August 2010 The reunion commitee wishes you a Happy August Dog's Day Month (stay cool). Our wish is for us to stay connected and make 2010 as memorable as 2007. |
Mission City Council approves groundbreaking 'driveway' taxThe fee also affects churches, schools and government buildings that are tax-exempt but still generate traffic. Engineering formulas show that a single-family home generates about 91/2 vehicle trips a day. The Target store, meanwhile, generates nearly 8,500 trips a day. McDonald’s is predicted to produce 2,700 trips a day. The fee is expected to raise $1.2 million a year with the proceeds going to a $38 million plan to improve the city’s roads during the next 10 years. It also will help fund a new express bus service between Overland Park and the Country Club Plaza that will run through Mission. The fee was part of the city’s $23.1 million budget that the City Council approved tonight. Roads scheduled for major rehab in the next five years include parts of Nall Avenue, Broadmoor Street, Martway and Johnson Drive. City officials say they desperately need the money for deteriorating streets. Some residents said poor economic times make it bad for what’s essentially a tax increase. “I’m not in favor of this. It’s a tax no matter how you sugar coat it,” said Mission resident Bill Nichols. Currie Myers, the former Johnson County sheriff and Mission resident, said the city should look toward creating a more favorable climate for businesses. He said luring more business to the city would help expand the tax base needed for roads. “This is a bad time,” Myers said. “I’d ask you to take a better look at this and slow down.” Mayor Laura McConwell and city council members said they are besieged with complaints about the condition of city roads. Delaying work on the roads will just increase the cost in the future, McConwell said. “It’s something we have to do to save money for our families in the long run,” the mayor said. City Councilwoman Debbie Kring said bad roads will only scare people away from Mission. “If we don’t have roads that people can drive on, they aren’t coming here,” she said. The city recently held a forum where residents were invited to discuss different methods of paying for the roads. Residents generally agreed on a transportation fee, but only with a mix of other sources including a property tax increase. Residents generally agreed on a fee closer to $31 a year. But the City Council agreed went ahead with a higher fee. Going with the lower fee would have meant a property tax increase, which the city didn’t want to do, McConwell said. The fee has had limited use across the country, but has become popular in Oregon, where it’s been adopted in at least 18 cities. Experts are not aware of it being used in the Midwest. The idea is gradually spreading nationwide, because it’s a more direct way to pay for transportation by charging the people and businesses that create traffic that use the roads. To reach Brad Cooper, call 816-234-7724 or send e-mail to bcooper@kcstar.com. |
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AMAZING STORY!!!!!50 some years ago Ro Haren lost her 1957 Shawnee Mission High School class ring at Lake Quivera. Believe it or not a few weeks ago we were contacted by an amature treasure hunter who had found the ring with his metal detector. We were able to trace the ring from the initials inside and got it returned to Ro who was delighted to get it back!!! |
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CARL W. ISON| Carl W. Ison, 100, of Lenexa, Kan., passed away June 30, 2010. He was born the first of 10 on Oct. 5, 1909, in Pleasanton, Kan., where he grew up on a farm outside town. He married Vivian Castle and they attended Kansas State College in Pittsburg where he majored in mathematics. He taught mathematics and worked as a coach in Pittsburg before moving to Overland Park to join the staff of Shawnee Mission North. He later received a master's degree from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. During World War II, he joined the Navy and spent most of the next three years learning and teaching others about antisubmarine warfare in Boston. At the end of the war, he returned to Overland Park where he later became an assistant principal then the first principal of the new Shawnee Mission East in 1958. After 18 years in administration, he retired in 1974 and moved to Sun City, Ariz. There he became an avid golfer and talented ballroom dancer. After Vivian's death, Marjorie Barnett and he married. When Marjorie had a stroke, they moved to Lakeview Village in Lenexa, Kan., to be near her children. Carl died on June 30, 2010, eight months after celebrating his 100th birthday with a dancing party. The survivors include his daughter, Karlan Ison Sick, two grandchildren, Jeffrey Sick (Geoffrey Castle) and Gyneth Walker, and three great grandchildren, Gareth Sick and Gordon and Saskia Walker and four sisters, Dorothy Haffely, Betty Reynolds, Mary Baker, and Barbara Morris. A memorial service will be held 10:30 a.m. Saturday, July 3, at Heritage Center in Lakeview Village. Memorial donations in Carl's memory may be made to the Carl W. Ison Award at Shawnee Mission East. Online Condolences may be expressed at www.amosfamily.com Arr.: The Amos Family Chapel of Shawnee, (913) 631-5566. The Amos Family, 10901 Johnson Dr, 913-631-5566Published in Kansas City Star on July 2, 2010
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Building is on its way up !!!!!!!!!!!!
