TexasTowelie
TexasTowelie's JournalHouse members weigh age requirements after teens run for governor
Six teenagers’ entrance into the race for Kansas governor has spurred action from lawmakers who would like to see only adults run for executive office.
Current Kansas law doesn’t impose a minimum age requirement on candidates for statewide office. This past summer, Jack Bergeson, 16, of Wichita, discovered the lack of an age requirement. He decided to run for office — and he set a trend.
Six teens are seeking the state’s top office, and another — Lucy Steyer, of Lenexa — is running for secretary of state.
Consternation about the number of teens in already crowded 2018 races inspired a bill discussed Wednesday by the House Elections Committee that would set a minimum age of 18 for candidates running for governor, secretary of state, attorney general, state treasurer and state commissioner of insurance. Candidates for governor and lieutenant governor would also have to live in Kansas for four years before seeking office, but the bill wouldn’t take effect until after this fall’s election.
Read more: http://www.cjonline.com/news/20180203/house-members-weigh-age-requirements-after-teens-run-for-governor
Kansas chemistry instructor arrested by ICE while taking his daughter to school
His family says they couldn’t even tell him goodbye.
Immigration officials arrested Syed Ahmed Jamal in his Lawrence front yard on Jan. 24 while he was taking his daughter to school.
The 7th-grade girl ran into the house to alert her mother and brother, while Jamal, a chemist, was handcuffed and led into a car. When his wife tried to hug him, an agent said she could be charged with interfering in an arrest, said son Taseen Jamal, 14.
Late on Feb. 1, supporters of his dad posted Syed Jamal’s story online. In two days, a campaign had collected more than 10,000 signatures on a petition to stay the deportation of a man who arrived 30 years ago from Bangladesh to study and work in the United States.
Jamal, 55, is thought be detained in a Missouri jail 160 miles from his wife Angela Zaynaub Chowdhury, also from Bangladesh, and their three U.S. citizen children.
Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/latest-news/article198215114.html
Wichita district policy should protect LGBTQ students, says union leader
Wichita schools should do more to protect gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students and employees, a teachers union leader told board members last week.
“The 50,000 students in this district overwhelmingly don’t care who somebody loves,” said Steve Wentz, president of United Teachers of Wichita. “They are more concerned with how people are treated and how people treat one another.”
Wentz urged school board members to expand the district’s official non-discrimination statement to explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity or expressoin along with race, religion, and other protected categories.
The change would affirm the district’s “commitment to workplace equity and inclusion. … So I’d like to see that included. I think it’s time,” Wentz said.
Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/local/education/article197103914.html
Koch family to open new kind of private school at Wichita State University
What if you could create a school from scratch – consult the experts, design the space, hire the teachers and incorporate all the latest research into how children think, move, develop and learn?
What would it look like?
Annie Koch wondered.
And now she and her husband are building it.
Chase and Annie Koch, the son and daughter-in-law of Koch Industries chief Charles Koch, are getting into the private school business in Wichita, financing a new pre-K-through-12th-grade school on the campus of Wichita State University.
Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/local/education/article198356249.html
They forgot the "dictate the curriculum" clause in the first paragraph.
Kobach will represent himself in upcoming trial. Is it a smart move?
When a federal lawsuit challenging Kansas’s proof of citizenship voter law goes to trial in March, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach plans to be in the courtroom.
He’ll be the attorney defending the law he crafted.
Rarely, if ever, do statewide elected officials represent themselves at trial.
The unusual situation is made possible by Attorney General Derek Schmidt.
Kobach, who is being sued in his official capacity as secretary of state, received permission from Schmidt to represent himself at the trial-court level in the lawsuit after he agreed that the secretary of state’s office will pay for all costs of the case, Schmidt’s office said.
Read more: http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article198143494.html
Life.Church security guard charged in collection plate theft
A security officer at a south Oklahoma City church has been charged with attempted grand larceny after the ministry's leaders set up a sting that prosecutors say caught him stealing from the church collection plate.
James Lee Smith, 52, of Oklahoma City, is accused of stealing three envelopes of cash from Life.Church South Oklahoma City while he was employed to provide security at the church, 7800 S Walker.
Smith was an Oklahoma County Sheriff's reserve deputy at the time of the incident, but Tuesday, Mark Opgrande, spokesman for the sheriff's office, said Smith's reserve status was terminated once the investigation came to light.
Church staff members conducting an investigation placed four donation envelopes into a collection plate after the 10:30 a.m. service on Dec. 17, an investigator with the sheriff's office reported in a court affidavit filed in Oklahoma Country District Court. The four envelopes each contained cash in small bills plus small GPS tracking devices.
