An economic summit will bring together state lawmakers and others interested in seeing southeast Kansas recover from the ongoing recession.
State Sen. Jeff King, who represents all of Allen County, announced on Monday the Nov. 17 economic summit in Iola.
King and the other three southeast Kansas senators, Gov. Sam Brownback and business leaders will be on hand at Iola’s St. John’s Parish from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. to discuss ways in which the region can grow.
The goal is start a three- to five-year economic growth project, King said.
King said the goal is to attract a $1 million grant from the Kansas Leadership Institute to spark economic development here.
King addressed a number of other topics for Iola City Council members, including:
— Iola and other rural communities were among those most affected by Brownback’s decision to defund the Kansas Arts Council. Without funds, the state has no receiving mechanism for federal arts funding.
“Arts programs in Wichita and Overland Park will be fine,” King said. “It’s the ones in places like Iola with the Bowlus Center” that suffer the most because they must scrape together budgets on an annual basis.
— Redistricting will become a vital issue for southeast Kansas in 2012, King said, because of the growth in population for the state’s urban centers. For the first time in 2000, Kansas had more people living in urban areas than in rural ones. As those trends continue, rural areas may be left out in the decision making process.
COUNCIL MEMBERS approved annual or six-month evaluations for four employees and a promotion for a fifth — Kelly Rouse within the Electric Department — and subsequent pay raises ranging from 3 to 3.6 percent. Tony Hutton’s resignation from the Gas, Water and Wastewater Department was accepted as well.
Council members said they would decide soon whether to apply a cost of living pay raise to city employees now that the Social Security Administration announced a 3.5 cost of living adjustment for Social Security recipients. Social Security rates are tied to the Consumer Price Index, an indication of the rate of inflation.
