Haysville Online

By Tricia Stithem
The Haysville Times

The Haysville Garden Tour Club had their first meeting this year at the Senior Citizen Center at 7 pm, March 7th. Phil Harris, who is organizing the garden tour, looks for a bigger turnout at the next meeting on Tuesday, March 21st, at the Senior Center. Everyone is invited to attend.
There are ten new gardens this year, and they should be even more interesting due to the showcasing with lights. The evening showing will be June 16th from approximately 7 pm to 10 pm. Saturday’s daytime showing will last to approximately 1 pm.
March 21st discussions will pertain to perhaps drawings for prizes, lists of gardens and extreme make over gardens. Come be apart of the fun. Banners and signs are needed, as well as further commitment from our Haysville people, according to Harris. Meetings will be every two weeks at the Senior Citizen Center in Haysville.

By Angie Gumm
The Haysville Times

While Haysville did not get the grant money to build the new senior center it had hoped for this time around, the city is going to try again.
The city applied for a Community Development Grant for the new center but was notified earlier this year that they would not receive the funding.
Who gets a grant is decided by a point system. Applicants get points based on how they meet certain requirements from the state. Haysville lost points for not matching the amount of funds they were applying for. If the city applies for $300,000, for instance, they have to be willing to invest $300,000 in the project as well. Most cities that got grants had at least 100% matching.
If the city doesn’t get a grant after re-applying in September, they decided at the capitol outlay meeting earlier this month that they would go ahead with the building themselves. Either way, construction for the new senior center will start in 2007. The plan is for the building to be located next to the new senior residences on the east side of Main.
Many have complained that the current senior center, the first city building in Haysville, is too small and that its shape is not conducive to group functions.

By Patricia Barkley
The Haysville Times

Last month, USD 261 received word that the Federal Emergency Management Agency would be providing grant funds in the amount of $1,003,590 for the purpose of constructing safe rooms, or tornado shelters, in the district, as part of a Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. Plans have been made to construct six of these rooms, one in the new elementary, one in the new middle school, and one each at Oatville, Nelson, Rex, and Freeman schools. The total cost of construction will be $1,338,120, and the district will contribute $334,530 in order to cover the difference.
“They’ll be able to hold the entire student body and all the staff at the school,” said Superintendent John Burke of the size of the rooms.
Bids are expected to come in for the new elementary school on March 30, and construction should begin within two weeks after that. The rooms for the existing elementary schools will be built over the next few summers. They have an expected completion date of August 2008.

By Angie Gumm
The Haysville Times

The City held a workshop on the last Saturday of February to get input from Haysville citizens and business owners about the city’s handling of code violations.
“We used to handle things on a complaint basis, and now we’re doing things on a proactive basis,” said Mayor Bruce Armstrong.
Nothing has changed recently about Haysville’s code, but the increasing number of nuisance abatements that have appeared before the council in the last year reflects the change in enforcement.
Now that people are being cited for things which they believed were acceptable in the past, the city said they wanted to hear from the public about the codes.
Jack Harris, operator of The Overflow Mini-Storage since 1985, was told that he couldn’t have inoperable vehicles at his facility. “I go along here for years, running this business seemingly OK,” said Harris. “All of a sudden I’m illegal. I’ve been renting this for 21 years. I’ve been a bad guy for 21 years…I’m not selling dope or booze to minors. I’m selling outside storage.”
Harris said when the City asked him to make his parking lot all-weathered, he complied by dumping 27 tons of rock on the land. He asked why they made him pay for that if he wasn’t supposed to be operating the storage facility as he was.
Resident Vern Lippoldt lamented what he called the inequality of enforcement. “I don’t like the idea of putting neighbor against neighbor,” he said.
“If I want to keep my grandpa’s car in my backyard, I’m going to keep it,” Lippoldt said. “I don’t hunt. I don’t fish. I don’t watch sports. I mess with old tractors and old engines because I enjoy it.”
Councilman Steve Crum said he understood that people liked or needed to have a place to work on cars, “At the same time,” he said, “my parents live on Van Arsdale, and they have a chain-link fence, and just about everybody on the street has one, and I don’t think I’d want to go down that street and see twenty vehicles in (20) people’s backyards.”
Although there was debate on the issue, this was used as an argument for permitting people to store inoperable vehicles at storage facilities. A need was addressed, though, to allow some place for people to store their vehicles.
“It doesn’t matter to me if it’s an operable or inoperable vehicle. People are going to have cars they need to work on, and they’re going to need a place to store them,” said the mayor.
“Basically, just common sense is what we need to follow,” said councilmember Bill Youngers. “Outside storages should be able to store inoperable vehicles as long as they’re well-screened.”
Another issue was whether things would be permitted behind privacy fences that would not be otherwise.
“I figure if someone’s driving by my house, and they can’t see anything behind two wooden panelings, it shouldn’t bother them,” said resident Gary White.
Councilmember Keith Pierce wanted to know if the city passed some kind of time limit for having an inoperable vehicle on private property, how it would be enforced. “When does the clock start ticking? Once it gets discovered?”
The role and authority of the code enforcement officer was also discussed. Some council members thought that giving the officer more discretion would eliminate some of the sillier violations and would create a more understanding atmosphere for individual circumstances. Others thought that the authority could be abused or be too big of a burden for the officer.
“I’m a firm believer that friends will help friends and not the other person,” said Haysville’s Howard Cook. “There should be a criteria…and make it equal for everyone.”
“Kale ought to exercise politeness and say ‘here is the law, here’s how you can fix it,’” said Harris, of Haysville Code Enforcement Officer Kale Topinka. “If it’s not taken care of, then you can come back. I think politeness first. If that doesn’t work, then you can stand back and throw the folderol.”
Crum defended Topinka, who was at the meeting but didn’t speak. “Kale is doing what the council has asked him to do. I’m sure Kale gets a lot more rudeness thrown back at him than he throws at people,” he said. “If Kale wasn’t doing his job, we wouldn’t be here. He’s doing what the city’s asking him to.”
The council is going to consider the thoughts expressed at the workshop and will use them, as well as input from city employees and codes of other cities to make any changes to the current city codes.

By Angie Gumm
The Haysville Times

As I called the fire captain when he didn’t have a chance to check his notes, many of the facts in the story about the Graber home were incorrect. (The cause of the fire was incorrect because of my misunderstanding.) Here is the correct information from David Graber. I’m sorry for these mistakes. You can still donate items for the Grabers at Changes Family Hair Care at 418 W. Grand. –Angie Gumm
-All three cats died from poisonous smoke.
-The fire started when wood was added to the fireplace not the stove. The fire jumped out of the fire place and ignited newspapers left on the floor.
-All three occupants suffered minor injuries to the hands, feet and legs.
-The fire started at around 9:15 pm Satuday night.
-Skirting from the next door neighbor’s house was also damaged.
The Grabers would like to thank the Haysville United Methodist Church, Changes Family Hair Care, Pizza Hut, and other citizens from the Haysville and Wichita communities for their thoughts, prayers and volunteer work.