I(Peggy Willis Sherard) personally saw the renderings of a Southwest Mottif BIG new Capital Federal building that is to be be built on Johnson Drive around the area where Mission Bakery was at one time. It will have a fountain both outside and inside the lobby and they are building this new big bank because the city of Mission wanted their land where their building now stands to put a rapid bus line depot in its place. In my opinion the big winner is Capital Federal Savings. What a find when your property is wanted so badly that you get enough money to move and build a bigger better building right down the street. Meanwhile the place where Macy's once stood is still a weed patch. The road fee is for more than paving roads. Below is article out of newspaper. In my opinion the world is getting very crazy but thats just my opinion. Road Fee Would Link Properties, street use Sites that generate many trips would pay more. The fee could bring in about $800,000 a year. By Brad Cooper Kansas City Star May 20, 2010 We pay for roads in all sorts of ways. When we fill up at the pump. When we pay property taxes or when we'rd taxed on our purchases. Now imagine paying for the number of times you're expected to pull out of your driveway. There's nothing like that around here, experts say, but there may be soon. The Johnson County suburb of Mission is working on a new way to pay for road that experts think will break ground in Kansas and the Midwest. The city's looking to charge a fee to every property owner based on how many vehicle trips their land is calculated to produce. Properties like big-box stores would be charged more than residential homes which don't generate as much traffic. The fee also would affect churches, schools and and government buildings that are tax exempt but still generate traffic. The fee has had limited use across the country, but has become popular in Oregon, where it's been adopted in at least 18 cities. In Mission, it would take a vote of the City Council to impose the fee. It would cost homeowners an extra $72.00 a year - or $6.00 a month - based on formulas that show the average household produces about 9 1/2 vehicle trips a day. The fee is the same for every household regardless of how many people live there. The bill would be much higher for the local Target store, which is calculated to generate roughly 8,500 trips a week. The fees may shift more costs of the city's road work to commercial properties but some experts caution that because the formula is based on how the land is used rather than its value, owners of lower priced homes could carry a burden higher than they do now, while those in expensive homes may bear a smaller one. "Rich people travel a little bit more than poor people, but they live in homes that are a lot more valuable than poor people," said David levinson, a civil engineering professor at the University of Minnesota who has studied transportation fees and is co-author of a 2009 study on the issue. For Mission, it's about taping a new source of cash whenthere aren't many popular alternatives, said City Administrator Mike Scanlon. "One ofthe problems we'rd all having is that we'rd running out of sources to pay for streets, roads and bridges," Scanlon said. My guess is there's a lot of people looking at it right now simply because some of the revenue sources that we get from the state are going to just dry up over time. You have to be able to replace them." The fee is expected to bring inabout $800,000 a year, which would go for street work plus a new rapid bus line that Mission is planning with Overland Park. It could increase each year depending on whether the consumer price index increases. City officials note that home owners who are less well-off may not produce as many trips in their car but would benefit from the fee because it would pay for expanded bus service. The fee "isn't just for the roads," said Mayor Laura McConwell. The city will hold public hearings this summer. Mission plans to apply trip generation data compiled by the Institute of Transportation Enineers to each of the city's 5,650 developed and developable parcels of land. Homeowner Casey Cassias thinks anything that helps move the rapid bus line along is a positive step. "Do I want taxes? No, I don't want to pay more taxes, But if it's a way of getting people torecognize the true cost of using an automobile and maybe make it more equitable, then I think it would be fine," he said. Others think this isn't the best time for increasing fees or taxes. "Like most people these days, we'rd feeling a little bit stretched financially," said Mission resident Dave Parish. "I don't know that I would be very much in favor of essentially a new property tax, fee or whatever it's characterized as." The transportation fee has been around since 1984, when one was imposed in Fort Collins, Colorado. It was discontinued after a court challenge. Experts are not aware of it being used in the Midwest. The idea is gradually spreading, because it's "a cleaner way of paying for transportation,"Levinson said. "This is a more logical place than the general property tax" he said. "There's a direct tie between the payment and the benefit." Levinson's study points out that transportation fees canbe tricky to implement. A fee in Idaho was declared unconstitutional in 1998. But the Colorado Supreme Court upheld a fee in 1990, while saying that cities could not direct excess fee collections into their general fund. Some legal experts warn and Mission's administrator agrees that governments must tread carefully. Stephen Chinn, an expert in land-use law at Stinson Morrison Hecker, thinks such fees could be imposed in Kansas but said there are some "difficult hoops to jump through." "There's a number of different ways you can go about establishing that authority." Chinn said.l "Any One of those approaches has legal obstacles - not impediments - that you would have to overcome before it could be done." Scanlon said Mission could enact the fee through its home rule authority. No Kansas statute specifically allows the fee, he said, but no law prohibits it, either. Mayor McConwell said the fee ultimately would provide better accountability. "People just don't like to (put) everything onto their property taxes," she said. "They want to know what they'rd getting value for. If somebody asks us how we'rd spending the money ... they know what that gets spent for." To reach Brad Cooper call 816-234-7724 or send email to bcooper@kcstar.com |
