're talking about is your path, you the student and what what your skills, what's your interest, we gauge those interests, we, we, you know, have curriculum for that we get them out in the community. And that's something that we are continuing to expand, we want our students to get the skills that they need, but then to go and put them to use in our community and to learn those skills partner with business. Because really, that's what's going to set them apart when they go out. And they try to join the workforce. Yeah,
 
James Bell 
no, you know, we hear quite a bit the the quality of the education isn't necessarily determined by the facilities, I wonder if you want to talk a little bit about this in specifics, how they actually do get impacted in specific ways. Like I think of my high school experience science labs, I went to an older school, I went to a school built in the 20s. And at the time, our science lab was virtually non existent. And I don't know the status of your facility. So it's just an example. But I wonder about, like, the ability to teach those skills that are needed in a facility now that is pushing, you know, 40 years old in haste highest case,
 
Shawn Henderson 
right? And you look at our teachers, and you think about the term, they're doing these things in spite of the limitations that they have. And then you look at our dynamic staff, you look at the kind of people that teach our young people in this community and you think, wow, what if they were able to have the kind of space that they need, so that those barriers are not in their way, and that you know, as someone that is the leader of that environment, it's really excited to think about making sure that they have that space and they have the tools that they need, because then they are going to be able to maximize that environment for those students and try to remove some of those barriers for them. And that's exciting I think for the educators it's exciting for the students it's exciting as a parent you know, I have students in school myself that you know, what does that look like for for them to have exactly what they need so that they can they can grow
 
James Bell 
you know, I wonder if you want to talk about a little bit maybe this how this compares Hayes high to some other districts in our league?
 
Shawn Henderson 
Yeah, I mean, I think the thing is, is that you know, the if you start to go around the the Western you know, are the wack right and so you start to look at what the other schools the Dodge City, liberal garden, great Ben, you look at it, it is it, you know, facilities, you look at the the kind of practice spaces they have the kind of learning environment they have. And, you know, the truth is, is our parents, our families, they're on the road, they're on the road a lot. And it's not even just so much about the schools in our conference, you know, families that have competitive sports and competitive even all the things that that families are doing now. They they traveled to a lot of places, they see a lot of schools and they understand the condition of the facilities, not even so much the condition but just the Um, what those opportunities are that they can see with their eyes just visiting those towns in the schools. And, and that's something that I that I think that Hayes can really consider and think about in terms of what we have here. And I think that's a question worth asking for sure.
 
James Bell 
Absolutely. You know, we've also heard a lot about missed opportunities, conferences or sports. I don't know, things. Everybody knows, I'm not much of a sports guy. But I think about, you know, all those opportunities that as a school we could have if we had the space to do so to bring people into haze. You want to speak a little bit about that, right?
 
Shawn Henderson 
Yeah, certainly. So you're talking about regional level events, you're talking about events where the the Keisha, they call and they say, Would you be willing to host that? Well, it's always an honor to host for Keisha events because it brings great, well, to be honest, it brings people to the community. And that benefits everyone. But when we don't have the facilities that can hold those events, because there are stipulations from the state, of course. And then when we're not able to do that we lose out on revenue for the community, we lose out of people coming to see what Hayes is about. And it's unfortunate. And you know, another example for us, that's the easiest to show is we just we truly do not have an auditorium, not to not to the type that that students utilize now. And it would be something that would go across, it would be all students K through 12. The community that tends to be that place in the community that so many things happen, whether it's an assembly, or it's a concert, that's a talked about spaces we simply don't have that is one that is off. For us. We just don't have that. And we lose out on a lot of things from a curriculum standpoint. And then just from an opportunity standpoint,
 
James Bell 
absolutely. You know, I was I was right before going on air I was telling you last night, as a matter of fact, I was at a or Tuesday, I guess I should say Roosevelt had their program at 12 St. auditorium. And I think there's no better visual for some of the facility concerns in the district, that Wall Street auditorium that building, it doesn't look good. And if you're, as a parent, and especially somebody coming outside of the district, if you're in that building, I think it just screams to something needs done.
 
Shawn Henderson 
Yeah. And for us, it's it's a part of the curriculum to we have students that are that are incredible performers. But it goes beyond that. It's the stagecraft, it's the people that want to be involved in quite frankly, what you do, right? I mean, those are the kinds of things that we want to provide those opportunities, that that really, we have so many kids a cross section of kids that could use that space. And, you know, whether it's a stage craft class, that's a drama class, we would not, we do not have a place for that right now, there. You know, it's not even in our building. And again, yeah, I think that's a, that's a true example of that. Yeah. And
 
James Bell 
going back, again, to kind of what we were talking about, at the onset of this, you know, those tech jobs, those jobs that we don't even that don't exist today, we don't know what they're gonna be. And that's what the students that are coming into the highest high now are going to be doing jobs that we can't even imagine. And it's going to require development and infrastructure to make the make those career potential opportunities happen.
 
Shawn Henderson 
Correct. And we want to be responsive, we do not want to provide any barriers or roadblocks for our students, because quite frankly, when they there, it's a competitive world. And they're going up against students that have, you know, similar experiences, or, and we want to make sure that we have the tools in place for them, so that they can be competitive.
 
James Bell 
And again, no knocks against any of the educators, I think that almost everybody I speak to, I think would agree that USD 49 has some of the best educators in the state of Kansas, if not beyond.
 
Shawn Henderson 
Oh, absolutely. And again, I go back to what I said at the beginning. It's, it's, it's what they're doing in spite of what's in front of them, you know, they're just some barriers for them. And then if you start to remove those barriers, and give them the kind of space allocation that they need, I really like to think about what what they can do, then then they can flourish. And I think that that's important as well.
 