Read more: http://newsok.com/life.church-security-guard-charged-in-collection-plate-theft/article/5581538
OSHA standards moot in Quinton rig explosion because of exemption for oil-and-gas industry
The natural gas rig that exploded near Quinton and killed five workers is not covered by a comprehensive package of federal safety standards implemented in the early 1990s after several chemical industrial disasters.
Oil and natural gas drilling, servicing and production are exempt from OSHA’s “Process Safety Management of Highly Hazardous Chemicals” regulations. The PSM standard exists to prevent or minimize “the consequences of catastrophic releases of toxic, reactive, flammable, or explosive chemicals.”
While industry standards do exist, a U.S. Chemical Safety Board report from 2014 noted that “serious incidents continue to occur,” suggesting that industry’s “voluntary guidance is insufficient.”
A 2013 executive order from President Barack Obama directed OSHA to evaluate whether to remove the oil and gas industry PSM exemption, among other regulatory reforms. The status of that effort under Donald Trump’s administration is unknown.
Read more: http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/state/osha-standards-moot-in-quinton-rig-explosion-because-of-exemption/article_162d0efa-7860-5f4b-b982-ebdeb142c075.html
Budget remains biggest challenge for Oklahoma lawmakers
When members of the Oklahoma Senate and House of Representatives return Monday to the state Capitol to begin this year's regular legislative session, there's little debate about which issue will confound them the most.
Problems with the state budget have persisted through four regular sessions (and two specials) as legislators have struggled to fill consecutive budget shortfalls. They haven't yet found the right formula to avoid one-time spending. Options include tax hikes, budget cuts or a combination of both.
Gov. Mary Fallin is likely to address the budget crisis Monday in her State of the State speech.
Lawmakers are planning to consider a tax and government reform package offered by business and civic leaders who organized an advocacy group called Step Up Oklahoma. Among other recommendations, the Step Up plan calls for raising the tax rates on oil and gas production, wind power generation, gasoline sales and cigarettes. The plan also recommends creating an independent budget office to find waste, fraud and abuse in state government.
Read more: http://newsok.com/budget-remains-primary-issue-as-lawmakers-return/article/5581967
Auditors rip pay to departing employees; Report cites many state payouts of $100,000-plus
HARTFORD — State agencies continue to provide hundreds of thousands of dollars in hush-money payments to former employees to prevent them from whistle-blowing, according to the annual state auditors report to the General Assembly.
“During the course of our audits, we have found large payments made by state agencies to departing state employees,” the audit report states. “Upon further investigation and discussion with agency personnel, agencies claim that they made these payments (many of which were in excess of $100,000) to avoid costs associated with litigation or as part of non-disparagement agreements.”
Based on the review, the state auditors determined that certain payments made to departing employees were not in accordance with a settlement agreement entered by the attorney general on behalf of the agency or authorized by the governor, according to the report.
The auditors said that if the legislature were to require adherence to these statutory provisions, it would assist in protecting the state’s interest by providing independent scrutiny of the payments and consistency throughout state agencies.
The report specifically noted payments made to former Connecticut Lottery President and CEO Anne Noble.
Read more: http://www.journalinquirer.com/public/auditors-rip-pay-to-departing-employees-report-cites-many-state/article_dd0a4390-0893-11e8-814d-4bbbaa7b58b8.html
Oops: Hartford loses insurance policy in wrongful imprisonment
HARTFORD (AP) — City officials say they cannot find a 30-year-old insurance policy that could play a key role in any damages or settlement the city would have to pay in a lawsuit filed by a man wrongly imprisoned for murder for two decades.
The inability to locate the policy prompted federal Magistrate Judge Joan Margolis in New Haven on Monday to order the city to subpoena insurance companies in an effort to find it.
Miguel Roman, of Manchester, filed the federal lawsuit against the city and police officials in March 2011, alleging malicious prosecution, suppression of evidence and violation of his civil rights. City officials deny the allegations. His lawyers have been seeking information on the city’s insurance policies since the lawsuit was filed nearly seven years ago.
-snip-
Roman, 61, was convicted of murder in the 1988 killing of his 17-year-old girlfriend, Carmen Lopez, of Hartford, who was pregnant. Roman, who was not the father of the unborn baby, served 20 years of a 60-year sentence before being released in December 2008 and later exonerated based on new DNA testing that resulted in another man being convicted of her killing.
State officials later awarded Roman $6 million for his wrongful conviction.
Read more: http://www.rep-am.com/news/news-connecticut/2018/02/03/oops-hartford-loses-insurance-policy-in-wrongful-imprisonment/
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