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Health sciences firm to bring 27 jobs to town ‘It is an extremely exciting announcement for the community’
By Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com
A New Zealand-based company has chosen Lawrence as the site for a research and development center that is expected to employ 27 highpaid scientists to study advancements in animal health.
Officials with Argenta confirmed Tuesday they are finalizing a lease to locate a laboratory in the Bioscience and Technology Business Center on Kansas Universi-
Hot and humid
High: 97
ty’s West Campus. The average annual salary for the Lawrence employees is expected to be $74,000, with all of the positions making nearly $70,000 or more.
“It is an extremely exciting announcement for the community,” said Beth Johnson, vice president of economic development for the Lawrence Chamber of Com-
merce. “They are high-quality jobs, and the animal health market has huge potential for us.” The company is expected to finalize a lease and begin
Significant Lone Star changes unlikely
Low: 72
Today’s forecast, page 10A
INSIDE Jayhawks prepare to impress fans With the memory fresh in their minds of their loss to North Dakota State in the opening game of the 2010-11 season, Kansas University football players want to make sure they don’t repeat the past in this season’s home opener, slated for 6 p.m. Saturday against McNeese State. Page 1B
Some tailgaters have their football-season celebrations down to an art. Learn their secrets, along with recipes for the pre-game celebrations. Page 10B
But here in Vermont, I think we just didn’t expect it and didn’t prepare for it. I thought, how could it happen here?” — Liam McKinley, who was stranded on a mountain above flood-stricken Rochester, Vt., after Hurrican Irene hit this weekend. Page 7A
Kevin Anderson/Journal-World Photo
JESSE CRIST, OF OVERBROOK, has the dock all to himself Tuesday as he fishes for crappie at Lone Star Lake. The lake, about 12 miles southwest of Lawrence, is owned by the county. The Public Works Department, after a review following two recent drowning deaths, doesn’t plan to seek any major changes to lake regulations.
Lake has ‘good safety record,’ despite 2 recent drowning deaths
The Kansas Supreme Court is hearing the appeal of a Johnson County man convicted of murdering his wife — and his COURTS three children believe he is innocent.
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INDEX Business Classified Comics Deaths Events listings Food Horoscope Movies Opinion Poll Puzzles Sports Television Vol.153/No.243
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Implementing regulations that may severely limit swimming would greatly affect the lake exTwo drownings this sum- perience many people now safely enjoy, perhaps mer at Lone Star Lake have without alleviating the risk of another tragic prompted Douglas County accident.” By George Diepenbrock
COMING THURSDAY
INSURANCE
Health action delayed pending ruling srothschild@ljworld.com
Masters’ tailgating tricks and tips
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Please see JOBS, page 2A
By Scott Rothschild
FOOD
QUOTABLE
operations in Lawrence by the end of the year. The firm expects to hire four employees in its first year, and plans to hire about five employees
gdiepenbrock@ljworld.com
to pursue adding signs that would warn swimmers that the depth of the lake can increase quickly. But Keith Browning, director of the Public Works Department, said his office doesn’t plan to seek significant changes to the countyowned lake’s swimming regulations. The county undertook a review of regulations at the lake after James Nichols Owens, 30, of Tonganoxie, drowned Aug. 13 while swimming at Lone Star, and a 7-year-old Kansas City, Mo., boy, Osiris M. Lumanyika, drowned July 2 near the swimming dock. “It is not clear that additional regulations would have prevented the two tragic drowning accidents
— Keith Browning, director of the Public Works Department at Lone Star Lake this summer,” Browning said. “Lone Star Lake has existed since the 1930s with very few drowning incidents over the life of the lake. It has a good safety record. “Implementing regulations that may severely limit swimming would greatly affect the lake experience many people now safely enjoy, perhaps without alleviating the risk of another tragic accident.” The lake, which is about 12 miles southwest of Lawrence, has never had lifeguards, and Browning said
the two recent drownings are the fifth and sixth that workers in his department can recall in the lake’s history. This summer’s drownings were the first in many years. The department is also asking Douglas County commissioners to prohibit swimming beneath the swimming dock because Browning said it can be dangerous, especially for children. Sheriff’s officers and park maintenance personnel patrol the lake periodically. “We are pursuing getting
other signs up there to let people know that the water does deepen fairly quickly there,” Browning said. Commissioners will consider several changes to regulations at the lake and campground as part of their meeting at 4 p.m. today at the Douglas County Courthouse, 1100 Mass. Two other major proposed regulation changes include prohibiting shooting fireworks in the lake’s park. Currently it’s allowed on days surrounding the Fourth of July, but Browning said the county spends significant time and money monitoring and cleaning up fireworks each year. Campsite fees would also increase $4 a day to $11 for a site without electricity and to $16 for one with electricity. — Reporter George Diepenbrock can be reached at 832-7144. Follow him at Twitter.com/gdiepenbrock.