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C. Robert Keeley|Published in The Columbus Dispatch on May 16, 2010
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Dale M. Carter, a.k.a. "Coach", 70, of Garden City, Mo., passed away May 7, 2010, at Menorah Hospital after a long battle with cancer. Visitation will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 15, at the McGilley State Line Chapel. Dale was born October 29, 1939, in Kansas City, Mo.; he graduated from Shawnee Mission High School. Dale spent most of his working life in sales. He owned C&C Auto sales. His specialty was wholesaling vehicles. Dale loved to play golf, and did until an elbow injury prevented him from playing; he still watched every tournament on TV. Dale loved to pheasant hunt and did most of his hunting in South Dakota. His number-one hobby was antiques. He started buying and collecting in 1969. Dale discovered Brimfield, Mass., was a great place to buy, and he fell in love with the beautiful country, back east Maine especially. He is survived by wife Nancy Carter; children Martie Carter, Debra Tharp, Cindy Carter, Chris Mosbauer, Michele Sherrow; grandchildren Shane Craig, Dustin Carter, Dustin Titus, Amanda Thurman, Alesha Carter, Tiffany Titus, Briley Carter; great grandchildren Zachary Thurman, Ryan Craig, Michael Thurman; sister-in-law Mary Carter; nephew Jim Carter; best pal, "Buster", a year-old Westie. Condolences are at www.mcgilleystatelinechapel.com McGilley State Line Chapel, 12301 State Line Rd, Kansas City, MO 64145, 816-942-6180athe, KS 66061, 913-782-0582
Published in Kansas City Star on May 12, 2010
Read more: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/kansascity/obituary-browse.aspx?recentdate=0&type=1#ixzz0niXeCjcU |
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Dear SM’57 classmates : I have been listening to the debate about health insurance reform from here in France where I live. As it is an important issue, I want to join in the debate and make my voice heard. Here in France, health insurance is universal (just like schooling) and health care is world class, truly excellent. The World Health Organisation rates the quality of French health care number one in the world, while the USA -- which spends much more per capita on health care than France or any other country, is only 37. The USA is much richer than France, and I have never understood why it couldn't do as good a job as France does: but now, listening to the debates. I believe that the reason is fear. First of all, people are afraid of "socialized" medicine and all that it implies. Yet health care in France isn't any more "socialized" than schooling, policing or firefighting!! We are free to choose our own doctors and have a say in our treatments, exactly like people in the USA. Yet unlike in the US, where insurance companies decide who is eligible for coverage and for which treatments, there is no panel -- private or governmental -- defining what kind of treatments we can or can't have. Nor do we lose coverage if we lose our jobs. Secondly, most Americans are afaid of what insurance reform would cost. It is true that a system where insurance companies could not prevent people with pre-existing conditions from obtaining insurance, could not drop people when they become chronically ill, could not stop covering people when a certain spending limit had been reached would be costly. Yet that is exactly the kind of a system that France has at a much lower cost per person than the US system. For more info on this, read the following two articles. (1) NYTimes Blog : HEALTH | September 11, 2009 Prescriptions: Health Care Abroad: France, by Anne Underwood and Sarah Arnquist. The French health care system melds universal coverage with physician freedom and a private insurance market. (2) NY Times article by Roger Cohen entitled Get Real on Health Care, dated September 13, 2009. I’m afraid you’ll have to Google them, I can’t figure out how to do the links! Most Americans believe that the USA offers the best medical treatment in the world, and indeed it is very good – but the care a person gets in France is at least as good as what he would get in the USA (if he had insurance that covered what was ailing him). So please, keep your mind open during the debate. All the best. Judith Pierce Fogels SM Class of ‘57 |
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Julie has a web site and on her site are samples of her latest CD music. Please click on link below and enjoy! julie.turnerkc.com |
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Elbo Smith's daughter Elizabeth and family visited the past two weeks and our Grandson Cooper sang at the Karaoke gathering at Mallory Country Club here in the Villages. Coop has just turned 7 years old. Enjoy the video below. We may be watching a next American Idol:)
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Laughter is good for us! Lets laugh at ourselves and with each other!
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20071221/MULTIMEDIA/283841756 |
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Remembering 1957 |
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