James Bell 
You know, I think the other important piece of talking about facilities and maintenance in the district is the upkeep, then that's something that is heard pretty frequently. You know, why? Why didn't the district take better care of Hays high when we built it 40 years ago? You know, I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about that, you know, from a financial standpoint, the challenges that come with trying to upkeep a building that is now 40 years old.
 
Shawn Henderson 
Right, and I think it's a fair question, you know, is, Are we maintaining the buildings and, and I've heard a lot of great analogies and people that know me, you know, I use them all the time. But at my age, I'm simply not the same person I was when I was 16. Just not as not as fast and not, you know, not as quick on my feet and, and the truth is, is that It doesn't matter how hard that we upkeep something there, age is real, it's going to come into play. We have people that work tirelessly and decades of, of people that have worked really hard to provide an infrastructure and they do a great job. But the infrastructure grows in age. And when it does, it creates issues that have to be solved. And that includes dollars and cents. And I think something that that we want to make sure that we realize is, is it's not so much that the facilities haven't been taken care of. It's that time is a real factor. And, you know, that's why this conversation of when when is it time to upgrade? When is it time to build new? When is it time to change that infrastructure so that we are preparing for 50 years from now? I think that's that's the question that's in front of voters. And it's the right question to ask, and we hope people do. And we hope that if they have questions that they can ask, because, you know, that's the thing, I recently helped my daughter registered to vote, and it was the same conversation I had with her that I would have with anyone is that, you know, it's an incredible civic responsibility to be able to do this. And that's the conversation I had with my new 18 year old. And, and just like I would tell her, you know, you've got to decide you've got to be educated on this. You've got to know what what you know what your decision means. And then you you've got to vote. And that's, that's what I would tell her. And really, that's what I would tell anyone. That's my hope is that, that people know what we're talking about, ask those questions and get out and vote. Absolutely.
 
James Bell 
Yeah. And I think one of the great things that I've seen with this, with the district and the committees that are working on this bond issue is the amount of information that has been put out there is truly comprehensive, I think it's really a pretty good job. And there's a town hall, they've had some of these meetings already, but a town hall coming up to that, where you can go in if you're curious about this and learn more about the issues and ask questions directly some of the people that are in the know
 
Shawn Henderson 
Exactly. And that's going to be on April 20, Hayes Middle School in Hays High School are going to come together at six o'clock. And yeah, again, we would welcome anyone to come in and ask those questions. And because again, as we have an opportunity to share, and to take time to answer those questions, I think that's when people feel comfortable with the decision that they're making. And I think that's appropriate.
 
James Bell 
Absolutely. Well, anything else that you want to hit on or any other last thoughts before we go?
 
Shawn Henderson 
No, I mean, hey, this is a great time of year. We're hoping spring comes around. It's taken a real slow time to get to spring, but there's always some nice high activities out there. We've got the music students going to call me today for state, large group got all kinds of activities going on in the spring would love to see people out. It's good to support our students.

FHSU readies for upcoming rodeo

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Fort Hays State University Rodeo team members Brent Hornbuckle and Jessi Ross share information about the upcoming FHSU rodeo.
 
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
James Bell 
For a state university set for the rodeo this weekend, team members Jesse Ross and Brent Hornbuckle stopped by to tell us a little bit about the festivities on this episode of the post podcast.
 
Brent Hornbuckle 
Seven o'clock each night, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Thursday,
 
James Bell 
Friday and Saturday. Now, if I remember correctly from the last time, you folks were here, the rodeo grounds, it's a little different now. Right?
 
Brent Hornbuckle 
Actually, we are doing it at the Phillipsburg.
 
James Bell 
Okay, so you're back out at the fairgrounds or at our rodeo arena at the college. Okay, see, this is why you gotta you got a clue straight out here. I don't know what's going on ever. So did the college Thursday, Friday, Saturday, seven o'clock, what are people going to see during the events?
 
Jessi Ross 
So we'll have a mixture of rough stock and timed events. So there's bucking horses, ball ride and barrel racing, and a bunch of team roping and calf roping. Just a little bit. Everything.
 
James Bell 
Fantastic. Yeah, that's what I love. You know, and that's the great part about rodeo. Right? It's it's a diverse, and you get to see all kinds of different showmanship.
 
Jessi Ross 
Yes, it's definitely a thrill. It's never boring.
 
James Bell 
Absolutely. Now, are you guys ready to go coming up this Thursday?
 
Brent Hornbuckle 
as of tonight, we will be one more day of practice. Yeah, one more day of practice and prep. So excellent.
 
James Bell 
If folks are wanting to go out there and see the events, what's the easiest and best way for them to do that? Did you have to get tickets? Or is this offering?
 
Brent Hornbuckle 
Well, the you can buy advance tickets, which will save you a little money, you can pick those up at Orleans Vanderbilts and the Memorial Union on campus. Those tickets around you $8 for adults $5 for kids. And then if you do want to just come out to the rodeo at the gate the tickets for adults are $12 and the tickets for kids are eight and kids five and under get in for free. Okay, and that's per night, per night. Okay?
 
James Bell 
All right, very good. And then so you know if for folks for those out there listening people like myself that aren't super familiar with rodeo Jesse knows who I'm talking about last time she was here I told her all about this. I don't know anything about rodeo you know what, what kind of expectations should people have going into this? Or is it just show up and have a good time?
 