TOPEKA — Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration on Tuesday said Kansas would not implement a health insurance exchange until the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether the federal health reform law is constitutional. The statement was made by Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer as he and other Cabinet officials announced the award of a $135 million contract with Accenture of Austin, Texas, to put in Colyer place a computerized system that they said will make it easier for people to apply for social services and also increase identification of fraud in Medicaid and other programs. The Brownback administration went out of its way to say that although 90 percent of the funding for the planned Kansas Eligibility Enforcement System, or KEES, would come from the federal government, it will not come from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and it does not commit the state to develop an exchange. The exchanges are required under the health reform law and are designed to help determine eligibility for people to get subsidies to purchase insurance. Kansas had won a $31.5 million federal grant to implement the exchange. Brownback had initially supported the grant but then reversed field and rejected the funding. He said there were too many strings attached, but critics said he bowed to pressure within the Republican Party to fight the federal Please see HEALTH, page 2A
Surplus growth leads to call for restoration of arts funding By Scott Rothschild srothschild@ljworld.com
TOPEKA — With the state surplus growing, and because Gov. Sam Brownback wrongly predicted Kansas would continue to receive federal arts funding, supporters of the arts on Tuesday called on the governor to restore state assistance to the Kansas Arts Commission. But Brownback’s office said that wasn’t going to happen. His spokeswoman, Sherriene Jones-Sontag, reiterated Brownback’s statement that arts funding was not a core function of government and that the governor wants to
“right-size” state government during tough economic times. “You don’t go out and buy art for the house when you are behind on the mortgage,” Jones-Sontag said. But several arts officials and House Democratic Leader Paul Davis of Lawrence said economic concerns are precisely why Brownback should restore the $689,000 to the Kansas Arts Commission that he vetoed. “This decision by Gov. Brownback was penny-wise and pound-foolish,” Davis said. Since Brownback’s veto, the National Endowment for the Arts and the MidAmerica Arts Alliance have
declared that Kansas is ineligible for $1.3 million in federal matching grants. Brownback and his administration Davis had earlier told legislators that the federal funding would continue to flow to Kansas. And Davis said that since the state’s current reserve fund totals $180 million and is growing, the state could afford to fund the Arts Commission. Several artists and arts officials from towns across the
state also urged Brownback to reverse his decision in his next budget proposal, saying the lack of state funding would result in lost jobs and arts projects, especially in rural areas. Louis Copt, a Lecompton artist who was designated earlier this year by the Kansas Arts Commission as the 2011 Governor’s Artist, said he was concerned about how Kansas would be portrayed outside the state, and how Kansas children would view the arts. “We have to show them the arts are alive in Kansas,” he said. Gail Parsons, executive director of the Junction City Arts Council, said the group has lost
both state and city funding, which affects the organization’s ability to raise private dollars. “When we lose public funding, it sends the message that this is not so important. People start backing off,” she said. Melissa Windsor, executive director of the Emporia Arts Council, said public assistance was crucial to operate the town’s new arts center that took years to plan and build. “Today it remains understaffed and underutilized due to a lack of public funding,” she said. — Statehouse reporter Scott Rothschild can be reached at 785-423-0668.