Inside: Youngsters honored for Iola Reads work See A3
THE IOLA REGISTER Locally owned since 1867
www.iolaregister.com
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Failure to participate halts city’s business Only four of eight members on hand By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
For the first time in its five-year history, the Iola City Council failed to meet because too many members were absent. When only four council-
men arrived for Monday’s planned meeting — Donald Becker, Nancy Ford, Beverly Franklin and Jon Wells — that left them one short of the required five to officially start the meeting. “We cannot conduct any official business or meetings,”
Becker noted, “so we have to adjourn.” The announcement came in front of an audience of about 20, there because of Monday’s packed agenda. Among the topics listed for discussion were how meetings on Iola’s economic development incentives may or See IOLA | Page A2
Iola’s safety efforts lauded By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
Iola’s efforts to make its streets safer has drawn the attention of AAA. The American Automobile Association presented Iola
Police Chief Jared Warner with the AAA’s highly coveted Platinum Award. The presentation came at the start of the city’s regular City Council meeting. See SAFETY | Page A2
Banners salute local veterans Compound’s The Neosho River west of Iola in 2013.
Neosho River program on tap By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
Iola’s close ties to the Neosho River will be examined at “A River Runs Through It” a Thursday program examining how the river helped shape the local community. The Neosho runs along Iola’s eastern city limits, and is the primary reason Iola was founded where it was, yet most locals rarely think about it. At one time, button factories flourished on its banks, pleasure boats piled on it, and residents drank from it and used See RIVER | Page A6
A project to recognize local veterans and active military personnel with banners in downtown Iola has begun. Members of the Iola Community Improvement Task Force/PRIDE Committee and the Veterans Day Committee are accepting orders for the banners. For $150, members can sponsor a banner with a chosen military member pictured on it. Those who sponsor a banner also will be given a framed 8x10 replica as a gift. The banners will be posted for about a month prior to Veterans Day in November. Proceeds will benefit the Veterans Day Committee, and will go to tile repair in front of the Veterans Wall on the courthouse square. The orders will be accepted through May 31 to anybody from Allen County. If spaces still remain available afterward, orders for veterans outside Allen County will be eligible for purchase. After expenses, the first $5,000 will go the veterans wall. Remaining funds will go toward upkeep of the banners, as well as future CITF/PRIDE and Iola Kiwanis projects. Order forms are available at City Hall and can be placed by contacting the city administrator’s office, 365-4900. The banners will be displayed for three years.
expansion hits a nerve By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
Banners styled such as the one above will be erected in downtown Iola this fall to recognize Allen County veterans. REGISTER/
HUMBOLDT — Rick Hall got his point across — sort of — at Monday night’s city council meeting here. Hall has opposed an expansion of the city shop compound at the north edge of Camp Hunter Park since it was proposed in late 2015. At the very north edge of the park, named after where Union troops were stationed to protect Humboldt after Confederate raids, the compound is where equipment is kept, and was expanded to accommodate installation of two oil tanks. New equipment also needed a resting place. Hall’s contention is the 100-foot-by-100-foot expansion, not to mention all of the compound, infringes on ground that should be set aside for recreational purposes and to commemorate Humboldt’s role in the Civil War. Council members, by unanimous vote in January, didn’t agree. They ordered the expansion, after agreeing See HUMBOLDT | Page A6
RICHARD LUKEN
Trainwreck probe looks at rail condition By ROXANA HEGEMAN and MICHAEL BALSAMO The Iola Register
Tom Laing, executive director of InterHab in Topeka, said legislators deserve credit for taking a hard look at the waiver integration timeline. PHOTO BY KHI
Lawmakers seek to delay Medicaid waiver integration By KHI NEWS SERVICE
Legislative support is growing for a further delay of a plan to combine Medicaid waiver services — part of a recent pattern of the Republican lawmakers pushing back against Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration. A subcommittee of four members of the House
Health and Human Services Committee recommended last week that the administration postpone the waiver integration one year to Jan. 1, 2018. “When the administration brought this to us, we did not see enough data that it was going to be done in See MEDICAID | Page A6
Quote of the day Vol. 118, No. 96
CIMARRON, Kan. (AP) — Investigators looking into the derailment of an Amtrak passenger train in southwest Kansas will review rail conditions and other factors to determine the cause of the accident, a federal transportation official says. Amtrak’s Southwest Chief was carrying more than 140 people when several rail cars derailed early Monday, moments after an engineer noticed a significant bend in a rail and applied the emergency brakes, authorities said. At least 32 people were hurt, two of them critically. Local authorities said they were checking whether a vehicle crash may have damaged the track before the accident. National Transportation Safety Board member Earl Weener said Monday evening
Amtrak train from Los Angeles to Chicago derails, injuring 29 NEBRASKA
KANSAS Dodge City
Topeka
Wichita OKLAHOMA 100 km
DETAIL
100 miles
Source: AP Graphic: Staff, Tribune News Service
at a news conference that investigators would review data from cameras and recorders on the train as well as the condition of the rails and crew performance. He put the train’s speed at the normal limit of 60 mph. Weener said there was some initial indication of a “misalignment” on the rail, but it was unclear what that
“Kisses, even to the air, are beautiful.” — Drew Barrymore 75 Cents
was or what caused it. He said the engineer was vigilant and noticed the variation on the track, causing him to brake. The track was inspected last week, Weener said. The train, which had about 130 passengers and 14 crew members, was making a 43hour journey from Los Angeles to Chicago when it derailed shortly after midnight along a straight stretch of tracks in flat farmland near Cimarron, a small community about 160 miles west of Wichita. Eight cars derailed, and four of them ended up on their sides. Thirty-two people were taken to hospitals for treatment. Four of them remained hospitalized Monday night, including two people who were airlifted to Amarillo, Texas. The rest had been released. The tracks run along Highway 50, which has no barrier that would prevent a vehicle from leaving the roadway See CRASH | Page A6
Hi: 70 Lo: 38 Iola, KS