Brent Hornbuckle 
I wouldn't have much expectations and then show up and have a good time because you never know what's gonna happen. You could see really good runs, you could see pretty crazy wrecks and or you could see everything run smooth. You know, it's a rodeo, you can't ever plan for about anything to happen. You just hope for the best.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. What do you guys have to do to get the grounds ready or is it is there really anything involved in that?
 
Jessi Ross 
Well, we have to set banners you know, prep everything. And for the barrel racers out there. You want to get that ground really good. So in the past, we've had some pretty sketchy weather, but this weekend is looking beautiful, so we're hoping the ground will stay good antastic set everything up.
 
James Bell 
What kind of weather is ideal for this? Are you looking for like that mid 60s Low breeze or do you like a little rain or overclass? How overcast? What's the best
 
Jessi Ross 
Personally I'd like it sunny and 75 everybody bye. But you know in Kansas Beggars can't be choosers so you kind of have to plan for a little bit of wind but definitely not rain and snow.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, no snow snow never is good for sports. Any sports I don't think unless you're a skier All right. Well, guys, I know you've got to get over to the bowl. Any other last thoughts or anything else we want to hit on before we go?
 
Brent Hornbuckle 
No, we just hope to see a bunch of you out there and come support the Tigers. Very good.
 
James Bell 
Again Thursday, Friday and Saturday seven o'clock on the Fort Hays State University rodeo grounds.
 
Brent Hornbuckle 
Yep. Doug Phillip arena. It's on the golf course.

Hays Police Department celebrates dispatchers during National Public Safety Telecommunicators

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Hays Police Department communications Lt. Jeff Ridgeway shares information about the department's dispatchers as they celebrate National Public Safety Telecommunicators.
 
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
The Hays Police Department is celebrating their dispatchers during National Public Safety Telecommunicators week Communications Lieutenant Jeff Ridgeway stops by to talk to us about that and more on this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
Jeff Ridgeway 
Just a week of giving thanks to our dispatchers are 911 operators across the nation. They have a job that typically goes without, you know, I can't say they go unnoticed, because they are very much a key part of first responders and I will one calls and even the administrative calls. So this is just a week to be able to just say, Hey, thanks, thanks for taking that call answering the call being that life link and helping getting resources, those first response resources to where they need to go.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, you know, I think it was maybe a year or two ago, you were kind enough to take me down into the dispatch center. We were working on a story. I don't know if the story is now but I was really taken aback by kind of the the professionalism of these folks, but also the stories that I heard, you know, of being that first first responder, and it's really, you know, they are kind of, in some ways behind the scenes, because he's on the phone. But some of the things that they have to deal with are just as heavy and serious as what you would think of as a street officer, right?
 
Jeff Ridgeway 
Well, the people calling, these are some low points in some people's lives, they are in crisis, desperate need for help, just from a wide range of aspects eating anywhere from people who are contemplating taking their own life to crimes that just occurred, whether it be a robbery a homicide, or, or, or even something, perhaps not as critical as as you know, hey, my dog got out of the backyard, which might be critical for some, you know, so they definitely get a wide range of phone calls. And whether it be through the 911 system or just a non administrative or the non emergency line. They are definitely that first point of contact with the public safety agencies and are just able to route the the assistance that's needed redirect people to where they need to go or or just be that lifeline when needed.
 
James Bell 
Yeah. Well, and they also have to deal with people like me calling down they're asking questions all the time. What was this? We heard sirens will tell us about it.
 
Jeff Ridgeway 
They have they have a good filter system? So they know. Absolutely.
 
James Bell 
Always professional, but also always. What's the word I'm looking for? Not correct. But you know, direct to the point very direct.
 
Jeff Ridgeway 
Yeah, they, you know, we have a limited number of like 911 lines, we've only we've only got 5 911 lines in the county that come and of course, we serve for the whole county here in Ellis County. So when you have just a limited number lines, they're very, pretty much say we gotta get off the phone because somebody else might be needed next. So they're very mindful of that concept. Yeah.
 
James Bell 
So you know, what is this? What are we doing this week to help kind of recognize those folks?
 
Jeff Ridgeway 
Well, just as an agency for us, we're just kind of getting a couple extra treats and give him some thank you cards and stuff like that, you know, buying them lunch, dinner a couple times this week, getting some ice cream, and just doing some different activities like that just as appreciation. They've kind of come up as a team, they've came up with special themed days where they're kind of getting to relax a little bit not being in their their normal, uniform expectations and being able to dress down for example, today, it's kind of America Day, so they're wearing America style thing. outfits, and then tomorrow will be their favorite shirt day. And yesterday, they were dressed up with your favorite sports. So I mean, just different things for for everyday this week. As we just again, our focus is just to make sure they understand that they're appreciated. They are definitely kind of forgotten at times. But they're very much a very critical part of our emergency response system.
 
James Bell 
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And again, that first first responder, right,
 
Jeff Ridgeway 
yes, absolutely.
 
James Bell 
So you know, I don't know if we want to talk a little bit about kind of how that all works and kind of the jobs down there in the communication center. Because, you know, it's been what I think about two years now since the Hayes Police Department took over the responsibilities of running the center again,
 
Jeff Ridgeway 
Well, actually the Hays Police Department has well, You're correct. The Hays police department in the city of Hays is operated for many years and the county has provided the equipment. It was prior to a couple of years ago it was their own department within the city and it got combined back down to the police department. And you know, in 2021, they answered over 70,000 phone calls down there. Over 11,000 was being 911 calls but so they they're constantly getting a lot of phone calls down there. We serve and dispatch for 10 public safety agencies in our county five law enforcement for fire and of course, are county wide EMS. So they're constantly being busy. And one of the really needs information was looking back at some numbers from last year is our dispatch staff are able to answer 99% of the 91 calls within 10 seconds of it ringing. Wow, that is just an outstanding ability that's much, significantly higher than the national average of about 90%. Or that's national standard, I should say. So we're definitely doing really good in that aspect. We just have a phenomenal staff down there that is committed to their job committed to the the the role in making sure they can provide that service to our community.
 
