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WEDNESDAY • APRIL 27 • 2011
County considering domestic partner benefits By Brenna Hawley bhawley@ljworld.com
Douglas County could become one of the first Kansas counties to extend health care coverage to domestic partners. County Commissioner Mike Gaughan requested the county investigate extending benefits
Gaughan
coverage would put the county on par with the Lawrence school district, which already extends coverage, and ahead of most, if not all, Kansas counties. The City Commission has not discussed the matter for its employees. “This also demonstrates that the county and this community
to domestic partners, a move he said would help the county retain employees and remain competitive. “A lot of private companies are doing this, so on one level we need to do this to retain quality employees to work for the county and for the public,” he said. Adding domestic partners to
will vote on in the coming weeks. Sarah Plinsky, assistant county administrator, said each employee covered under the county’s insurance costs $4,380 annually. Under this year’s plan, a single employee pays $29 per
accept families of all kinds,” Gaughan said. County commissioners will discuss extending coverage to domestic partners at Wednesday’s meeting. If commissioners decide coverage should be extended, the addition will be included in the county’s health care plan, which commissioners
Please see COUNTY, page 2A
City OKs Dillons plan
‘Helping Eudora every day’ — in a huge way
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N.H. St. drive-thru approved despite neighbors’ qualms By Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com
Kevin Anderson/Journal-World Photo
THE CITY OF EUDORA GETS ITS WATER from wells under land that is owned by Lois Hamilton, who in 2003 began letting the city drill waterwells on her property. Those nine wells pump 195 million gallons of water a year and provide the residents of Eudora with all their drinking water. See the video at LJWorld.com
Philanthropist provides all of city’s drinking water, free of charge By Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com
I
t has been 44 years since Lois Hamilton really called these parts home. But as she drives along the rutted roads that criss-cross the flat farm fields that are nestled between the Wakarusa and the Kaw north of Eudora, she still has a story for every piece of land. Hamilton, 72, will point at a pickup truck in a driveway and tell a story about its owner. She’ll point at a plowed field and tell you who owns it. She’ll point at another and tell you about the banker who financed it. But the story she lingers on the longest is about her father’s hand. She points at the 90-acre field that is now hers but once was her father’s. Fred Neis farmed about 3,000 acres in and around the Kansas River valley. He did it with a fourthgrade education, and with the help of Hamilton’s mother, who taught him how to read. And he did it with a happy hand, so to speak. “I remember how he would bring his deep plow over to
“
Lois is just an example of a genuinely civic-minded individual who cares about the community. She grew up here, owned businesses here, got her start here, and went on to have a wildly successful career. But she never forgot where she is from, and she always has taken steps to ensure the city has what it needs.” — Eudora City Administrator John Harrenstein help out a neighbor,” Hamilton said. “The neighbors would always come out and ask him how much they owed him. And he would just wave his hand and say, ‘Not a thing, not a thing.’ He always would just wave his hand.” The 90-acre field is now dotted with nine blue wellpipes that stick a couple of feet above the fertile soil. Hamilton in 2003 began letting the city of Eudora drill water wells on the property. The city owns the few square feet that each well sits upon, and the water rights that go with each well. Those nine wells pump 195 million gallons of water a year, and provide the residents of Eudora with all their drinking water. For this,
Low: 40
Today’s forecast, page 10A
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Harrenstein, who has been on the job in Eudora for less than two years, became acquainted with Hamilton when she called him and said she thought it was time for her to donate another well to the city. “I guess I would describe it as surprising,” Harrenstein said. “At first you don’t really
Please see WATER, page 2A
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Hamilton receives exactly nothing. “She doesn’t charge us one cent,” City Administrator John Harrenstein said. Hamilton said that won’t change in the future. “I just feel like I’m helping Eudora every day, and I want to continue helping Eudora every day,” she said.
know what to think. In this job, it is kind of like getting a Monopoly card that says ‘Advance to Go.’” City managers can spend a lot of time worrying about matters such as where a city will get its water in the future. Some cities out in Western Kansas have such concerns that they give their residents free rain barrels. In the eastern part of the state, scarcity isn’t yet such an issue, but the water is usually far from free. Cities and rural water districts often pay the state thousands upon thousands of dollars each year to access water rights in rivers like the Kaw or lakes like Clinton. If you try to get your water from private wells, that usually comes at a hefty price to purchase the resource-rich land. “There is obviously a financial benefit,” Harrenstein said, although Eudora residents do pay a fee for water service since the city still has treatment and distribution costs to cover. “But the real benefit is we have somebody who really wants to work with us.
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Work could perhaps begin on a new Dillons store on south Massachusetts Street within 60 to 90 days, after city commissioners largely approved of the store’s plans Tuesday night. Lawrence city commissioners at their weekly meeting approved a site plan for a project to replace the existing Dillons at 1740 Mass. with a larger store but also told the company to come CITY back with a new design for the COMMISSION west facade of the building that is more architecturally interesting. “I like the north end of the building, but it loses its appeal the farther south you go,” City Please see DILLONS, page 2A
Mayor to send letter urging K-10 cable barriers By Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com
Add the city of Lawrence to the list of organizations and individuals calling for more safety measures to be added to Kansas Highway 10 following an April 16 double fatality crash. City commissioners at their Tuesday evening meeting unanimously agreed to have Mayor Aron Cromwell send a letter to state officials supporting the idea of adding cable barriers to the median of the highway. “It is hard when we’re reacting to a tragedy,” Cromwell said, “but the intention is to prevent the next one.” Cainan Shutt, a Eudora preschooler, and 24-year old Ryan M. Pittman, also of Eudora, died in the crash when Pittman’s eastbound Toyota Camry crossed the grassy median near the Church Street interchange into the westbound lanes and struck a minivan driven by Cainan’s step-grandfather, Danny Basel. Gov. Sam Brownback on Monday sent a directive to the Kansas Department of Transportation ordering the agency to immediately reopen a study into a cable barrier system for the road. His directive also ordered that a local task fore be formed. City commissioners on Tuesday said they felt it still was important for Lawrence to make its voice heard, and Cromwell said the letter would urge the state to take a broad look at safety issues on the highway. — City reporter Chad Lawhorn can be reached at 832-6362. Follow him at Twitter.com/clawhorn_ljw.
COMING THURSDAY Two Lawrence girls are hosting a virtual cupcake sale to raise money for children in Uganda.
Vol.153/No.117 28 pages
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