James Bell 
That's incredible. You're looking for a couple more to join the ranks.
 
Jeff Ridgeway 
At the moment, we've got two openings that we're trying to get filled. We've got a couple of candidates that are going through our process and but we're always looking for a good, good dispatcher.
 
James Bell 
You know, I'm curious what you think about police officers in general the physicality the build a rundown somebody or the, you know, the quick action, quick thinking, you know, what kind of skills that does a dispatcher need to be effective at that job?
 
Jeff Ridgeway 
All right. You know, that's, that's a real tough question. I'll try to get that answered here. But from, from my observation, the ability to think fast, limited information, deal with unusual problems, just some common sense is probably the most common or most needed. skill set is just having that ability to, and, of course, he's always the doesn't hurt if you can stay calm when someone's upset on that on that phone. And even if they are redirecting their anger, you know, at the dispatcher and unfortunate it happens at time. So just being able to manage that that are definitely valuable skill sets,
 
James Bell 
I would think there's a pretty heavy tech component kind of involved in there, right. And especially right now, when you're redoing your system down there.
 
Jeff Ridgeway 
We just went last month ago, we spent transitions to a new computer aided dispatch software program and some other software that that the long term goal will make the I believe will make the job for our dispatchers easier. And so we've got four consoles in our 911 Center, that the average six monitors on each console. So there's a lot of screens, a lot of information that they're able to see lots of stuff coming in. So there is a bit of a tech skill set. They're working with the different software and stuff. But again, all that's intended to help them one, be able to do their job easier and give them access to the resources and information. Not only does the dispatchers need, but then that they can relay to the first responders you're out in the field.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, even before when I was down in there, the amount of information at their fingertips is actually it's it's mind boggling to me what they can access. And I can't even imagine what this new system I've got kind of an inkling of what it does.
 
Jeff Ridgeway 
Bringing in a new employee, I feel like without counting them, there's like 20 different resources that we have to set up the user profiles and give them access to ranging anywhere from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation to the FBI to various intelligence resources that we're able to provide them, again, the goal being there that they can read that information on to the first responders.
 
James Bell 
And I also thought it was it was pretty cool. They had, they had some entertainment going on, they had a TV show playing as well, because there is there's those times I imagine in a dispatch center where you're you're got a little bit of a lull, but then it's like you got to be ready to go on a moment's notice
 
Jeff Ridgeway 
Definitely has its ups and downs, there's moments of where the phones don't ring, perhaps more often than the early morning hours. And so there are moments where there are that downtime. And so to help get them through that downtime, we do have some opportunities, or we got a couple TV screens that are up on the wall, just they typically just have the video going they normally don't have much audio there. But but they all recognize that even though that's there, that phone rings, that's that's your focus on that. And it's a quick transition over and they're never seen there being an issue as far as not getting things done that they need to get done. And but you just have to recognize that it's not constant all the time something go go go there is some downtime. So to help break up that those downtimes we do provide some alternatives to help them.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, and I had to imagine it helps keep focus because you know, if you're zoning out, I think that would probably be the worst kind of situation just sitting there waiting for something to happen at your desk. You know, you have to be in that mind frame at all times. Right.
 
Jeff Ridgeway 
I mean, I don't think it's fair to expect anybody to just to sit there for hours and during those quiet times and just wait for the phone and you've you've, I mean, there's other tasks that they have that they'll take care of too, but I think we have realistic expectations on that aspect.
 
James Bell 
And I think, you know, Jim, generally across the city, I think everybody recognizes the tremendous work that they all do down there.
 
Jeff Ridgeway 
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Well,
 
James Bell  
I'll tell you, we've got just about a minute or so left. Any other last thoughts or anything you want to hit on before we go?
 
Jeff Ridgeway 
Well, again, I just want to express an appreciation to our staff down there, they're a great staff. They, even when we've been short handed over the last couple months, and they'll come in on their days off to help cover if someone is ill. It's just a great team that we've got down here and I really, the community has, I feel very lucky to have such an awesome staff that we have here. And it's really it's really great to to be able to work with such a great crew and a great staff and know what the expectations have the skill set that they need and translates very well into our first responder system. Very effective at what they're doing.

Weekend Setlist April 13, 2022

On this episode of the Weekend Setlist host Jeffery Leiker details events around the Hays area this weekend.

Hays Chamber readies for Dale Carnegie training sessions

On this episode of the Post Podcast Hays Chamber vice president of membership Rhonda Meyerhoff and administrative assistant, Marlis Fletcher stop by to share information about upcoming Dale Carnegie training sessions.
 
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
The Hays Chamber has a couple of Dale Carnegie leadership training sessions coming up in the near future administrative assistant Marlas Fletcher as well as vice president of membership, Rhonda Meyerhoff stops by to talk to us about that and more on this episode of the post podcast.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
Marla's has taken the session. So she's still currently smart. I'm not.
 
James Bell 
Well, you're getting in on this round. Right?
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
I am very cool. Yes.
 
Marlis Fletcher 
Yeah. You're excited about it? Yeah.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
Yeah. I'm very excited about it.
 
James Bell 
Yeah. And I know, this is one of, you know, Sarah is the president and CEO down there. She loves Dale Carnegie's, she's always talking about these things.
 
Marlis Fletcher 
Yeah, it's a great, great experience. And we've actually got two different workshops coming up. The first one's April 29, from 930 to 1130. It's the same day as our membership lunch. So you can sign up for this. It's self awareness, insights on personal leadership. And then right after that you can, and it's $50 for Chamber members and 60 for non members. So anybody can come. And right after that, you can come to our membership lunch, so it's same place just starts at noon. So you're right there, and you can hit both. Both things at one stop. Yeah, convenient. But they do. This is just a one day one. And I've never been to like a one day one. But you know, this one is you're going to be able to learn techniques to enhance your self awareness. So any training that Dale Carnegie, Carnegie puts on is good. But I'm especially excited to be able to go to this one.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, because I think we've talked about the the longer training sessions, a bit of a one day event, because I think about like the time commitment involved in in taking a long session. You know, maybe not everybody has that. But I think everybody could carve out an afternoon. Well, it's
 
Marlis Fletcher 
930 to 1130. Morning, you know, it's the morning and then yeah,
 
James Bell 
don't show up in the afternoon, because you will you will miss the event.
 
Marlis Fletcher 
You will. But yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah. So then after that, we're having the June 7 14th and 21st. It's Tuesdays for three consecutive weeks, we're having the full Dale Carnegie training. For non Chamber members, the cost is $1,995. But you get a 15% discount if you're a chamber member. So it is from 830 to five, each of those days, they do break an hour for lunch on your own. And this is the one I took. And I really, really enjoyed it. I learned a lot about me, I learned a lot about how to deal with people. You do get three books. And I have them in front of me. And one is How to Win Friends and Influence People
 
James Bell 
the classic right? That's the one that started it all.
 
Marlis Fletcher 
It says over 30 million copies sold. But I bet you it's probably more than that
 
James Bell 
it does the cover looks and not say it's an old book, but the cover looks like an older version. So I bet it's considerably higher than that now,
 
Marlis Fletcher 
I bet it is too. And then How to Stop Worrying and start living. And who wouldn't want that? Yeah,
 
James Bell 
I was just gonna say like, maybe looking to borrow that one.
 
Marlis Fletcher 
This one, Sarah. Sure. And then the quick and easy way to effective speaking.
 
James Bell 
Ah, very cool. I could use that one as well, I think here on the radio. Oh, you do pretty good. But
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
yeah, it's been really interesting, though. Because people that have taken it just, I mean, they go back to it and go back to go back to in their workplace and their personal life. Right?
 
Marlis Fletcher 
That's right. Like, I actually have somebody in my life who had taken that does not live in Hayes. But they took it from the same. He took it from the same people. And he has a very good job. And he claims that he got his job because he had the Dale Carnegie training while he went through his interview well, so
 
James Bell 
yeah, it's gonna be the kind of stuff that, you know, I haven't been involved. But I imagine that the stuff that is discussed and talked about and it's actionable, it's, it's not and I think maybe people will balk at the price, because it is a hefty price tag it is but what you're gonna get out of it, you're gonna build us in any job for the rest of your life.
 
Marlis Fletcher 
Oh, personal and professional. So, you know, each each session each each of his chapters you he has different principles. And like the first principle that you're going to learn if you read How to Win friends and influence people is don't criticize, condemn or complain. And you know, that's a pretty good life lesson there itself. So it gives you it gives you it'll give you instances where different things have happened and how this person handled it or should have handled it in the book. And it's it's just a really interesting learning experience. Yeah.
 
James Bell 
And getting in it's actionable content, right. It's not, you know, it's not like a lecture on how to be leaders. or do leadership? Well, it's stuff you can take and actually use
 
Marlis Fletcher 
apply, apply. That's before
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
you, you know, one thing on here that I'm really anxious to apply. I'm getting it that wonderful age where people's names sometimes elude me. But that's actually that doesn't
 
James Bell 
happen to everybody all the time, because I was gonna say, the listeners here on the show can tell you, every once in a while I forget the news guy's name like I see him every day.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
Well, one of the things that you'll work on is the process to recall names and facts. And I'm really, I'm happy about that. Because I've told friends, if we go somewhere, and I don't introduce it, it's because I can't remember the other person's name. You know, it's just yeah. So that is for sure. actionable. It's so embarrassing. When you can't recall someone's name.
 
James Bell 
But better. I mean, and in your world, though, how many people do you interact with an average? I mean, you're just all over the place. And there's so many people you want to you want to remember every name, but sometimes it's
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
one of those individuals isn't important. Personal. Absolutely. They deserve to be called by the right of the right name. Yes, yeah. So yeah, that's three days,
 
Marlis Fletcher 
it is three days, June 7 14th, and 21st. And it's really all day 830 to five.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
there last year, there was a group that came up from Dodge City, Kansas.
 
Marlis Fletcher 
There were they all worked at a it wasn't a feedlot, but it was something cattle related. Yeah. And they were fun. We had a lot of fun with them. Very cool.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
You know, yeah. And you talk about actionable items. You know, just strengthening relationships. We all think we might be good at that. But sometimes you used to do something so well that you forgot to do it anymore. And I don't know if that makes sense. But I'm old enough that, you know, things that you used to do, you just kind of let slip off the radar, because something else came in and took its place. Sure. Um, so that'll be that'll be good to look at that. And, you know, just all the different things that I saw Marlis grow a lot. In taking this.
 
Marlis Fletcher 
It does, it gives you a lot of confidence, you know, to speak to a person that you don't know, or in public, it just gives you a lot of confidence. I felt like this has confidence, competence and enthusiasm. But I really felt like the competent. The confidence was the big one for me.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
Yeah, you know, and James, yeah, a price tag, not cheap. But for, for our own Chamber members. You know, we surveyed them, that was still yet when Tammy was at the chamber. And one of the things that our businesses wanted is, they wanted to be able to provide training for their employees, but not have to send them to salon to which taught Kansas City to Denver. And so that's part of the reason why they brought Dale Carnegie here. So what I would like to share with our local individuals, yeah, there's a price tag, but you're gonna get to save on gasoline, your hotel, you're gonna get to save even more time, because you would spend time traveling to these locations. So that's more time out of the office. So there's actually a lot of good reasons why to take it here. Why to take it local, and put some money into your people. Surveys will show too, that employees really respect a business more and their employer more if they feel like they're valued, and that they have put some money back into the person, aside from their wages, invested time and skills. Yeah, absolutely.
 
James Bell 
And, you know, and talk about a time when when keeping and retaining people is paramount. I mean, everybody is looking for help. And right now, if you're losing employees, you've got problems.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
Absolutely. You know, and if you want to look at succession planning, maybe you're in that middle age group, and you're kind of thinking that someday, you'd like to retire, maybe it's your own business, maybe you're at the top and CEO or president or whatever, or some other position. What a great way to start grooming the next person coming in. By having them do some of this training, and actually preparing them to take on leadership within your within your company or your business. You'll not only gain from this succession planning, but you'll gain during the time that they're there supporting you while you're still there.
 
James Bell 
Absolutely. You know, and I will say this I have spoken to I don't know how many over the years people that have been through these training classes and I've never heard anyone say my I didn't feel like it was worth it. They everybody that comes out of this has has just nothing but positive to say,
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
well, and I'm excited to get to take it because when they do the Dale Carnegie quotes, I might be able to do one too.
 
James Bell 
Oh. So you know, we've we've run out of time, we should tell everybody like how if somebody is interested in participating in one of these sessions, where do they do?
 
Marlis Fletcher 
So you can call us at the chamber, and we'll give you the information, the phone number is 6288201. And we'll we'll send you the the sheet on it. We can email it to you.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
Yeah, we'll send you a registration link to and, and get you going. We'll help you through the process. If there's questions, we'll do the best we can.
 
Marlis Fletcher 
And we have it in our newsletters. We've had it in like the last two newsletters, I think so.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
Yeah. And those newsletters that our listeners want to know, all of our newsletters are actually online. If they go to Hayes chamber.com Go to News and Events tab at the top, go click to the right. And there's a section that's newsletters. So James, they could look in the March newsletter or the April newsletter, either one and learn more about both of these subjects that are coming up. Individuals maybe don't receive the newsletter.
 
James Bell 
Sure. Yeah. And you know, like and that online interface is so slick. i We still have we always have the paper version floating around. But I love the online. And plus, you can always reference it no matter where you are. You're on your phone, you're at your desk, you're at home, you can just click over there and get all the information you need.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
Yes, exactly. And it's easy for us to share.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, all right, guys. We got just about a minute or so left, what else you guys got going on this week.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
All righty. We are going to be having a ribbon cutting already at 10 o'clock this morning. We are going to celebrate, there's been a turf project out at Hayes rec on their their sports complex fields on the northeast quad. And we're going to be doing a ribbon cutting. We believe that's going to make a huge change and then being able to have teams in every weekend, spending money in haste and helping the economy but yeah, we're gonna celebrate with haste wreck on that with at the bagel, Schmidt sports complex. And then on tomorrow is going to be Mental Health First Aid training. And that is the free of them. But they do want to know if you're going to be there that so if you'd like to attend that call the chamber. And that event is from eight to five tomorrow, and it's going to be a brief space. And there's also on Thursday, then H yp advisory council meeting at the Welcome Center that starts at 515 April 14. Also, you know, James, one of our big projects that we're working on that I think will be ours forever, and we're happy about that is childcare and so it's going to be in Victoria, and it's the prospective and current childcare provider meeting. And that will be from 630 to 730 at the ELMS conference room 613 grant terrace. And then I want you all to know, we are very blessed Friday the chamber team has off. They don't have us work on Good Friday. So we get to have that day off and and go into work Friday things with our church family. So that's what's going on this week.
 

Ellis County Commission recap: April 12, 2022

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Hays Post reporter Jonathan Zweygardt recap this week's Ellis County Commission meeting with County Administrator Darin Myers.
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
This week's Ellis County Commission meeting was a busy one. Hays Post reporter Jonathan Zweygardt recaps that meeting with County Administrator Darinn Meyers, on this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
Jonathan Zweygardt 
We're gonna talk a little bit about yesterday's meeting. And then also, obviously, with kind of some of the fire dangers, your position as the fire chief, we can talk about that as well. But as far as the last night's meeting, kind of the busy meeting from last night, so that had a couple of presentations and a couple of different things. We'll kind of chat about some of those last night DSC Wk with Jerry Michaud, their director, and then presidents and then also with access. And when Chris came before the commission yesterday, I was kind of curious, they kind of, you know, providing their annual update to the commission, talking about obviously, with TSN DVK. staffing issues a big deal. I didn't know if there was anything in particular that kind of stood out from their presentation yesterday, as they gave a report to the commission.
 
Darin Myers 
I think there's several things that point out, that if you look at the commission meetings for the last several months, as well as the ones that are coming up, last year, in the budget cycle session with the Commission, they had requested all the outside agencies who with funding from the county come back and kind of give updates periodically throughout the year. So that's why you're seeing a lot of them at the commission meetings, explaining where they're at with their organization where the funding has went to and where they've kind of progressed and, you know, coming out of COVID what their plans are. And last night DSM Wk Jerry gave a pretty good update on where they're at. Seems like a similar problem. There's not enough workers and they're not being paid, not being paid enough, and how are we going to figure out how to pay them. But there's also I think, the biggest point that really stuck out to me, and they have individuals out there, I can't remember how long the waiting list was. But they were on that waiting list individuals for over 10 years now waiting to get services from DSM Wk, not just because of the funding, but because they don't have the level of supporters within their organization to take care of them because they can't find that in the workforce. So I think that was the biggest thing that stuck out with the SW K. And it's it's an important service to our community, but all of Northwest Kansas for the entire area that they serve.
 
Jonathan Zweygardt 
You said he said since 2012, and I think it was commissioner Schleicher asked, you know, Is it money? Or is it staffing and Jerry said if if we found a whole bunch of money, we'd still have the issue because of staffing. And, and you're the county is right in that kind of same boat, it seems like everybody's dealing with staffing issues. Yep. And then also with access, the County Commission works with them through grant support, because the large share of their funding comes from grant support through k dot and the Commission, a lot of times, it's asked to just sign on for supports through grants for access.
 
Darin Myers 
And one of their biggest grants that they get for their funding source. track a lot of things from the amount of people that they transport with their their their set fees are from the state, how many miles they drive, but a lot of their funding comes on at 20 Grant, or if they get $20. And matching funds here locally, for instance, from the county commission, that can eat up 20% of what they get. They get the other 80% from the grant from the federal government. So it's a smart investment of money that there's a need for that public transportation throughout the county. And I was surprised by their rates $2 for an in person drop or in town drop off and $4 anywhere in the county. And that's in line throughout the entire state, which is us amount set by the I believe k.is What he said, so significantly cheaper than taking a taxi or an Uber. And sometimes the services of those larger vans for the people in need of those types of services for wheelchair bound and such are so great option. And we need that for our community.
 
Jonathan Zweygardt 
And I know you kind of hit on it with the presentations. You know, this kind of leads into that last line item on the on the agenda from yesterday is the budget forecast. And, you know, there's a lot of numbers and a lot that goes into that. So but this is the start of that conversation that commission is hearing from these different outside agencies that the Commission partners with and provides funds for. And that's kind of, you know, along the line with this budget process, which you're just now starting for, believe it or not 2023. And so that kind of is your reasoning, why and, and kind of going into that.
 
Darin Myers 
Yeah, the budget cycles, it's a little bit shorter this year, the process is a little different than we've done in the past. But the commission, you know, one of their things that they had really emphasized last year was if we're giving outside agencies those funding, we'd like to know where it's going and so that way it's justifiable and understandable to the public of those taxpayer dollars going to help organizations like DSN Wk or High Plains mental health or economic development with grow haze A lot of those have immediate results and impacts coming back to our community for those, those dollars that we give them.
 
Jonathan Zweygardt 
I know last night, speaking of the budget kind of laid out, so with the Commission, the schedule of how the budget process will go, and I know next week, which I assume will spend a lot of our next couple of months talking about the budget through August and into September for 2023. That he kind of laid out the the schedule, and so next week, you'll kind of get maybe more of a direction as far as how the commission wants to go with department heads and kind of their direction for them.
 
Darin Myers 
Yep. So we spent a little last night I know, you couldn't see the numbers on the screen. But it was basically just how that the lines progressed on if you made a change with salaries or if you made a change with valuations, you made a change with health insurance or a combination of both. It shows you on how inflation and change in how services are going to impact the impact of over the next 10 years, a lot of that is the sales tax that was passed back in 2020. Once that expires, come 2030. The county is right in the same financial piece that it was back before then. So it's not that we emphasize what the commissioner has made sure we're making smart choices now not necessarily for 2023. But what's 2033 look like? Make sound investments now spend the money where it needs to be now. So that way we're looking at what 2020 or 2030 2033 looks like. And yeah, those kick off the budget process next week. With the information we shared last night, hopefully there'll be able to individually think about it and make some discussions, we have a have a discussion next week at the commission meeting as to what direction they'd like to see the department heads and elected officials put in their budget for for next year.
 
Jonathan Zweygardt 
And like I said, I know we're gonna be talking about this, you know, until September, but you talked about those numbers. And I thought it was interesting to see how different things change and you made the comment, you're talking about inflation, and valuation, healthcare. If one of those changes, you know, even just a salaries, for instance, if you if one of those things change just a percentage plus or minus, it makes a great impact on, you know, not only next year, but also there 10 years from now. But also what happens if two or three of those things are four or five of those things change that, you know, while we don't know what the future looks like, you know, that's still important to make good financial decisions. Because of the, you know, there are some things you just don't know you can't control. And so that's something that you said the commission has to look for.
 
Darin Myers 
Yeah, one of the easiest things that you can look at when you look at a forecast like that is you can look at the history and guarantee almost everything you buy now is more expensive, or everything you do now is more expensive than it was when you were a kid. So nothing's ever gonna get cheaper 10 years from now, hardly anything's gonna be cheaper than it is now. And just look at the gas prices two years ago, we were under $2 an hour. We were pushing. We were on vacation two weeks ago, we paid the highest at 486. Out in Illinois. So a lot of those play big, big impacts on the budget and all those little pieces combined. Make make up a big portion of where we need to look out into the future and just be smart with those dollars that way. We're just more financially sound.
 
Jonathan Zweygardt 
And there were a handful other things we wanted to quickly hit on but one of the things that I was gonna ask because I think you brought it up last night, the mill levy, when was the last time that the Commission raised the mill levy, obviously, it changes due to valuations. And there's some things outside of the Commission's control. It just happens because that's how it works with valuations. But as far as a real middle of a change, you know, when the last time that happened by the Commission was or that commission.
 
Darin Myers 
 I had it on piece of paper last night I look back for the last 15 years and 15 years ago and there's a big misinterpretation with the mill levy extra is everybody thinks that the mill levy sets the budget and that's not necessarily the case. It's a combination of what your valuations are for your property compared to what the budget is. And then that kind of helps determine what the mill levy is. Valuations go up your budget stays the same your mill levy goes down. If you're if your mill levy goes up, your valuations go up, your taxes go up so there's so many different pieces to that. And then you also got to look just for instance, the city Hayes, believe the overall mill levy is 110 mills. The county collects 100% of that, but we don't keep hardly any of it. You have about 40 mills that goes to school districts you have 25 or so mills that goes to the city Hayes Ellis County is only 36. And then you got the fire district on where yours at Sometimes if you're over an LLC that LSP Levy, so we're only the Ellis County government is only about a third of what you pay in your property taxes for the city Hays residents. A little bit less than in the others because the mill levies are different analysis Victoria. But yeah, it's it Where's actually changes more, we basically focus more on the budget. So if our budget say this year is 24 million, they basically give us the direction that yeah, we would like to see the budget stay the same, because we have no impact on what the valuations or the evaluations or what the homes are come across is what the markets doing. Everybody knows what the market is in Hays right now. There's no homes for sale, the homes are selling 10 to 15 20% higher than what the appraised values are. And people are paying that price when those prices go up supply and demand. Low supply the demand is high that people pay more. Eventually our appraisals by state statute have to catch up to that. So the middle of has basically been the same essentially for the last seven years. It's it hovers we can't keep it essentially the exact same because the valuations changed the budget changes which changes the mill levy, but it's it's been I think I said last night, the last seven years, there's only been six tenths of a mil difference from where it was seven years ago, which in the overall grand scheme of things when your overall mill levy for the city Hays area. It's 110 Mills, seven tenths of a mil is pretty minimal.
 
Jonathan Zweygardt 
Yeah, very good. Well, I'm sure talk about that more as the budget process just getting started for 2023. A couple of other things yesterday, the HVAC work and the admin center already underway with Glassman corporation that was just kind of a final approval last night for the commission.
 
Darin Myers 
Yep, the US that I believe they prove that work and the purchase order back in February. So they're getting started on that. And it's going to be about a nine month process. Working through going back to how salaries and the workforce are shortages, it's the same thing. And in the supply arena, there's about a 20 week lead time, I think 20 to 24 week lead time before we get a lot of the equipment for that so they got a lot of prep work cleaning, replacing some fan coil units throughout the building some rooftop units. There's a lot of work that goes into that. So though, you'll see Glassman down the administrative building for the next nine months quite a bit.
 
Jonathan Zweygardt 
Very good. And I know there are a couple of other things but you know, before we get out I wanted to make sure obviously in your role as the fire chief, you repeat to the weather before we got on and you know today's another Dangerous fire weather day and it looks like with the lack of moisture in that 10 day that you know we got to kind of keep an eye on that for the next handful of days after dealing with that before as well.
 
Darin Myers 
Yeah, I know when you're asking me about speaking about this this morning you had a couple of people knocking on wood last night that nothing pops up. We've been fortunate last week with three or four days of fire weather last week that we didn't have anything locally we had some smaller fires. We also assisted out of county on a fire up in Brooks county but it's happening all around us still it's just not hit home yet. If you didn't see last week at that fire North Norton up in Nebraska the volunteer fire chief up there was killed in a car accident because driving through smoke and hidden one of the other fire vehicles very unfortunate so my my guess my thoughts and sympathies out to that would fire department up in Nebraska but here we are again a week later. At Red Flag Warning today it looks like it's going to proceed for the next several days the burn ban in the county is still in place. So there is no outside burning, except for what's allowed within the burn ban. And like you said I looked at the weather because I do that about about every day and you know how the weather changes in Kansas but the next 10 days there's chances for moisture but as I showed you the highest chance was 40% sometime over the weekend but he said point 04 inches and then the way the wind blows that'll be gone within two hours after the wind blows when it stops raining. So for the next 10 days it doesn't look like we're gonna see any good chances or moisture but hopefully, like I say as the weather changes we'll get something sooner than later. I don't like having the Birdman in place I like it off and getting plenty of moisture but I just hope everybody's careful out there. tire chains up on your trailer so they're not dragging don't throw your cigarettes out don't do any outside burning recreational chimineas firepits anything we we have fires that actively start back up in the wind that had been out for two weeks from brush piles and people burning trees and branches. So that's that's kind of why that burn plan is in place right now and even after a little bit of rainfall because those those winds can torch up a fire and Start things but if you see something, don't be afraid to call 911 If you have something call 911 Immediately, the faster we get resources out there, even if we've come to find out there's nothing on fire there's no issue at least we got to help them. There's no harm in turning people around in the past week, get people there is the faster you'll be on top of things and less damage and destruction.